These days, over half of the emails that people read are opened first on a mobile device. This stat is on the rise and isn’t expected to change. For email marketers, it’s crucial to take mobile email design best practices into consideration when creating every email.
And in case you’re not familiar with these best practices, here are some top tips for mobile-friendly email design to use in your next email marketing campaign.
Keep Your Subject Lines Short and Sweet
There’s no question that subject lines are integral to encourage recipients to read your email. However, if you want them to work, then your audience must be able to read them in their entirety. On a mobile device, that means keeping subject lines to 30 characters or fewer, because that’s the max that mobile devices will typically display.
Be Clear About Your Message and Your CTA
For mobile email design, it’s imperative that the call-to-action, or CTA, be apparent and highly visible. If you’re using a button for your CTA, it should be at least 44 by 44 pixels, and should be surrounded by white space to further increase visibility.
Leave Space Between Clickable Features
On a similar note, it’s much more important on a mobile device than a desktop that clickable items—such as links and CTAs—be well spaced. Otherwise, fumbling fingers may have trouble clicking on the right link, and this will cause frustration and create abandoners.
Be Concise and Prioritize by Importance
Have you ever heard the term “above the fold” in reference to a newspaper article? The terms refers to the information on the top front page that’s literally above the fold in the middle of the paper. That’s where the most important information, the most compelling images, and the most relevant stories are placed.
If you want your email to be successful at pulling in readers, then you’ve got to include compelling and interesting information and images above the fold (before scrolling). However, contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to put the CTA above the fold as long as you preface it with great content.
Here’s a tip! The first line of your email should knock it out of the park, because this will be used for the pre-header text. This text will be displayed on a reader’s mobile device right below the subject, meaning you have a second chance to draw them in.
Use Simple Designs
Mobile email design techniques emphasize a few things over and over, and simplicity is definitely one of them. The keep it simple rule applies to the text (be concise), the layout (use single 500- to 600-pixel columns), and keep the email small (100 KB).
Don’t Rely Solely on Your Images
Images are a great way to tell stories in your emails and grab the attention of readers. Unfortunately, they don’t always display well on mobile devices, so you shouldn’t rely on them to tell your whole story.. Instead, use the text to say what you need to say, and complement the content with appropriate images.
The basic principles for mobile email design aren’t that difficult, and the key is to keep things simple. Simple language, simple designs, plenty of white space, and being clear and concise about your message. Clickback’s professional email lead generation software can help you design perfect emails in no time, allow you to personalize emails based on segments, and even allow you to A/B test your emails to ensure the best results.
