As email has evolved from text only to graphic-heavy, branded communications – the technology behind them has grown increasingly complex. Marketers have included tracking links, served ads and complex tables to better organize the massive amounts of data we cram into emails. To further complicate this, consumers are managing how and where they read their emails – providing marketers with a host of limitations to this influx of technology.
The consumer is ultimately in control – especially when it comes to email. These individuals can choose whether to read their email via an online interface, through Outlook or Entourage, or have that same email forwarded to a smart phone. And there’s very little one can do to track or change those habits, as many (including myself) do all of the above at some point throughout the day. The simple solution is to allow consumers the option of an HTML or text only version … however, that presumes I want the same experience for every medium. So what is a marketer to do?
Mobile Marketer recently had a great article on this subject, and I decided to add Cellit’s perspective – as we’ve done some consulting work on behalf of our clients in this area. Here are some high level thoughts on how you can optimize email for the mobile device:
Email doesn’t have to be hard when viewed via mobile device. With a little bit of thought, you can avoid many of the mistakes and create a good user experience that covers the gamut of places users check their email.
