What Mobile Means To Email

Going Mobile

Email is one of my favorite channels to achieve goals in marketing and advertising, for the plain and simple reason that it works *and* has incredible advantages over other channels. (What advantages? Exceptionally undistracted awareness in a multi-channel age, very little of the issues that digital ads have with no skipping or blocking, cheap to make, easy to test, and in a better competitive state than they were in the past. I could go on, honestly, but I've addressed many of these points in past columns, so I'm going to leave that be for now.)

However, since emails aren't the focus of huge budgets and high fees to achieve distribution, and the metrics tend to stay consistent because there's usually a certain inertia to the metrics you expect to achieve, there's a certain... well, I don't want to say laziness or conservatism when it comes to email design, but it is what it is. Especially in tried and true consumer categories, or transactional pieces and automated work. There are aspects of email marketing and advertising that have not changed in decades, and likely won't for as long as the channel is viable. If you'll forgive one more aside... email's death has been predicted for over a decade now, with texting, apps, IMs and various ills that have hit the channel all said to be why it's gonna die. All that's happened is that more of it goes out. Moving on.

So, what's happening to change this sleepy little channel? Well, the device that's in your hand, if you are reading this on a smartphone. Which isn't news, except that it's still easy to forget that it is, well, news.

Depending on the consumer category, list and daypart, the vast majority of the emails that you send, as a marketing and advertising pro, will be seen first (not read or responded to, always, but seen) on the phone. Which means that open rates and unsubscribes have both taken turns for the worse, while also opening up the available calendar, away from just business hours.

Knowing that, why would you send your email outside of business hours, if mobile open rates and unsubscribes are both worse in that environment? Because email doesn't exist in a vacuum. Your message competes with potentially hundreds of others every day, and moving away from the crowd, especially if your piece is designed to do well in a mobile triage situation, or your audience are always-on professionals who will do evening laptop or desktop hours because they are just that way, could be your best move. As always with anything that has a direct marketing connection, let the data drive.

But you'll need to take more than dayparting into account for a more effective mobile campaign. You'll also need to think harder about subject lines, with an ever-greater importance on front-loading copy with benefits. Frequency is also a big key, especially if you are reaching a higher number of Ios9 (Apple iPhone) users, since those folks now see work with a much greater emphasis and ease to unsubscribe. Pre-header copy doesn't move the needle as much as subject lines, but it still matters, as do entry points that work for mobile use (not too small or close together, and with use without too much of a scroll). You should also code for responsive, run your HTML through an emulator to make sure you aren't running into issues with other mobile platforms and formats, and, well...

Consider the whole sea change as an opportunity, rather than a hassle.

Because in my experience, any execution that you do because you have to, rather than because you want to?

Becomes an execution that doesn't thrill you when it's done.

And if all of this seems like too much trouble, or that you are jumping into the deep end of a pool when you don't even know if the water is warm, or what's below the surface?

Well, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we, um, know some people that you can hire for help with that sort of thing...

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