Email marketing is the most popular trend of today’s business world. It is one of the simplest, yet most successful, ways to market your business. The core aim of email marketing is to reach out to the maximum number of customers and market your business. This helps you reach many users at a time and makes them get to know about your identity and your business. Most people actively use email systems today, and therefore marketing your product through emails is a great way to gain traffic.

Emails are the fastest way of getting people to know about you; therefore email marketing is a very important task for you. It is not possible for you to use the system 24×7 and be active with it. To cope with this, you can use mobile devices for email marketing. The world is fast and you need to be faster to cope with its increasing demands and succeed in the professional world. Therefore, you should use every possible means to help your business.

Using mobile devices for emails is a worthy method and therefore very important for your business success. Various features in advanced mobile phones allow you to design specific emails for marketing and deliver them to the respective clients. This article will discuss the application of emails on mobile devices and guide you in dealing with emails for mobile devices. Here we will discuss basic and advanced features for emailing on mobile devices, which will enhance your the skills using this medium.

Evolution of Mobile Devices

Mobile devices have been constantly changing and developing for the better. When mobile phones were initially just used to make calls and send messages, sending emails through them was unimaginable. But it was imagined, and it indeed made big. Mobiles phones have undergone rapid changes and advanced to smart phones where instant emailing became as simple as instant messaging. Therefore, mobile phones are now much more sophisticated and have developed many innovative and user-friendly features.

Earlier, in order to send an email, you were supposed to send a text-only version of html so your email or newsletter would be readable to recipients. Mobile phones functioned to read only the html version of text and could show only that type of text clearly. However, with time, mobile phones have become increasingly sophisticated. Now, they reads html texts and identify and accept complex html texts which are delivered to the recipient’s computer. Also mobile phones have ensured that your delivered emails look basically the same in almost all devices. Therefore, with the evolution of mobile phones, the task of sending emails has become simpler and easier, which has been a blessing for email marketing.

Just making sure that the email looks good on your client’s desktop doesn’t mean everything has been done for you; there is still much work to be done to ensure well-planned email marketing through mobile devices. You have to consider things like the size of the email, readability, navigation capability, and options for instant buying. You should make sure that along with looking good, your email is easy to read and can be easily navigated on a small screen. Also, you need to consider that your users can make a purchase right away. To ensure full functionality and usefulness, you need to adapt to using all the features of mobile devices properly. The sections below will guide you in mastering these features.

Knowing mobile phones and applications better

You need to gain a grip over mobile phones and their applications. You should acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages. You can compare email usages as an application of mobile phones to get to know them better. Emails are designed to send customized, targeted, and private messages to a single person or a large number of people simultaneously. The many valuable features of emails make them very useful for users. Here are a few major features emails offer:

• Attach files along with emails and send to users
• Include links to Web sites or other content in emails
• Format text color, size, and fonts
• Include images, logos, and brands in your emails
• Send emails to mass inboxes simultaneously

Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of emails is being able to customize them according to your requirements and send them to a mass audience. Mobile phones are an ideal medium for sending your emails to a large audience. Getting to know the features of mobile phones and how they work will enhance your prospects of effective email marketing.

Disadvantages of using mobile phones for emails

It is important to accept the challenges that come with using mobile phones for email devices. You cannot be sure whether your clients will be using a mobile phone or a computer to read your emails. People having mobile email will prefer using mobiles to check their emails, as it is handy and flexible. But certain issues arise when your client opens it in a mobile, a fact that might create tension for you as an email marketer. Therefore, make sure your email is readable and compatible with almost all devices. Here are certain disadvantages of using mobile phones for emails. They should be overcome in order to succeed with email marketing.

• Emails with more than two columns are very difficult to read on a small mobile screen
• Purchasing online through mobile phones might be hindered due to technical difficulties
• Emails with images that load slowly might let users down, and so on.

Let’s examine the problems of using emails in mobile phones to get an idea of how to overcome the issues.

• All mobile phones are not interactive and it is not possible for you to design separate emails for separate individuals using separate mobile phones. Your email thus might not be interactive for every user and you need to customize your emails for different users. Therefore, the basic advantage of an email delivering a message to a mass audience is threatened by targeting mobile phones.
• The operating systems and browsers people use will vary from phone to phone. Advanced phones like iPhone, Android, Google, and Blackberry have their own operating systems, and a few others utilize Windows Mobile or other software. Some mobile phones are configured in such a way that standard Internet browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer can be installed. Such phones read html text and show it in standard form. But there are mobile phones that don’t accept html, and therefore your emails will be displayed without certain things or just not displayed at all. This is another problem for mobile phone users.
• Variations in email functionality might create a problem for you. Your users might use the same devices and the same operating system but different email functions. This will bring variation to your emails’ look for different users.
• Acceptance of email text by mobile phones might create issues for you in the process of email marketing. Every mobile device doesn’t accept html texts and therefore if you send emails with complex html, it might not be readable to all of your users.

These are the disadvantages of mobile phones while dealing with emails. We can just hope that in time these disadvantages of mobile phones will be eradicated and the usability of email features will be enhanced. You cannot control the issue of html mentioned above, but you can use certain ways to cope with it. Here are few ways to do so.

• Using an Email Marketing Provider or EMP: You can make use of an EMP to build and deliver your emails. EMPs feature the latest standards and design their email in such a way that copes with all mobile devices. Many also give options for selecting standard view for reading emails on mobile phones. Therefore, an EMP makes your email more interactive for users.
• Group your email recipients: You can make groups of email recipients according to their use of mobile devices. Noting down everything from operating system to browser is not possible, as you will end up making many groups. You can therefore make standard groups like recipients using computers and phones, iphone users, and non-iphone users, and so on.

By using the above methods you can cope with the disadvantages of using email marketing through mobile phones. These will be useful for you and your email campaign. These ways will help you to reach to maximum people and speak about your business ideas.

Designing emails for both mobile and computer users

Besides coping up with the disadvantages of mobile devices for email marketing, you can also use some methods to make your emails better and as standard as possible for mobile users. You know the limitations of mobile phones, and your customers will be aware of them as well. Therefore, try to make your emails accessible to the largest number of users and help them reach your business emails through mobile phones as much as possible. Below we list some challenges mobile phones present, and the ways you can address those challenges.

• People using mobile email will use the same inbox for reading emails both on mobile phones and computers. So, you need to design your email keeping in mind the usability of the email on mobile phones and computer. Avoiding any of these perspectives might hamper your email marketing. Therefore, try to design your marketing so that both mobile handset and computer users can see your emails.
• Mobile screens are a lot smaller than those of computers, so design your emails in such a way that the text doesn’t spread over more than two columns. If you can, use only one column. Make it easy for people to view and click links on your emails for further navigation. This will make your emails more interactive.
• Design your emails in such a way that your audience can access your emails instantly and act on them on both mobile phones and computers.

The idea behind the above approach is to make your emails usable for both your mobile and computer users. Approach your target audience with the aim of satisfying them, whether they are mobile phone or computer users, and design your emails so they cater effectively to mobile phones and computers.

Designing mobile-friendly emails

You can design separate emails for computer and mobile users if you can evaluate your audience in groups as mobile users and computer users. You can do so by putting the option “user-type” when they register on your site. The emails that are readable on mobile phones will be easily read on a computer; therefore, if you evaluate that your users are mostly mobile users, you can design mobile-friendly emails. You can use mobile-friendly emails for your group of mobile users as well. Here are steps to make your emails compatible with mobile devices.

1) Optimize the Display

Mobile phones have smaller screens so you cannot put many columns in your email. On the other hand, you can highlight important facts in your emails, making them easy to read on mobile phones. A good way of making your email visible on mobile screens is to divide your content into quadrants and display the important factors in the upper left quadrant. Below we list examples of some important factors that will serve you well when engaging your email recipients:

• Highlight your brand: The first thing that strikes an audience while reading emails is the source of the email. Therefore, displaying your brand will help them to recognize you and make them open your email. Make sure you highlight your business name, logo, and other important elements in the upper left quadrant.
• Start with a striking line: Make sure you put your headline somewhere in the upper quadrant. Keep your headline short but strong so it can make an impact on your users. Starting with a striking line will help you attract your email audience.
• Display the call for action: If your email content involves users and there is a call for action in the email, display it in the upper front. If there is any call for action such as clicking on a link or making a purchase, also put those links in the upper front of your email. And if you want to make your audience read a certain action, make sure you put some reference to it in the upper front of the mail.
• Display icons: Use strong icons, images, symbols, bullets, graphics, links, and so on to make your email more visible. Such visual anchors displayed in the upper front will help your users to analyze the important points in your emails and also let them analyze what they want to prioritize for reading.
• Display hyperlinks to important sections: You can make a list or a type of table of contents and display it with hyperlinks that will navigate to important sections. This will help your users go directly to the respective section. This will guide your users what to read next in your email.

2) Navigation

Apart from displaying important facts in the upper front of your email, you can use frequent navigation links to improve the mobile-friendly feature of your emails. Navigating links are hypertext links you click to go through the navigated area. You can put navigation links that direct mobile users to important content in a way they will find easy and friendly. Make using of a table of contents (TOC) here can be helpful. A TOC can be combined with navigation links and make it possible for users to directly land up in the chapter or section they want to read. You can put your TOC in the beginning along with navigation links or you can put it at the end of the email so users can go back to the section they want to read again. Here are some tips to enhance your TOC and navigation links.

• Display headings before the TOC to make users view the importance of the TOC.
• Display short-link headlines to create instant impact
• Display crisp, clear lines
• Display the TOC above the scroll line to make it visible at first sight

Using these tips, you can make your navigating links friendlier towards mobile users and thus improve your email marketing.

3) Email Subject Lines

Making a strong, striking subject line is very important in designing your email for mobile users. Mobile devices highlight the subject line; therefore, when your subject line is strong and striking, it makes your users read the email instantly. A weak subject line may have the opposite effect. The subject line also tells if the context is readable on a mobile phone, and therefore displaying perfect subject lines is very important to make your email useful for users. Here are a few tips to create good subject lines.

• Create short subject lines so users can understand the context instantly
• Create striking subject lines so an impression is made on users
• Create subject lines including “call for action” so users can understand the real idea of the email
• Create subject lines with an offer display so users are attracted to read the email
• Create subject lines with mobile numbers so users can directly call you for reference

4) Prologues in Emails

Besides striking subject lines, you can also put prologues in the beginning of the email so users know about the context in a summarized way and can thus make a decision whether to read it or not. Prologues can be improved with some elements listed below.

• Insert a link to an enhanced Web version of your email content so mobile users can see the email
• Display your main context in the prologue so users can prioritize it for reading if it is useful
• Mention actions such as purchasing or saving in the prologue to make users know what to do.

5) Using Call for Action

Displaying a call for action in your emails also makes them mobile-user friendly. Suppose, for example, you want your users to print a coupon. You can put in the call for action so your user can go to the print store and make a printout. Similarly, if you want users to download something put it in your call for action so they can instantly download. The call for action should be striking, with straightforward suggestions such as: Print out so and so, Download so and so, Click here for a discount, and so on. This way, you can attract users towards your call for action and make them do so.

These are some of the important elements that can make your emails user-friendly to mobile users. These elements make your emails readable and increase the possibility of reaching a large audience through mobile emailing. Therefore, you can make use of emails through mobile phones and be active with your emails every time and everywhere. You cannot be a perfectionist emailing to mobile phones because, although they are advanced, there is still room development. Therefore, you can just try to create mobile- friendly emails, making them accessible and readable for a large number of mobile users. Master the tips and get go with email marketing through mobile devices.