Designing for mobile
In today’s golden age of technology, trend-savvy marketers may well take advantage of the increasing number of mobile devices surrounding their consumers.
At APSIS, we like to pay attention – to our clients, our products, the multitude of data surrounding our clients and our products. Right now, all that data is saying the same thing: email open rates on mobile devices have outpaced desktop opens. The sooner we accept that, the better.
Mobile has truly become a way of life, with the overwhelming majority of consumers using smartphones for both work and personal communications. People are increasingly reading emails on their mobile devices first – both tablets and smartphones – and can be reached whenever and wherever by the companies they choose. The trick, of course, is getting chosen.
This is where we come in. We have collected four easy tips you should consider if you’re aiming to stand out from the crowd, or simply to deliver the best possible mobile experience for your subscribers.
1) Aim for a single column
Emails with a single column design are extremely effective: by reducing the amount of clutter in your email, you draw attention to what you really want your recipients to read, or do. (That said, it is also important to set and keep clear goals in all your sendings, as this will help measure your success and keep you focused.) Using a single column in your newsletter will also help your email to fit the screens of smaller mobile devices properly and ensure a good user experience.
2) Focus on the CTA
Try to put the most important content at the top of your email. This will help make sure that your primary call to action (CTA) is above the fold , and increase your odds of getting clicks. It also means you have some decisions to make: what is your main goal with your sending? Which CTA button do you want you your subscribers to click on? You may even consider testing your audience to see what works best – an A/B split test could result in some valuable data about content or content placement.
3) Don’t go too big (or too small)
Even with responsive design, it is still important to build your email according to the desktop and mobile preferences of your recipients. Both too large and too small font/point sizes can result in unhappy readers struggling to read your sendings. Our recommendation is to use a minimum size of 16px for body text, but if your eyes tell you to decrease to 14px, believe them. Don’t forget: the human index finger has the size of 46px.
4) Let them push your buttons
Speaking of fingers, don’t forget about them while creating your CTA buttons. The easier they are to touch, the quicker your subscribers will be able to make a purchase – so make sure to link the whole button to your content, not just the text on it. Visual appeal is at least as important, so don’t be afraid to make those buttons bright and colourful!
… And what about afterwards?
Once your readers are engaged and interested in your sendings, the battle is half won. The only thing left to do is to provide the best possible customer experience for them going forward: optimize your landing page for mobile devices, ensure readability and touchability, check your forms for ease of use, and most of all, make sure that your subscribers have a seamless way of getting where you want them to. Which is, by and large, the most rewarding goal for everyone concerned. Mobile or not.
At APSIS, we have a team of skilled email designers making sure all templates fit today’s mobile requirements. If you have any questions regarding your template or module, or if you think you need to redesign you template, just let us know. We’d love to help.
Have a look at our email design gallery to get some more inspiration.
