Use these 6 tips for more mobile-friendly emails to improve recipient engagement rates and to promote profitable customer action.

I feel like my mornings probably mimic most of your mornings: My alarm goes off. I reach for my cell phone and check my email. I will check my email again while I’m eating breakfast — and possibly a third time while I’m in the drive-through waiting for my coffee.

With the explosion of smartphones, more and more people are taking to their phones over their computers to check email. It’s not hard to understand why; our phones are with us all day long. In fact, 54% of emails are now being read on a mobile device, a 40% increase in the last five years.

When a majority of your audience is reading your marketing emails on their mobile devices, it’s imperative that you’re creating emails that are optimized for mobile viewing.

Here are 6 essential tips for creating mobile-friendly email campaigns.

6 tips for creating mobile-friendly emails

1) Short and sweet

When writing copy for email, your content should be to the point. But this is especially true for mobile-friendly emails. Small screen size and increased likelihood the user is multi-tasking are just two reasons why efficiency is key.

Create messages that are easy for the eye to scan. Use bullet points or short paragraphs to keep the reader engaged. Strip out anything that’s not totally necessary, and drive recipients to landing pages for more information.

2) Less is more

Not all mobile devices include your images. Andriod users will find their email images are off by default unless they change their settings. It’s also important to remember that large image files take longer to download. And nothing drives people away like slow load times.

What does this mean for mobile-friendly emails? Your content needs to be front and center, with less reliance on images.

3) Get to the point

A typical desktop inbox displays about 60 characters of a subject line, while mobile devices show just 25-30 characters. Mobile-friendly emails place the offer or call-to-action at the beginning of the subject line where it’s more likely to be seen.

4) Get responsive

We’ve all opened an email or webpage on a mobile device and had to squint to read it. Web content designed for desktop screens are barely legible when shrunk down to this size.

Try using a responsive template to ensure that readers are viewing your email the way you intended. Responsive emails use fluid tables and images to make content flow across different screen sizes.

5) Button it up

I know it’s not just me and my fat fingers: Links are difficult to click on mobile devices! Instead try using buttons for your call-to-action.

Make sure any CTA buttons are toward the top of your email, so readers know what you want them to do right away. Also, buttons should be large in size and surrounded by plenty of white space so readers don’t accidentally click on something else.

6) Pop-up quiz

After making your email as mobile-friendly as possible, don’t forget the most important step: testing. Send out test emails to your coworkers that use different devices to ensure that your emails look exactly like you want. With 98.4% of users reading email on Andriod and iOS, those operating systems should be your main focus.

Don’t lose readers before they’ve had a chance to open, read, and engage with your emails. Use these 6 tips for more mobile-friendly emails to help improve engagement rates and profitable customer action.

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Mobile-Friendly Emails: 6 Tips for Success