Marketer's Space: Why mobile optimization deserves a place in your email strategy

Marketer's Space: Why mobile optimization deserves a place in your email strategy

Hello Marketers,

Welcome back to Marketer's Space! Today, we'll talk about the importance of creating mobile-friendly email designs.

While mobile phones were once used only to make phone calls, today they're used for almost everything, including texting, reading, browsing, shopping, and much more. As marketers, this shift means one thing: We must ensure that our email campaigns are mobile-friendly. This isn't an exaggeration; it's a real challenge that many marketers and business owners face, especially during peak seasons. Let's look at one such example.

David's challenge: Great email but low engagement

David runs a handmade gift store. He and his team create customized gifts and greeting cards. For the holiday season, he has crafted a thoughtful email from scratch to send to his new contacts and recurring customers to introduce his new festive collection. His email content is on point; he personalizes it with merge tags, segments his audience, automates his workflows, and even schedules the campaign to go out at his recipients' optimal open times. In short, David has done everything right—or, at least, that's what he thought.

Despite all his efforts, the results aren't as expected. When he analyzes his campaign reports, he sees that the emails have been successfully delivered and that most of his contacts have opened them. But that's it; he hasn't received any clicks, orders, or engagement from his contacts. Confused, David digs deeper into his email reports and notices that most of his recipients opened the email on their mobile devices. He gets curious and checks how his email looks on his phone—and is a bit taken aback! His email is readable but not mobile-friendly.

David's checklist to create mobile-friendly emails

David immediately decides to fix this and make his next campaign mobile-friendly. Here's what he does differently:

Use simple layouts

The first and most effective change David makes is removing the column layout in his email. While the layout looks stylish on his laptop, it doesn't render well on mobile screens. Having multiple columns of images increases the scroll time and makes the email harder to navigate on smaller devices. Fewer columns enable the content to flow more smoothly from top to bottom and makes it easier for recipients to read and scroll through on their phones.
Simple layouts

Keep the content concise

Recipients who read emails on mobiles decide within seconds whether to keep reading or move on to a different screen. That's why brevity and structure matter. David breaks his content into short paragraphs, uses bullet points for clarity, and adds subheadings to guide the reader's eye.
Keep the content concise

Optimize visuals and CTAs

Images can enhance an email's appeal when they're optimized to suit different screen sizes. David uses lightweight images that load quickly and avoids large files that can slow down loading times. He also makes his call-to-action (CTA) buttons prominent, surrounds them with ample white space to prevent accidental taps, and uses action-oriented text like "Shop now" and "Get the offer."

Focus on readability

Tiny fonts that look elegant on desktops can be hard to read on mobile screens. David ensures that he uses at least 14px for body text and 22px or more for headings. He also makes sure there's proper spacing between lines, images, and buttons to make the design visually comfortable.

Test across devices before sending

Even the best-designed emails can appear differently across multiple devices and email clients. Using the Preview and Test feature in Zoho Campaigns, David previews his campaign to gauge how his email will look both on desktop and mobile screens. He also sends test emails to his team to identify any inconsistencies before finally sending the campaign to his contacts.
Test across devices

Avoid large, fixed-width elements

Fixed-width components like wide banners or tables can force users to scroll horizontally on small screens. David switches to flexible, percentage-based widths to ensure his content automatically adjusts to fit any device without users needing to pinch or zoom.

How Zoho Campaigns helps David get it right

Let's look at which features in Zoho Campaigns have helped David create mobile-friendly email campaigns in no time:
  1. Mobile-friendly templates: All pre-designed email templates available in Zoho Campaigns are mobile-friendly by default.
  2. Drag-and-drop editor: Zoho Campaigns' template editor enables users to customize text, image, and button elements. You can easily adjust font, color, size, and padding to create mobile-optimized designs.
  3. Preview and test options: View how your email looks on desktop and mobile screens and send test emails to your team before sending campaigns to your audience.
    Preview and test email

  4. Customize using HTML: If you're comfortable with coding, you can use the built-in HTML editor to code your content manually or import your own HTML and CSS files through the Import/Upload HTML option. Learn more

In a nutshell

By making these small yet impactful changes, David ensures that his emails not only reach his contacts but also engage with them effectively—regardless of the devices they use.

Regards,
Aiswarya Jayaprakash
User Education
Zoho Campaigns

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