The following mobile email design best practices will help you to build powerful outbound email marketing campaigns that perform well on a small screen.

 

Today, more than half of the emails that B2B marketers send are being opened on a mobile device. Making the transition to an increasingly active mobile world can be a big challenge for small to medium-sized businesses.

 

Some businesses wait far too long before joining the mobile revolution and are leaving a lot of potential revenue on the table. Mobile technology is having a positive impact on the email marketing world, but only to those that are fully utilizing this technology shift.

 

As you may already know, B2B email marketing has several challenges to overcome to begin with, so don’t let a poor mobile experience put you behind the competition.

 

Mobile Email Design Best Practices

 

How many times a day do you check your email from your phone? If you’re like most people, it’s numerous times per day from the moment you get it until bed. Studies have shown that mobile users check their email 3X more on their phone than on desktop.

 

Your potential customers are reading your marketing emails on their smartphone, and you need to make sure that your content is effective on this medium. From the overall design of your email to the way your content is outlined, your emails must look professional and get your message across quickly.

 

Here are our mobile email design best practices.

 

Use a Mobile-Friendly Responsive Template

 

The number one complaint most businesses receive about mobile email is poor formatting. If your email displays incorrectly on a mobile device, it may get deleted in as few as 3-seconds.

 

Studies show that as many as 15% of the users will even unsubscribe from your email list if your emails are not formatted properly. This is some seriously convincing data to consider before sending out another marketing email that has not been tested on a mobile device.

 

Poor formatting can include anything from oversized images that require the user to scroll left or right, to the large blocks of text with no line breaks. Mobile phone screens are small and narrow, so you can’t simply base your design on how the email looks on landscape desktop computer screen.

 

 

The Easy Message Builder in Clickback MAIL helps you create mobile-friendly emails

 

Ensure you’re using a mobile-friendly responsive template. This will set its own parameters in the background while you are designing the email to make sure that your message is displayed perfectly on a mobile screen.

 

Clickback MAIL includes a responsive email builder that automatically adjusts to mobile screens. As long as your images are a reasonable size and you’ve followed our best practices, your outbound email campaigns will reach the inbox of cold contacts in a way that displays properly on their mobile phone.

 

Stick to a Single Column Template

 

A two column layout is great for blogs, as the sidebar doesn’t need to be seen at all times. However, in the world of mobile email design, a two column layout just doesn’t work.

 

A mobile phone screen has limited real estate to get your message across, and your cold email marketing campaign needs to get to the point, and fast. This means that any important information that is buried below into a second column likely won’t get seen by most readers.

 

To make matters worse, a two-column layout can force users to have to zoom in and out to see all of your content. This is a poor experience for the user and should be avoided at all costs.

 

Lastly, a single column layout flows through to the call-to-action seamlessly, without having the user have to locate the button or link off-screen. Stick to a single-column layout when designing your emails for a mobile device, and deliver your messages in a format that compliments the portrait screen size of a smartphone.

 

Use Images Sparingly

 

Only use images when they are imperative to your message. Avoid using a stock photo for the sake of including a visual element to your email. Experts recommend using 1-3 images at most, and we generally suggest using just 1.

 

Don’t assume that your images will be displayed when your contact opens the email. Many business email clients will block the images by default, meaning that many of your readers will never see the images you use.

 

This means that you should never include any important information such as text as an image. Images should only be used to complement the content in your email, not as a way to make creative headings or titles.

 

The areas of your email that fail to display the image may appear as a large white space. Be sure to add image descriptions to your images (alt-text) to let people know what the image is when it is not displayed.

 

Use Easy to Read Fonts

 

Make sure that the text in your email can be easily read on a small mobile phone screen. A good rule of thumb is to use a body font size of 14pt, and 22pt for headings. If the text is too small, a cold contact will not take the time to zoom in or try to decipher the message up close.

 

Black text on a white background is generally the easiest format to read on a phone. Many people turn the brightness down on their phone, so keep in mind that the text needs to clear and readable even when the screen is dim.

 

Don’t use multiple colors for your fonts. This has a way of making your email content look childish and unprofessional. Stick to one color in your B2B email marketing campaigns.

 

Send Mobile-Friendly Emails to a Purchased List

 

Clickback MAIL includes an Easy Message Creator, that helps you build professional, mobile-friendly email marketing campaigns. The template builder provides you with all of the tools you need to create emails that look great, and reach the inbox of your purchased email list.

 

Clickback MAIL was designed for generating warm B2B leads from a purchased list of contacts. Unlike traditional marketing automation software and email service providers, our email platform allows you to upload a cold list of contacts. The data is verified and cleaned through our advanced hygiene process to ensure that all bad email addresses have been removed.

 

Get a free demo of Clickback MAIL today, and start reaching cold, industry related B2B contacts on their mobile phone.