Think Mobile-First: Tailoring Email Marketing to On-the-Go Consumers

pg. 21.877.YESMAIL | marketing@yesmail.com | yesmail.com
Mobile Dependency
Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment. Each day, how much
time do we spend with our mobile phone on hand?
According to a Qualcomm survey, 34% of people said they could go
just a few hours without their mobile phone and a similar segment
(37%) checks their device at least every half hour. What’s more,
IDC reports that most smartphone users (79%) have their device
on them for all but two hours every waking day. To put this figure
into perspective: at the end of 2013, it was predicted that more
than half of the U.S. population (57.3%) owned a smartphone. The
math—about 142 million people in the States are attached to their
smartphone.
Now, let’s reflect on the few moments that we don’t have our device
in a pocket or purse, on our desk, or in short, within arm’s reach.
Have you ever experienced “phantom vibrations” or “phantom
ringing”? That is, the relatively recent phenomena in which you
think your phone is vibrating or you hear it ringing, when it isn’t
actually doing so. You’re not the only one. In a 2012 study, almost
90% of undergraduates in a sample of Purdue students experienced
phantom vibrations. A high percentage of medical staff in a
separate survey reported feeling the same sensations. (NPR)
Me
Location of phone
10 feet
Too far away
NOT
OK
Great OK ehh...
Panic!
Nomophobia: fear of losing signal, running
out of battery or losing sight of [one’s] phone;
fear of no mobile phone (The Telegraph)

Just why are smartphones, home to
38% of our daily media interactions,
so popular?
They’re like a 21st century Swiss army knife: a go-to device that
serves several functions. Smartphones are often used for short
spurts of time for various reasons, including:
• Planning—as a map for devising trips, calendar for organizing
time, wallet to budget finances
• Entertainment—use apps, play games, listen to music, surf the
web, read books and magazines, use social networks
• Communication—connect with others through voice, text
messages, social media, and most frequently, email
GPS
Mail
Phone
Entertainment
Internet
Music
Camera

Mobile Email
A Nielsen study found that three in four smartphone owners in the
U.S. use mobile email, which is, coincidentally, the #1 smartphone
app (IDC/Facebook). Yesmail recently published a report that also
sheds light on mobile’s role as today’s primary platform for email:
after evaluating more than six billion messages from Q4 2013, the
company found that 55% of all emails were opened on a mobile
device. This figure was a stark contrast to 2012, when many of
Yesmail’s clients had a mobile email open rate as low as 30%.
Given the drastic jump in mobile email opens within just a year,
more marketers should be adapting to consumers’ rapidly evolving
behavior. When Econsultancy surveyed professionals involved in
e-commerce and e-business, 42% said that mobile is “important”
to their business objectives. However in the same survey, only 30%
of businesses thought they provided a “good” or “excellent” mobile
user experience.
94%
Think mobile is
at least
quite important
32% critical
41% important
21% quite important
6% not important
Thinking about your customers,
how important is mobile to your
business objectives?
respondents: 362 | Econsultancy

You never get a second chance to
make a mobile-first impression.
It is in email marketers’ best interests to take advantage of the
unique format and functionality of mobile devices. Don’t know
where to start? Take these four steps.
Optimize for the
mobile inbox
Design for the
mobile screen
Include content for
the mobile context
Leverage mobile
functionality

1. Optimize for the mobile inbox.
Our attention span is now 8 seconds—shorter than a goldfish’s (9
seconds). Capture customer attention by laying your stake on prime
inbox real estate: the “from” name, subject line, and pre-header text.
As always, don’t forget to personalize your complementary subject
line and pre-header text. Enhanced relevance will encourage
customers to interact with your brand.
It’s important to note that the mobile inbox experience varies across
different operating systems and email clients*. Marketers should
run reports to gauge their unique customers’ email preferences,
but here are benchmarks based on mobile email activity for Yesmail
clients.
* Having multiple options puts more power
in the hands of users: while people can filter
through their inboxes to find value, it’s also
easier for them to passively opt out of your
messages. Meaning, even if customers don’t
technically unsubscribe, they might tune out
and become inactive. So marketers will have
to work even harder to generate customer
engagement during their many windows of
opportunity.
From Name
Subject Lines
Preheader Text
Apple
82%
Android
17%
Other
0.81%
Microsoft
0.33%
Blackberry
0.08%
• Be easily recognizable
• Build trust
• Avoid truncation by limiting
it to 20 characters
• Succinctly answer WIIFM –
“What’s in it for me?”
• Be concise and use fewer
than 30 characters to
prevenet truncation
• “Make sure it is relevant,
valuable, and the message
is clear to you subscribers “
(Litmus)
• Test, test, and test some more
to make optimizations
• Treat this like a ‘second subject
line’
• Elaborate on WIIFM to preview
value enclosed in the message
• Keep symbol and character
counts in mind: limit them to
60-70 characters total

Inbox Differences
It can be dizzying to determine the possible combinations of mobile
operating systems and email programs, especially if you factor in
variations in screen sizes. Eliminate the guesswork and check out
this graphic to envision how your email could appear on several
common mobile devices.

2. Design for the mobile screen
MarketingProfs recently reported that 63% of U.S. subscribers would
close or immediately delete an email that wasn’t optimized for their
mobile device. To promote readability and therefore interaction
with your messages, regardless of your customers’ device, you
can implement scalable design and responsive design. These two
techniques allow email marketers to tailor campaigns to their
mobile audience without compromising the viewing experience for
desktop users.
Scalable design employs a single email layout that’s not only
compatible on a computer monitor, but also completely readable
and clickable when reduced to half its size on a mobile device.
A grid system ensures that components within this layout are
proportional and aligned properly to one another. Stacked columns
also help streamline text. Lastly, scalable emails follow a “bigger is
better” approach:
• font size is larger (think 14+)
• call-to-action buttons are large enough to be clicked by a 44
pixel-sized fingertip
• there’s generous negative space to avoid clutter
On the other hand, responsive design uses CSS code to render two
different layouts to adapt to the type of device the email is opened
on—mobile or a computer. The message becomes more visually
appealing as the campaign elements adjust to the screen size. These
adjustments can include turning off areas of code that contain less
pertinent images or copy, using an alternate logo, consolidating the
navigation bar, and resizing the page width.
While it may seem like scalable and responsive designs are “this
or that” options, the two techniques are not mutually exclusive
and marketers can incorporate a combination of the two in their
campaign efforts. Either way, both email design strategies strive
to highlight the most critical elements of the message (copy and
creative) and draw attention to the call-to-action.
This brings us to the question: What should you include in your
mobile email communications?
Inbox
Sent
Drafts
Spam
Saved
Compose
Search...
Forward to a friend | Web view
Home | Services | Our Company | Contact
What does it
mean to be
Responsive?
Fermentum cursus dolor, eu plac
mauris pellentesque faucibusa.
fermentum tortor mi. Donec vitae
massa tincidunt.
Fermentum cursus dolor, eu plac
mauris pellentesque faucibusa.
fermentum tortor mi. Donec vitae
massa tincidunt.
Read the Full Article Buy Now!
What does it mean
to be Responsive?
Scalable emails use a balanced
relationship between big type,
big buttons, and bigger white
space to be readable and
asthetically pleasing on both
computers and mobile
Forward to a friend | web view
HOME SERVICES
OUR COMPANY CONTACT US

3. Include content for the mobile
context.
Learn about your customers and shape your messaging
accordingly. Increased relevancy will lead to better email opens,
click-throughs and other engagement rates. To develop more
complete audience profiles, ask questions such as: What’s important
to my customers? Where and how do they interact with my brand?
Does their location impact their interactions?
This latter question is especially important since given email’s
unique format, it has multiple purposes and adds value to readers’
lives in different ways in the mobile context. As a result, there are
various tactics marketers can use to engage subscribers.
Consumers often use smartphones for short periods of time to seek
information quickly and immediately. In addition, they’re utilized at
home and out-of-the-home 60% and 40% of the time, respectively
(Google). People frequently start online activities—surf the web,
shop, watch videos, and more—on their smartphones and then
continue on to a computer or tablet.
Take this smartphone usage behavior into consideration and
carefully define your campaign objectives i.e. what you want mobile
email readers to do. Highlight calls-to-action (CTAs) based on your
goals.
Smartphones are the most common
starting place for online activities
(Percents for users who start on a smartphone
then moved to another device)
65% 60% 4%
63% 58% 5%
65% 61% 4%
47% 45% 3%
69% 56% 3%
66% 58% 8%
56% 48% 8%
Search
Browse
Shopping
Trips
Finances
Social
Videos
Source: Google

Sample Goal 1: Engage with your brand
Possible CTAs: Encourage subscribers to…
• Download or launch an app, or visit the device’s app
marketplace (e.g. iTunes)
• Search for a product
• Connect with brand via social media
• Read ‘sticky content’ such as tips, social media updates
• Watch a video
• Take a poll
When Marriott rolled out a Mobile Check-In option in its popular
smartphone app, the brand drove Marriot Rewards members to
download the app with prominent CTAs in an email campaign. 51%
of all clicks in the email were on the iTunes app download button
and 20% were on the Android app download button.

“Shoppers who use mobile more, buy more.”
(Google)
Sample Goal 2: Generate revenue
Deal Closers: 41% of mobile owners have made a purchase as a
result of an email viewed on a mobile device. Make the mobile
shopping experience as easy as possible by offering…
• One-click purchasing
• Mobile-friendly and/or mobile-specific product selections
For instance, Yesmail adjusted the layout in a responsive holiday
email for Toys R Us for eBay in order to feature all twelve toys per
the client’s request. When you’re on a mobile device with a small
screen or if you decrease your browser window on a desktop, the
grid of toys in eBay’s email goes from a 4x3 to a 2x6. A 1x12 was a
design option, but that would have required too much scrolling and
provided a less-than-optimal user experience.
Also consider directing people to a brick-and-mortar store.
Smartphones influence the path to purchase and the in-store
shopping experience has evolved as a result. Customers are
showrooming—meaning, researching product information and
comparison shopping on their smartphones while at brick-and-
mortars—but that doesn’t have to cannibalize sales.
“Smartphones lead to more impulse
purchasing.” (comScore/PayPal)
In addition, Yesmail’s latest benchmark report
notes that in the last quarter of 2013, the
number of mobile orders increased by 57.8%.
What’s more, mobile revenue went up by 52.1%
while desktop revenue grew by a relatively
moderate 17.9%.

4. Leverage mobile functionality
As mentioned before, mobile devices are like a modern-day Swiss
army knife in that they are extremely versatile. They act as a
compass, calendar, concierge and more.
Email marketers can encourage customer engagement by
leveraging mobile devices’ unique features. For example, calls-to-
action can direct readers to:
• Maps – Help customers find a store or class
• Add to calendar – Allow people to add sale and event dates to
their calendar as reminders
• Mobile apps – Ask users if they’d like to open an email link in
a mobile browser or smartphone app; if the latter, possibly
reward them for using the branded app

Conclusion: Did you leave a good
impression?
Analysis is a crucial component of every email marketing campaign.
This step is even more important when you factor in consumers’
ever-evolving mobile usage. If you think mobile-first when planning
and executing an email campaign, you should be able to effectively
engage with mobile users and encourage them to take action.
Measure the success of your marketing efforts by evaluating
increases in the click-to-open rate (CTO) for users who opened and
clicked your email on a mobile device. Then compare this figure
to the desktop CTO and performance results for status quo email
programs. Other key performance indicators (KPIs) include:
• Open rates – Was there an increase in the ratio of email opens
to messages delivered?
• Activity level — What percentage of your audience has
engaged (opened, clicked) in the past 3 months? 6 months?
And so on.
• Web traffic — Did an enhanced mobile user experience
improve mobile and overall traffic?
• Conversion — Did a superior email experience increase overall
revenue?
• Mobile revenue — Did responsive design boost mobile revenue?
Use these KPIs to identify new mobile opportunities and to test, test
and test some more.
Mobile click-to-open rates are, on average, over
50% lower compared to desktop CTOs: 10% vs.
22%, respectively.

marketing@yesmail.com877.YESMAIL yesmail.com
About Yesmail Interactive
We power intelligent customer interactions. We give you the insights to recognize and
understand your customer to deliver contextually relevant digital communications-
while respecting their preferences and privacy. We help marketers evolve their
customer relationships through intelligent interactions via technology, insights and
services in a near real time multi-channel environment. We help you compete in the
age of the customer.
For more information, visit www.yesmail.com.
About Yes Lifecycle Marketing
Yes Lifecycle Marketing is a solution provider that brings together multichannel
marketing platforms and data, with creative and strategy services honed on the
optimization of delivering relevant marketing messages. This gives marketers the
ability to source best-of-breed technology and creative and strategy services from a
single vendor at a cost-effective price point.
For more information, visit www.yeslifecyclemarketing.com.

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