Mobile gadgets are the preferred media for opening email and responding to mobile marketing. That’s true across demographics, but especially among the youth set known as Millennials and Generation Y.
As revealed in the infographic below from our client Reachmail, among the general population, 75 percent are using smartphones regularly to manage email. Millennials’ use of iPhones, Android phones and iPads to scour daily mail is as high as 80 percent.
Most don’t even re-check mail on desktops and are intolerant of marketers who don’t cater to the small screen revolution.
This means a great deal for businesses who don’t wish to lose the business of new clients or customers.
Specifically it means that advertising will become a game of who can satisfy the most mobile users. The companies with most the mobile-friendly promotions and resources win.
They win not just profit from increased sales and website hits, but they win the trust of the mobile public and perhaps even long-term loyalty from mobile shoppers.
Are You Satisfying Your Mobile Customers?
Basic satisfaction of mobile users involves having email marketing messages that can be scaled down to fit a smartphone screen or a tablet screen without losing its wow factor and effectiveness.
That means the ads are pithy and persuading.
- They dazzle without relying on too much Flash animation or Javascript that can freeze mobile devices and take an incredibly long time to load.
- They have images that are optimal for small devices – between 360 and 480 pixels.
- They have the good content early in the page or email, along with a call to action that can be read without tedious scrolling.
Often it means having online stores that can be navigated and searched without too much hassle for those using small touchscreens and tiny virtual keyboards.
Satisfying mobile users might mean connecting with mobile shoppers through store apps that take users directly to favorite products or recommendations, and then quickly and efficiently to checkout without wasted clicks.
Closing the Loop Between Mobile and Offline
Increasingly, being mobile-friendly as an email marketer also means merging offline deals with online finesse by using email to preview promotions later reinforced through text messages, geolocation-based shopping deals and scannable QR codes that allow customers to learn about sales, coupons or general brand information without having to type any URLs.
QR codes have been slow to catch on, but nearly 25 percent of people – mostly in America and Germany — have scanned one while on the go and research from eMarketer suggests the codes will trend upward in the future.
In a survey of 2,000, at least 14 percent of Millennials in the U.S. admitted they scanned a QR code that was included in a marketing email, while 16 percent of those between 25 and 34 said they had done so.
Respondents were most likely to scan codes in magazines or hard copy ads sent by snail mail. However, that was often because those types of media have been more eager to embrace the technology.
In the future, online marketers must be dedicated to using the codes more and ensuring that the codes deliver mobile users to sites that are legible and enjoyable to use on a mobile screen.
Lastly, remember, many mobile users are quick and impatient decision-makers who won’t give an email or website the chance to satisfy them again if they encounter even one instance of a landing page or target page that fails meet mobile standards.
Start now by assessing your company websites, blogs, stores and email campaign designs to make sure they are ready for the continuing expansion of mobile marketing.