There’s a disconnect between how consumers are reading commercial emails and how marketers are conducting email marketing campaigns. On one hand, there’s the report earlier this week that says 41 percent of all commercial email is opened on mobile devices — a number that’s expected to surpass PC/desktop opens by the end of the year.
On the other hand, there’s the new 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report from Marketing Sherpa that says more than half of email marketers aren’t designing their emails with mobile devices in mind.
Almost 1,100 marketers took the survey and, of that group, 58 percent said they’re not creating emails to render differently on mobile devices.
Here’s another sign of the disconnect between email marketing and consumer activity: Only 21 percent of the marketers surveyed say they integrate the mobile channel with their email campaign.
Time to wake up Mr. Retailer. Work with your teams now and Get Responsive. You are losing sales to your competitors that are responsive.
Did you party like it was 1999 last night? Well if you did you have now realized that you did wake up this morning and you do have a screaming headache. The world is still standing, but you might need to lay down after that doomsday party you attended. Throwing caution to the wind; participating in the wheel of beverages. Shots? Never a good idea, but why not since the Mayan calendar essentially gave you the freedom to make different decisions. Were you burning down the house? Hmmm, that reminds me of a song.
Well, we made it. We are all still here. Now what?
If you put off any decisions on what your e-mail strategy will be in 2013, time to get on it. Grab that mug of piping hot coffee and let’s get going.
Mobile, relevant content, and multi-channel touch points become the mainstays of effective email programs in 2012. 2013 will be the year that email marketers will need to optimize and grow by addressing their subscribers’ changing habits
Effective marketers will focus on customer centricity, relevant content, and multi-channel, data-driven lifecycle programs
OK, got it. But how?
Triggered email programs are critical – Now go multi-channel
Add SMS, mobile application push notification, or frequency from display ads to your email
Determine where multi-channel touch points can be most valuable. SMS is great at driving a sense of urgency through a last-minute reminder, while targeted display excels at reinforcing value while customers are deciding
Go multi-channel – Yes I am repeating myself. As we know in advertising, frequency is important
In 2013, the majority of e-mail will be opened on a smartphone. Thus, “mobile-friendly” scalable templates will no longer be enough. You will need to rebuild your templates to account for responsive design. Responsive email design is the only truly mobile-first strategy. Get on it now.
Why responsive design? Econsultancy reports that 63 percent of Americans and 41 percent of Europeans would close or delete an email not optimized for mobile. Therefore, if you don’t get mobile, your emails will be relegated to the digital circular file.
Thanks for your support and readership in 2012. Have a great holiday season and happy new year. And just remember
Great new stuff from Return Path on mobile open rates and what is happening around the globe.
Return Path is the worldwide leader in email intelligence. Their solutions utilize the world’s most comprehensive set of data to maximize the performance and accountability of email, build trust across the entire email ecosystem and protect users from spam and other abuse.
In their most recent study, mobile continues to extend its lead on open rates.
But behavior by country differs considerably. North America leads in mobile opens:
And Apple’s IOS is by far the dominant operating system for mobile opens.
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