Many consumers are using mobile devices more than ever. They’ve done something on their mobile device whether its sending a text message, surfing the Internet, or checking email. So is your business addressing the needs of your mobile customers? I’ve researched and found some things you can be doing today to make your email a bit more mobile-friendly, that is, make it look better on your recipient’s mobile devices. Here are a few things to think about when creating your emails, if you have recipients who might be reading emails on their mobile devices.

Don’t Make them Download the Rest of Message – Your message might get truncated if it is too big. If it is too big your recipient might be prompted to “download the rest of the message”. I’m sure many of your recipients check email on their mobile device to make sure things are not blowing up at the office and they probably save the marketing messages until they get to their computer, so you’ll want to avoid running the risk of them not seeing your entire message or worse, deleting it.

Don’t Make ‘Em Scroll – You will want to avoid having your recipient do a lot of scrolling. Make sure your key takeaways are up near the top.

Let ‘Em Know Who You Are – Make sure you include your logo at the top of email so you’re recognized immediately. You’ll want your recipient to keep that email until later when they can act upon what you want them to do.

Click To View in a Browser – You’ll want to have a link for them to click to view your message in a browser, however you might think about putting it somewhere other than at the very top of your email. Many mobile devices render the beginning of the email in your inbox so your recipients can decide if they want to click to the entire email or not. Including the link text, to view in a browser, might take up some valuable space.

Make Your Email Lose Weight! – Make your emails 500-600 pixels wide. VerticalResponse creates our pre-designed layouts in this fashion already.

Let Them Call You – Include a click-to-call link if possible. The easier you make it for your recipient to get more information, the better.

Text Version is a Must – Make sure you have a text version of your emails in the event that your mobile recipients can only get text. Make sure you keep it short. Since emails usually have line breaks at about 60 characters and mobile devices 20 characters, you’ll want to cut back on some of your copy and direct them for more information to your website.

So there you have it, the top things you need to think about when you are creating your email for those who are viewing it on their mobile devices.

Any thoughts? Let’s hear them!

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