Last week I spoke to Mark Browlow of Email Marketing Reports with some brief updates on the state of mobile email. This entry provides a good collection of practical advice on handling the challenges he presented a week earlier.
Taking a look at the posts should provide a good overview of the challenges and the best solutions available. Unfortunately, these solutions are still largely unsatisfying. In 2007, ExactTarget wrote Email Marketing for the Third Screen. In that whitepaper we outlined how the total lack of standards in how mobile devices handle email make it difficult to optimize email across these devices. However, all hope should not be lost since the vast majority of consumers are not looking at your email on their mobile device anyway.
Since Mark already alluded to an update in his post (with permission), I wanted to provide a little more concrete insight into what the new data says--and what it does not say. What it does not say is that things have changed much in the two years since we wrote Email Marketing for the Third Screen. That paper is still very much up to date. I imagine this is a surprise to you, I know it was for me too.
The same rendering challenges plague the mobile email landscape. While marketers seem to care a lot, consumers still don't. Consumers still access the same email account on their desktop or laptop that they access on their mobile device. They still flag commercial email on their mobile device so they can follow-up on their computers where a full keyboard, rich internet experience and full size screen make it easier to transact online. Their mindset when interacting with mobile email is still distinct from their mindset when reading their email on a normal computer. They are looking for urgent messages from friends, family, and co-workers--they aren't looking for deals. They tend to wait until they get home (or to work) to their computers and read commercial messages there.
There is one exception. iPhone users. To get a sense of this, take a look at the latest research from Crowd Science on their smartphone usage and brand study. They compare the satisfaction of iPhone users with Blackberry users. It's simply not a competition. If you weren't already convinced that iPhone ushered in a new era for smartphones, the Crowd Science data should remove all doubt.
As you consider the "mobile email problem", look at Mark's post and do what you can to follow the advice on his blog. Simply keep in mind that given the choice between optimizing for a mobile device and optimizing for standard email clients on a desktop or laptop, pick the standard clients--iPhone can handle it and that is where the rest of your email subscribers are most likely looking anyway.
Taking a look at the posts should provide a good overview of the challenges and the best solutions available. Unfortunately, these solutions are still largely unsatisfying. In 2007, ExactTarget wrote Email Marketing for the Third Screen. In that whitepaper we outlined how the total lack of standards in how mobile devices handle email make it difficult to optimize email across these devices. However, all hope should not be lost since the vast majority of consumers are not looking at your email on their mobile device anyway.
Since Mark already alluded to an update in his post (with permission), I wanted to provide a little more concrete insight into what the new data says--and what it does not say. What it does not say is that things have changed much in the two years since we wrote Email Marketing for the Third Screen. That paper is still very much up to date. I imagine this is a surprise to you, I know it was for me too.
The same rendering challenges plague the mobile email landscape. While marketers seem to care a lot, consumers still don't. Consumers still access the same email account on their desktop or laptop that they access on their mobile device. They still flag commercial email on their mobile device so they can follow-up on their computers where a full keyboard, rich internet experience and full size screen make it easier to transact online. Their mindset when interacting with mobile email is still distinct from their mindset when reading their email on a normal computer. They are looking for urgent messages from friends, family, and co-workers--they aren't looking for deals. They tend to wait until they get home (or to work) to their computers and read commercial messages there.
There is one exception. iPhone users. To get a sense of this, take a look at the latest research from Crowd Science on their smartphone usage and brand study. They compare the satisfaction of iPhone users with Blackberry users. It's simply not a competition. If you weren't already convinced that iPhone ushered in a new era for smartphones, the Crowd Science data should remove all doubt.
As you consider the "mobile email problem", look at Mark's post and do what you can to follow the advice on his blog. Simply keep in mind that given the choice between optimizing for a mobile device and optimizing for standard email clients on a desktop or laptop, pick the standard clients--iPhone can handle it and that is where the rest of your email subscribers are most likely looking anyway.
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