Mobile Marketing – Best Practices for Reaching Your Mobile Audience

previous articles, the use of smartphones (and tablets) for browsing the internet, social media, and checking email is on the rise with no signs of slowing down.  So if there are different rules for designing a website that works for mobile users, are there different rules for other areas of mobile marketing as well? You bet. If you use email marketing, then here are some things to consider about your mobile audience when composing your next email marketing campaign:

Stay on target!

On mobile devices, as few as 15 characters (including spaces) may be visible, so you’ve got to use that precious real estate wisely.  Eliminate extraneous verbiage, or make sure that the most important information is presented at the beginning of the subject line. Also, relevance is more important than ever.  People are using their mobile devices for checking email because they’re on the go.  This also means that they have less time to devote to reading your email.  An average reader only spends between 15 and 20 seconds on an email, so you’ll want to make sure your email content reflects what the subject line advertized, and that there is little extra information to distract the reader’s attention.

Format Follows Function

Make sure that important information is always in text format.  This way, even if a reader doesn’t download the images in your email, your message will still be visible.  Consider sending your emails in bot HTML and text versions.  Try to avoid putting lots of links and graphics at the top of your email, as your mobile reader may see a bunch of links and back out before seeing the important information in your message.

Extras

Since your mobile audience is likely reading your email on their phone, provide your phone number in the message.  Many smartphones allow users to click on a phone number to call it without having to type it into the phone.  To someone on the go, this may be much more valuable than having to click links to a webpage to get information.  If you do provide links, make sure that whatever pages those links take the reader to are easily viewable on a mobile device as well.  Remember that things like Flash and pop-ups are often not viewable on mobile devices. Unfortunately, the modern consumer’s attention span keeps getting shorter – but following these mobile marketing best practices will help your business stay in focus!