Improve Your Email Marketing-Optimise For Mobile!

New survey figures suggest that even in the age of the social media multichannel, the first thing over half of UK mobile users still do when they wake up is to check their email! It seems not every one is now busy tweeting and Facebook updating from first light to the small hours!

According to Nielsen research, it’s emailing that is the most popular activity online, accounting for nearly 40 per cent on mobile, compared to around 10 per cent for social networking.

So email is far from dead then! The art of email marketing can still be a challenge for some eCommerce owners to gain worthwhile results and the debates endlessly ebb and flow on the blogs and forums. Can email, the 40 year old messenger hold its own against a determined Twitter, just turned 6 years of age?

Time and time again, online marketing studies reveal that yes, it can. In June 2011, a comScore survey in the UK revealed that just over two thirds of smartphone users check email through their mobile device, a finding that is further supported by research elsewhere, including a Google sponsored study in April 2011, which showed that over 80 per cent of smartphone users check and send email with their device.

Of course some business owners might argue that these figures are all well and good but it doesn’t account for why their marketing strategies, which are dependant on regular email marketing campaigns  no longer achieve the results they need. Yet a separate report from Return Path suggests that the share of all opened email on mobile increased by just over 80 per cent over 6 months to March 2011.

The answer has to undoubtedly be the changed behaviours of online users and their adoption of smartphone and tablet devices for the majority of instant communications rather than use the traditional PC or laptop. According to Campaign Monitor, the Apple iPhone is the No.1 device with nearly 75 per cent of mobile opens, followed by the iPad at 15 per cent.

Further 2011 surveys seem to also support the suggestion that email opens on mobile/smartphone are yielding better results, accounting for just over a fifth of email opens, a rise of over 50 per cent on 2010 when compared to other devices.

While a comScore Mobile Year in Review 2010 report also found that the proportion of all mobile users using their phones for email was also just over a fifth across the EU, it’s worthwhile noting that since not everyone uses the same device each time to open their email, the total mobile email use can still be underestimated.

The message seems to be loud and clear – if eCommerce owners want to improve their email marketing results, as well as attending to content and relevancy, they can no longer put off optimising their sites for mobile.