Emailaudience
  • Learn about:
    • Testing & Optimization
    • Email Design
    • Marketing Automation
    • List growth
    • Strategy
    • Latest Articles
  • Resources
  • About
Emailaudience
  • Learn about:
    • Testing & Optimization
    • Email Design
    • Marketing Automation
    • List growth
    • Strategy
    • Latest Articles
  • Resources
  • About
Emailaudience
FacebookTwitter
Email Design

Responsive Design for Mobile Email: Ooh! Shiny!

Samantha Iodice
17 September 2012
4 min read

Responsive Design is catching a lot of buzz lately, and for good reason – it’s super cool and adaptive within a continually expanding mobile universe. Responsive Design can make a webpage shrink or expand to the device it’s being viewed on instantly through the use of CSS3 @media queries in the HTML coding.

Lately, however, much of the buzz is about applying these media queries within email code to generate responsive emails. There’s one giant catch that many articles of late seem to smooth over….

Why NOT to use responsive design in email

Responsive design doesn’t work in Android within their native email client, Gmail. 50% of US mobile phones are Smartphones according to a report by Chetan Sharma Consulting and of that 50%, 61.6% are Android OS as of July 2012 ComScore figures.  So responsive design isn’t yet optimal for a full email rollout.

Effort to get responsive design going
As stated by Jordan Cohen in his article Go Mobile, or Go Home, “The effort required to code an email for responsive design can be intensive, and support for media queries is spotty — many marketers complain of breakage when their designs are viewed in unsupported email clients and web browsers.”

Let’s not miss underscoring his point that “effort” equates to “additional budget needs” for coding time. If you have an Apple OS-only mobile base or wish to target them exclusively, then rock on with the responsive design.  If not, don’t be discouraged – all hope is not lost!

What can you do to optimize email for mobile?

You may be wondering why all this hype for a technique that isn’t truly optimal is such a popular subject of late. It’s topical due to the continued increase in mobile usage and simply, it’s shiny and has amazing potential to be über cool for email… someday… when it can work across all major platforms. The question then becomes – what CAN be done to optimize emails for mobile delivery across all platforms?

The shiniest object worthy of the email marketer’s affections is live content which has more technological power behind it than responsive design for email.

According to Jordan Cohen, ”… marketers can create device-specific versions of email templates and render them on the fly based on which devices recipients are using when they open email.” Sure, Jordan’s biased as he’s the VP of Marketing at Movable Ink – but he’s definitely not wrong.

There are actually a few options out there that can really help in the battle to mobilize.

The only downfall to live content is the need to create multiple email versions designed for the most popular devices. If resources and budget are available, it’s certainly worthy of a test.

Low budget Mobile Email optimization

If resources and budget aren’t available to check out live content, then sometimes the ol’ standbys are the way to go. From creating mobile optimized versions of email – essentially, doing what needs to be done for live content without actually using live content – to using simple design techniques to create mobile-friendly emails. Check out Optimize Your Email for Mobile by Mike Hotz for recommendations. Neither of these methods are optimal, but they’re both realistic within the limitations of a tight budget.

Mobile optimization is not a cheap endeavor, but it’s also not crazy expensive. The data speaks for itself as to why it’s important to mobilize emails – more and more people are using mobile devices to review their inbox. Check out this fancy and fabulous mobile infograph from Litmus to backup these wildly true claims.

Clients and marketers alike are accustomed to the low prices of working with email; however, to play with the big dogs, some coin needs to be dropped. That can be by doing it yourself or by choosing one of many email marketing agencies to do it. How you choose to do it can vary, but make the wisest choice based on facts, not simply because it’s shiny.

mobile email

Samantha Iodice

Samantha Iodice is an Email Strategist & Best Practice Maven for a global marketing services agency. Samantha tripped into the online marketing world via direct mail and has never looked back. She works like mad to convert outdated thinking and strategy for her clients no matter how hard they attempt to resist her super-powers. Samantha is proud to be a bit nuts, a sci-fi fan and an all-around geek. Follow her on Twitter @e_Maven or drop a line at samantha.iodice@gmail.com

View all posts
The killers of Good Email Design

You may also like

Articles

This is how you make your emails Apple Siri-proof

Research shows that over 79% of smartphone users read emails on their smartphone. And around 50% of marketing email newsletters are opened on mobile devices This has a big impact on how emails should be designed and...

Ronald DubbeldamJordie van Rijn
Articles

The Responsive Email Checklist

Responsive email is the most hyped topic in email marketing in the past two years, that’s for sure. Over 53% of people read email on mobile devices nowadays, so responsive email design is definitely a must!

Roland Pokornyik
Articles

7 surefire ways to get a mobile email fail

Ever wonder why your email marketing campaigns fail to be mobile worthy? More and more businesses are trying to optimize their emails for mobile but not many are actually doing it well. This infographic 7 distinct...

Guestpost

Popular posts

Email Marketing Tests to Grow Your Business and Blog
How to Write Email with Military Precision
Why you should invest in email marketing
120 rules for doing email marketing by the book
what is mailchimp
What is Mailchimp and why do you need it?
best drag & drop email template builders
9 Best drag and drop email template builders in 2022

Recent Posts

  • 6 Essential Email Security Tips For Marketers
  • What is a Design System? + Examples, How to & Email Design System
  • The 9 Best Social Media Scheduling Tools to Save Time in 2022
  • 11 Essential CRM Features your CRM Platform Must Have
  • 9 Sales Email Tips and Templates That Convert in 2022

RSS Industry news

  • The 10 Best Free & Cheap HTML Editors for Beginners and Pros
  • What is CRM? Full 2022 Guide: Definition, Types & CRM Software
  • EngageBay Review 2022: The best all-in-one CRM?
  • What is a Digital Marketing Agency and What Does it do?
  • 11 Best SMS Marketing Platforms for Businesses in 2022
  • Mailmodo Review 2022: How does this new email tool perform?
  • 56 Online Learning Statistics to Surprise You in 2022
  • Forrester Wave Email Service Providers 2022 – our analysis
  • Learn about:
    • Testing & Optimization
    • Email Design
    • Marketing Automation
    • List growth
    • Strategy
    • Latest Articles
  • Resources
  • About