Modern Marketer’s Field Guide: Designing for Mobile

Modern Marketer’s Field Guide Designing for MobileThe following is a guest contributed post from Christopher Lester, vice president of sales at Emma.

With so much data, so many new channels and so much competition, it can be tough for today’s marketers to find their way through it all. For this reason, we’ve put together The Modern Marketer’s Field Guide, which offers tips, tricks and stats on automation, subject lines, list growth and mobile design.

Mobile design

The importance of mobile design is impossible to ignore in the modern marketing ecosystem. 80% of people will simply delete an email if it doesn’t look good on a smartphone – a result no marketer wants to see. But if the same email looks beautiful on a smartphone, tablet and desktop, you’re in the presence of mobile design.

Mobile design is all about making emails easier to scan and engage with on a mobile device. It feeds on content that’s large, easy to see and simple to consume, so it loves big, bold images, large fonts and tappable call-to-action buttons. Fun fact: Apple recommends buttons should be at least 44 pixels squared, the size of the human fingertip. A few things to keep in mind when designing for mobile:

  1. Mobile-optimized emails also look great on desktop.21
  2. The simpler the design, the better. Busy emails are too tough to scan.
  3. Use large fonts and plenty of white space for easy reading.
  4. Big, bold and tappable images attract the eye and boost engagement.
  5. Chunk content into sections with headings for those skimming on the go.

Small screen first

When in doubt, design for the small screen first. An email that looks gorgeous on a smartphone will also look good on a tablet or desktop. Or to save time, use an email template that’s already responsive. It automatically adapts to look great regardless of the device your audience is using to view the email.

Don’t stop there! Most email drives your audience to do something else, like visit a website, make a purchase or watch a video, so make sure those landing pages are also mobile-optimized. You don’t want to lose them right when they’re ready to take action because it’s too hard to see on their phone.

Quick tips

Here are some quick tips for creating a mobile-friendly habitat for emails:

  • Arrange content in a single-column layout.
  • Incorporate plenty of white space for easy scanning.
  • Organize content into sections with clear dividers and headings.
  • Use at least a 16-pixel font size for readability.
  • Add buttons instead of text links for your calls to action.
  • Keep it clean and simple. A bunch of crammed-in content will get ignored.

With people checking their phones up to 150 times per day (whoa!) and 53 percent of emails being opened on a mobile device, mobile-optimized design cannot be ignored. For more tips on mobile design and modern marketing, download the Field Guide here: myemma.com/field-guide.