Why Responsive Email Marketing is So Important

26 Mar' 15 | By Amanda Smith

With 68% of consumers using their smartphones and tablets for email, brands need to take action to ensure they are providing a smooth user experience.

Due to the sheer number of devices that became capable of accessing the Internet, brands and businesses started to make responsive web design their prerogative from 2012 onwards. Where once websites were only accessed on desktops and later on laptops, suddenly netbooks, tablets, smartphones and game consoles with all varying screen sizes had entered the online arena.

The way websites were built changed, they needed to look different depending on the type of device being used – effectively ‘responding’ to the platform – with the goal being to create an optimal user experience across all devices.

So how is this important for email marketing? Well, over 65% of marketing emails were opened on a mobile device in 2014 – this is a huge number of people reading emails on all sorts of screen sizes. Equally as important as your website, ensuring your email communications can be read no matter which device is being used is imperative. The alternative is that recipients are constantly pinching and scrolling to read the content, which will without a doubt impact your click-throughs and conversions.

The inbox used to be a place where users would branch off to various landing pages via external links. A responsive email template should be a more dynamic platform where users can experience and engage with content directly. For marketers, this means there is the opportunity to incorporate more powerful content within emails, which will result in enhanced engagement with both existing and prospective customers, as well as a better overall user experience.

In many cases, the modern consumer will not think twice about deleting an email if the formatting is poor. With the majority of emails being opened occurring on iPhones, Androids and iPads, navigating on a small screen can be difficult, so a responsive design allows calls-to-action and scrolling to be designed and built with the mobile user in mind.

The growth in the number of Internet connected devices is unlikely to decrease, so future-proofing your communications and ensuring your email marketing campaigns look great across all platforms is a must for 2015 and beyond.