Email Marketing: The ubiquity of the mobile phone is now something we have all come to acknowledge. Long gone are the days when a be-suited man would walk down the street chatting on a mobile the size of a house brick to the derision of those around him. Now, of course, nearly everybody has a mobile phone and by simply not having one, you risk the scorn of those you care to disclose this to.
Now, mobiles are less like the colossal, cumbrous things of old, but sleek, narrow devices that can undertake all way of tasks, from video calling to games and accessing emails.
The rise of smart phones has meant that it will only be a matter of time before “traditional” mobile phones are eschewed in favour of smartphones, which have their origins more in computers than they do in mobiles. This change has altered many businesses and operations, one of the most notable being email marketing.
Emails used to solely be accessed on PCs and laptops, with the content engineered to work best when displayed on these browsers. People would get access to their emails most often during work hours and would do so rarely on weekends.
Now, however, content must be optimised for mobile usage, ensuring that the message comes up just as clearly on mobile devices as it does on desktop ones. As the ratio for desktop:mobile rises ever closer to 50:50, mobile optimisation is much less of an afterthought to marketers and much more of a central plank of any campaign.
There is also the issue of timing. People are now less likely to open their emails during work hours but both before and after. A good percentage even admit to reading emails even before they’ve eaten breakfast. Likewise, many people are now checking their mail on the weekend or – really – any time they have a few minutes to spare, whether they are at a desk or not.
When they were first brought out, mobile phones were a completely different entity to what they are today. But – probably unwittingly – they have gone on to change the face of many things, not least email marketing.