It is a universal truth of business that the merits of a product mean nothing. It’s true and you know it. It’s marketing that sells, not quality. Sure, it would be great if the marketing effort is supported by a quality product or a service without inflating production costs, but it’s definitely secondary. If you don’t advertise yourself, you aren’t going to be very successful. That’s why companies all over the world, big and small, pour large sums of money into marketing campaigns. That’s just the way people function – if you tell people to buy from you frequently enough, they will comply. The alternative is people actually thinking for themselves, and nobody has time for that. This is a universal basis of our society and works in many other fields. Think politics, for example – the candidate with the best media campaign wins. If something is popular and universally accepted, then it’s good. That’s just the fundamental way people think. If you want to be successful, you need to make yourself popular.
What does this have to do with mobile friendly email marketing? A lot, actually. Now that I’ve explained the fundamental principles of our society, think about what is the best medium for your marketing campaign? The Internet, of course. But, consider this – most of the people using the Internet today use it via mobile devices, so everything you do has to be mobile friendly, including emails. Email marketing is one of the most direct forms of marketing, which makes it the riskiest, too. People can easily delete your email, so you have to make sure that you send the right message in the few moments you have to make an impression. Here’s how:
Short, coherent emails
Your message has to be short, coherent and has to not be boring, invasive, or irrelevant. It’s just like approaching a beautiful woman in a bar – you have exactly 5 seconds to strike the perfect impression, and that usually happens even before you open your mouth. So, a short, confident, “Hello, my name is Walter but everyone calls me Heisenberg” will go a much longer way than, ‘Um…. H-h-ey there…. I mean… I saw you drinking your drink at the bar…. and… Um… What drink is that? Doesn’t matter… I mean, I find you very attractive and all…” You can be sure that she’s not going to listen to you even for a few seconds, with some women leaving at the first “I mean”. Do you see how important it is to send a short and coherent message? You literally have a few symbols, possibly shorter than a Tweet before the person just deletes the email. Who reads long emails, anyway?
Large fonts
Oh, great, you’ve sent me a long annoying message telling me I can come to your store and buy a toaster that sings “Macarena” at half the price. Thanks. I didn’t read it because it was too long. Not only that, but you had the audacity to put small font, so in order to read it, I would actually have to zoom in – that takes 2 seconds… Are you really that confident that I’m interested in your message that I would take two seconds to zoom in? Great, you shouldn’t be, because I won’t.
This is what people usually think about emails of the marketing variety. Use large fonts while keeping text short.
Links
Make sure not to stack links close to each other. I have big fingers so for me it’s rather easy to click on the wrong link and get angry at you for reminding me how chubby I am, so I will just drop the whole thing. I can assure you, lots of people have this problem.
These are just a few of the major issues. If you use proper, short messages, written in large fonts and easy-to-click links, you will be well on your way to a successful email marketing campaign.
