There are different kinds of information devices available today (for example, desktops, tablets, and smartphones). Let's see what kind of devices are being used to open your email.
The Result
According to research conducted by the email service provider Litmus, their users open
- 44% of email with mobile devices
- 33% with a desktop mail client
- 23% with webmail
This is nothing surprising, if you think about current trends with mobile devices. Still, you shouldn't forget about making your email messages look good on all different kinds of devices.
Keep It Simple
For web pages, you can redirect viewers to proper (desktop or smartphone) pages, based on "user agents"; however, you will never know whether recipients of your email open it on a desktop or smartphone. Therefore, you need to compose email messages that display attractively on all devices. Even on smartphones, today's email clients support HTML messages, so you can use all kinds of fancy techniques to write email messages that look good on many different types of devices. However, the most reliable option is to write simple text-based messages. Because of their simplicity, the receiving devices will adjust the messages to fit their screens.
Gotta Be Read
Many online business owners think text-based emails look boring. This may be so, but no matter how eye-catching a message is, if it is not displayed properly, the message will not attract readers. Although they look plain, properly displayed text-based messages will yield better results. I am not completely dismissing the use of HTML messages, but you should treat simple text-based email as a well-thought-out format, and include it in ROI testing to see the results for yourself.
©March, 2015