We know that Smartphone use is on the rise and with it comes more people reading emails on their mobile. Market research firm Nielsen condensed all time spent on the mobile internet into one hour and found nearly half of it was spent on email.  This is a very telling statistic because it goes beyond corporate, Blackberry-centric, email use to include consumers accessing Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail via their devices. 

That’s important as Blackberries, despite their generally justified status as a workplace productivity hero, are hopeless at handling the sort of HTML emails that marketers deploy. Images are off, links are exposed and the whole point of creating email eye-candy is defeated. I’m confident this will be sorted out shortly but it’s the current reality. And it’s one that has driven the existing mobile email paradigm.

The Current State of Mobile Email

Marketers that do created ‘mobile friendly’ versions of their emails (and, if we’re being candid, most still don’t) typically take the following approach: In the pre-header of the email there’s a link saying something like ‘On a mobile device? Click here’. Clicking on that link will do one of two things – take the recipient to a text only version or take them to a mobile web page recreating the richer HTML experience. The latter is clearly more favourable from a branding + presentation POV.

iPhones and Android devices do a much better job handling HTML emails. Images are displayed, for starters. But email design is web-centric.  Multi-column emails are common and with mobile’s smaller screen sizes lead to tiresome side to side scrolling. It’s a cumbersome reading experience.

According to the PEW Internet & American Life Project, 34% of all cell phone owners have sent or received an email on their device. This number is slightly higher than the percentage of cell phone owners that have Smartphones but is conclusive enough to confidently say, at a minimum, “Smartphone users = mobile email user.”

With Smartphone penetration set to overtake feature phones in the next year or two and only continue upward, the implication should be clear: The approach to email marketing needs to evolve to account for changing consumer consumption patterns and expectations.

Your emails are being viewed on devices you haven’t designed and tested for and in contexts than a web-centric email approach simply doesn’t account for leading to lost opportunities to capture interest.

Making Email Work for the Mobile Consumer
 
To make your email marketing programs work harder and extract more value out of each interaction with a mobile consumer, there are three dimensions to address: Design, Content, and Destinations. 

1.    Design
Consider a design template that’s if not mobile-first, than at least mobile-sensitive. Employ a single column layout consistent with mobile screen dimensions to remove unnecessary pinching, zooming and scrolling and to focus reader attention.  A vertical scroll motion allows for a more natural email reading experience, especially on a mobile device. 

Think about larger fonts, bigger call to action button, and more minimalist colour palettes with high contrast between design elements. Your design should make it extremely easy for recipients to differentiate content elements and provide intuitive, obvious action elements that account for a user who will be grazing information rather than reading deeply. 

I’d also recommend keeping a text only or mobile web optimized version linked from the pre-header. Many Blackberry users will still need this and it’s good practice to be inclusive of all customers in your design (that’s why you’re looking at a mobile-centric design in the first place, after all). 

2.    Content
Mobile email readers will be looking for focussed, attention grabbing content.  Consumption will most likely happen during brief moments of downtime. 

Combine on-the-go relevance with actionable information with a very sharp editing pencil. Clear but attention grabbing calls to action are at an even greater premium in a mobile context.   This may involve rethinking your content organization as the mobile consumer is best served by information that satisfies moments of inspiration or need vs. contemplation.  The best advice is “don’t overdo it”. Information overload will lead to session abandonment as quickly as a poorly designed email. Brevity and clarity will show you’re sensitive to demands on a recipient’s time and attention.

There’s a lot to be gained from allowing recipients to specify ‘web’ or ‘mobile’ versions as well. Knowledge of how they’ll be viewing your emails can give you a glimpse into how content should be prioritized.

3.    Destinations
This is the most important piece. There is no point optimizing design and content for mobile consumption if someone clicks on a link (that’s what you likely want them to do, right?) only to end up on a desktop web experience. All your hard work will be lost.

Building your mobile web destination involves the same content and design sensibilities you’ve applied to your emails.  There’s a lot to be said on this topic and I outlined a foundational lens in a previous post, “Making the Mobile Web a Friendlier Place”. [Stay tuned for a follow up piece on content approaches to your mobile web presence...]

Once you’ve locked down a mobile friendly design, content and destination approach, there are a couple other considerations that can impact your open and engagement rates:

•    Send times: Mobile email consumption is more likely going to be in snatched moments of downtime or media multi-tasking. Consider when those are going to be for your customer. Better yet, allow customers to state when they would like to receive your emails.

•    Cross-channel opt-ins: Mobile email can be a great way to nurture customers into mobile CRM extensions. Provide mechanisms for users to opt-in to SMS programming. Enable coupon redemption by having device ‘show and save’ or ‘show and scan’ capabilities. Push customers to your mobile apps or other content downloads such as videos or wallpapers.

Now, rather than being a ‘blinders on’ promoter of mobile, I’m realistic in that not all marketers need a mobile friendly email program. You may be able to survive without it depending on your audience demographics. Teen and Older demographics are probably not a mobile email/Smartphone sweet spot. But if your customer base includes urban consumers, 18-45, there’s a good chance you have a growing segment that will expect a tailored, even optimized, experience no matter when or how they happen to view your emails.

At Digital Cement, we're focused on digital direct marketing. As part of articulating our POV on how specific digital channels can be used in effect customer acquisition efforts, I wrote a whitepaper on mobile as a direct marketing channel.

Here's the intro to give you a flavour for the paper's scope and focus:

Your customers are moving targets. You work hard to get their attention – at home, at work, shopping, going to the movies and out at other public place and events.  The challenge is that it’s hard to know where they are at any given time and whether they’re receptive to what you have to offer.

So imagine if these elusive customers would not only share their locations with you, but also grant you permission to deliver what they need or want when it’s most useful and relevant to them.

Solving customer problems and inspiring customer action anywhere and anytime, but especially at times when your customers need it most, is the promise of mobile marketing. It is also the power of mobile as a direct marketing channel.

Outlined below is a foundation for successfully using mobile in your direct marketing mix. It begins by appreciating three mobile attributes that have shaped customer expectations. Then, it outlines how you can use what you know about your customers to give them a reason and a way to take your brand with them.

This is not a paper for marketers waiting to be convinced that mobile has arrived.

This is a paper for marketers who know that customers would rather lose their wallet than their phone.

I go on to cover:
1.    Mobile's Triple Play - Connectivity, Context and Relevance
2.    Understanding Customer Habits and Preferences
3.    Building Mobile Destinations
4.    Giving Customers a Reason to Visit
5.    Driving Customers to your Destinations
6.    Understanding Customer Activity

The paper is a survey of these areas rather than an exhaustive treatise.  It's meant to provide thought starters for deploying mobile marketing programs in a way that sets the foundation for sustainable growth and verifiable success framed by a customer-centric approach.

You can find the paper here.

Hope you find it interesting and useful. Feedback, as always, is welcome.

What’s your mobile marketing strategy? Don’t have one? You’re not alone.

Recent research by Forrester found that 57% from a survey pool of 200 global companies either didn’t have one or only in the early stages of developing their mobile strategy. 

If you do have a mobile strategy, that’s excellent. The question then is how you are going to continue to evolve your mobile programming and adapt to emerging technology opportunities and changes in customer habits, preferences, expectations, device use and build on insights from all the data you’ve generated. 

Defining and maturing your mobile strategy requires a thoughtful and diligent approach if you want to deliver genuine and recurring value to your customers and maximize ROI.  It’s more than just porting your web strategy. There are new customer behaviours to understand.  Different dynamics for acquisition, engagement, conversion and retention activities are in play.  Benefits and costs for each mobile tactical channels – advertising, web, apps, SMS, etc... – need to be weighed. A new measurement and analytics process has to be established. 

Digital Cement wants to help you through that process.

We’ve developed the Mobile Maturity Diagnostic so marketers can self-assess the progress of their mobile marketing efforts and gather insight into sustainable and sensible program evolution. 

We’re deliberately channel-agnostic. You won’t find out whether you should use SMS or build an app, for example. Those decisions are unique to every company, brand or targeted customer segment. What you will find out are the steps you can take to make sure you have the right framework for making those decisions.

We’ve broken out mobile strategy into 6 categories:
•    Audience Management
•    Marketing Planning
•    Marketing Implementation
•    Media Management
•    Data + Measurement
•    Integration

Each category asks you to align yourself to the descriptive statement closest to your activity level. Have fun with it. Check out each of the statements as they’ll give you insight into the road ahead.

As you progress through each section, we’ll tally up your score and at the end you’ll receive a snapshot of your mobile maturity status and some prescriptive guidance for next steps.

The Diagnostic has a web and touch screen mobile optimized versions. You can try the mobile version by directing your iPhone, Android or other webkit browsers to the same URL as the website: http://www.digitalcement.com/mobile_ready.

We’re looking at this tool as something that evolves as brand mobile marketing sophistication evolves so your feedback on the content is definitely welcome.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Digital Cement can assist you in developing your mobile marketing roadmap, there’s a form on the site or contact me directly at jdunn@digitalcement.com

A recent report from dotMobi has documented the staggering rise in the number of mobile websites in the past two years.

From 2008 to 2010 the number of mobile compatible websites grew from 150,000 to 3.01 million. For the stats hungry playing along at home, that’s apparently a 2000% increase. Yes. 2000%.

Of the Alexa.com top 1000 sites, 40.1% are mobile friendly as are 29.7% of the top 10,000. There’s more info here on the report if you’re interested.

This is all very good. I’m firmly in the camp that argues brands need to have a distinct mobile version of their web presence to ensure positive experiences for their customers. Browsing on the mobile web is a different beast from web browsing. Along with the unique capabilities and design parameters native to mobile devices, customer habits and expectations are different when they’re browsing on their mobile phone.

If you’re reading this closely, however, you’ll notice I used the phrases ‘mobile compatible’ and ‘mobile friendly’ to characterize the findings from the study. At first pass, these may seem like minor variations of the same thing – a matter of preference, really. I believe they’re not and that’s why I want to issue a call for some standardization - or at least consistency - around mobile website description [read on to find out why...].

I’ve found there are 4 main ways mobile websites are described:

•    Mobile Accessible
•    Mobile Compatible
•    Mobile Friendly
•    Mobile Optimized

In most cases, these terms are used fairly interchangeably.

If you’re asking “what difference does it make,” consider this: Any HTML website could be ‘mobile accessible’ if it displays fully on a mobile browser (vs. any site using Flash which won’t work on nearly all phones). However, a  website designed only with PC browsing in mind will be poorly formatted for the mobile screen, require significant and unnecessary user actions to discover relevant content and will likely have a massive amount of content which is simply irrelevant to a mobile browsing customer...to name just some of the problems.

A ‘mobile accessible’ website is unlikely how you want your company to be portrayed and perceived or the type of experience you want to serve up to your customers.

In the interests of injecting greater precision into the conversation around mobile web experiences, I’ve drafted the following mobile website segmentation.  Let’s consider this a baseline definition exercise, open to revision as technology and mobile experience sophistication evolves.

1.    Mobile Accessible

A mobile ‘accessible’ site is one where a visitor can get all the content and all design elements are displayed.  However, the design and content strategy is indistinct from the PC version and the mobile browsing experience is poor or frustrating.

Example: Do a random Google search on your phone and take your pick.

2.    Mobile Compatible

A mobile ‘compatible’ site is one that is formatted for mobile browsers/browsing. It uses mobile friendly programming languages and a design approach that exploits mobile gestures and minimizes content load times.  There is a content architecture that considers a mobile customer’s context, interest and intent.  Your site is hosted as a sub domain on your primary URL and device detection should be implemented to recognize mobile users. Some search and/or sharing features are also in place. Mobile-specific analytics are in place to track site performance and customer behaviour.

Good Example: http://m.cnn.com

3.    Mobile Friendly

A mobile ‘friendly’ site is one that builds on the mobile-centric design, content and analytics practices begun in the mobile ‘compatible’ category. Device detection has definitely been added to deliver versions that cater to the unique screen size and processing capabilities of the many distinct operating systems and screen types and sizes available.  Search and social sharing features are tightly integrated and resolve themselves in an equally mobile friendly way. Transactional capabilities and/or account authentication that allows for a personalized experience (if relevant to your business) have been implemented. There is also a customer feedback or support mechanism.

Good Example: http://m.bestbuy.com

4.    Mobile Optimized

A mobile ‘optimized’ website takes all the best practices from mobile ‘friendly’ design and layers in features that are only available with certain programming languages (HTML 5 in particular) to access supported advanced device capabilities (HD content, location, camera, accelerometer, etc...) to deliver a rich and immersive experience. 

Good Example: http://m.youtube.com
(Built w. HTML5. Not currently taking advantage of all the capabilities but a good place to watch for innovation).

A couple other notes:

•    For the time being at least, any site using Flash is not mobile anything. True, some operating systems and devices do support Flash but it still bogs down the browsing experience and is not yet ready for mobile primetime.
•    Pinch and zoom should not be considered an acceptable user gesture. It is at best a stop gap excuse for mobile accessible sites still figuring out their design and content strategy. It is clumsy and asks already fickle mobile customers to do far too much to get where they want to go.

Those who know more about mobile programming than I seem to be in favour of HTML5 becoming the de facto mobile web programming standard.  However, that means this segmentation automatically precludes most of the best mobile websites around today from being more than ‘mobile friendly’.

Frankly, that’s okay. I think being ‘mobile friendly’ is a great place to be and if we had most marketers pushing for ‘mobile friendly’ status the mobile universe would be vastly improved.  Mobile ‘optimized’ is such a strong term that it should remain a stretch target allowing for evolution and revolution that takes full advantage of device capabilities. 

I hope you’ll join me in adopting this language for describing mobile websites. Consistency in this conversation will help drive up design and experience standards and create reference points for marketers gauging the maturity of their mobile presence.

But first, did I miss any common phrases for describing mobile websites? Do you agree with my characterizations? 

Did you get to the end of this post before checking your own website on your mobile phone...?

Text messaging (SMS) is often over-shadowed by the richer mobile experience offered by Apps and the mobile internet. Brand and publisher dollars are flowing freely into the App space with SMS relegated to ‘poor cousin’ status despite its wide-ranging utility as a response and bridging channel.

What’s often forgotten – or ignored – is that SMS is still light years ahead of any non-voice mobile activity in terms of sheer use volume and reach.  Not only do Canadians send 100 million SMS/day, but virtually every single phone on the market today is SMS enabled. 

One audience that is a voracious user of SMS are teens, which is why I was pleased to see Toronto Public Health launch an SMS-based sexual health advice service.  The service provides an anonymous way for teens to get answers to questions about sexually transmitted infections + birth control, connect with sexual health clinics and advisors and get information on other related issues.

A couple of comments from a TPH representative sum up the rationale and benefit of the service:

“Teens are always texting, and we know from previous research that teens want to get information from their friends. This service puts reliable information into their hands that they can pass on to a friend.”

“This is the one gap in our service that we wanted to close up,” said Hamilton-Page, noting teens rarely leave home without a cell phone and consider text messaging private and personal, which means they might be less fearful to use it to find out about sexual health.

You can read more about it here.

I also reached out to Sidneyeve Matrix, a Queen’s University professor, noted pop culture and digital media researcher and someone who’s gone deep on youth media trends .  Her take:

GenY is accustomed to and skilled at accessing on-demand, mobile, information on their handheld computers (cell phones)... this initiative leverages those digital literacies & meets teens where they are at with a relevant/timely/mobile/customized solution.

Well said.

I went through the experience a couple of different ways to get a sense of the depth and scope of content:

There are a few things I really liked about this effort:

• They selection of SMS. If this program had been rolled out as an app experience it would have surely bombed. The reach isn’t there into this audience and apps are viewed more as an entertainment or service channel rather than a communication channel.
• By starting with SMS, besides being most relevant to the target audience, it gives TPH a platform for beginning to understand their audience’s engagement patterns. What info are they requesting? How frequently do they use the service? Looking at these types of data points can create a body of information to inform content strategies for mobile web and app executions.
• The scope of content offered. While not exhaustive, TPH gives teens a broad offering of the most relevant concerns and subjects – pregnancy, STIs, practical tips around condom breakages, where to locate clinics, etc...It’s substantial enough to offer something useful for the majority of their audience.
• The click to connect. While SMS can be private and personal, if you think you have a problem, you want to connect with a real person. Click to call is a simple bridging technology and it’s integrated well here to connect the user with exactly the right resource with one click.

This is a simple, well executed concept that provides relevant and valuable content delivered in the perfect medium for the target consumer.  It also validates a number of key benefits of SMS:

• Wide audience reach with especially high use among teen audiences
• Device and operating system agnostic
• Ability to deliver timely content
• Ability to deliver personally relevant content based on defined needs;
• Ability to bridge between experiences – while this uses click to call, you could easily do click to web, click to download, click to coupon and more.

Nice job Toronto Public Health.

-Jonathan