Recent studies and analysis from TailoredMail shows an alarming uptick in the amount of subscribers who are reading email in their smart phone. Newsletters and Campaign-style emails appear to be more attractive to read when users are waiting in line, on a bus, or just plain bored…and they reach for their smartphone to comb through their email. TailoredMail has added detailed mobile-device tracking to its system, and the trends are fascinating:

• On average, between 15 and 20% of opens and clicks are coming from these devices
• Of those opens/clicks, more than 60% come from iPhones and iPads

What you need to do

Layouts, content-type and style, and mobile-device-ready HTML all become keys going forward. Adding a "View Mobile Version" at the top of your emails, and hyperlinking it to a streamlined version. Some elements that ensure your content is mobile friendly:

• Design it to 320px wide
• Use fluid 100%-width tables from your HTML, and/or use DIVs instead
• Do not use a heavy opening header-graphic. Screen real-estate is critical, as are the from, subject and pre-header teasers
• Inline-styles ensure broad compatibility with devices
• Use Apple's "Viewport" meta-tag to set the width of the display for the best iPhone/iPad rendering
• Keep your content extremely light-weight; title, quick description, link, and a small image.
• Try playing around with the @media CSS style to change layouts for better readability when viewed in different mobile widths

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