There have been many articles about responsive design for websites, that is websites that change their size and layout to match the device they are being viewed upon. However, any optimisation investment can be wasted the moment you send out a promotional email.

Your website is viewable on any device and so your email should be too. How often have you checked emails while on the move? Have you felt frustrated by emails that take too long to load or you need to scroll left, right, up, and down to read? If you were frustrated then your target audience will be too. The Office of National Statistics says 53 per cent  of the UK’s internet users are now browsing via their mobile device, it’s important you don’t give them any reason to choose a competitor over you.

With a mobile responsive email, readers are actively encouraged to find out more too. If your email is easy to read then they’ll have time to click on the links included and find out more about you while they’re on the move. If you’ve spent money getting your website optimised, and your email is taking ages to load, your target audience might not even bother finding the changes you’ve made.

With responsive design you also don’t need to worry about what devices might appear on the market in the future. As with your website, once you have a responsive email template your emails are effectively future proofed. They resize to fit the screen size regardless of the device they’re being viewed on.

If you use an ‘off-the-shelf’ service like mailchimp then your emails should already be automatically optimised but it’s worth speaking to them just to be sure. However, if you send out your emails yourself, which gives you a lot more freedom to manage your email campaigns, then talk to your marketing team or a digital agency to see how you can be sure your emails are viewed on all devices.

We’re in an age now where information is being thrown at clients from all angles. They are in control and they will decide which emails they can be bothered to read. If your campaign isn’t loading properly when they’re on the move, any work in putting that campaign together will be a waste. Getting your email campaigns optimised for mobile devices means you can get right in front of future clients everywhere and let your services do the talking. 
Dez Derry is CEO of mmadigital