With the busiest shopping season of the year officially kicking off in less than six months (Black Friday is Nov. 29), retailers need to focus on getting their holiday campaigns prepared so that they can stay a step ahead of the competition. According to a study from CRM and email services provider Campaigner, one of the best places to start is by creating a mobile email strategy.
The study, which was conducted in Dec. 2012, reveals that only 14 percent of consumer respondents took advantage of mobile marketing emails last holiday season to either save money, find great deals or discover unique gifts. Perhaps the reason the majority of consumers didn't take advantage of mobile emails is because 41 percent were left frustrated with the messages' poor design and user experience. In fact, almost 15 percent of respondents said the mobile messages included too much text and were hard to read, while nearly 24 percent said they were irritated by irrelevant content. Other issues cited by respondents include messages that were difficult to interact with (9.6 percent) and messages that were clearly not optimized for the mobile experience (8.8 percent).
Mobile optimization and personalization, however, are not the only issues when it comes to email marketing. For example, the study shows that email overload is also a concern, with 46 percent of respondents claiming they receive more than 50 emails each day, and 10 percent dealing with more than 300 emails a day. Plus, nearly one third of respondents state that marketing or promotional emails make up 75 percent or more of their total inbox. That said, 58 percent are so overwhelmed by the messages in their inbox that they just hit delete without reading the content. This means that retailers must not only use catchy subject lines to avoid being deleted, but should also focus on fostering relationships with their customers via email all year long, so that they will expect your messages when the holiday season is in full swing.
"While mobile commerce has taken off like a rocket, retailers still have a lot of work to do when it comes to developing their mobile channels," said E.J. McGowan, General Manager of Campaigner. "If customers can't easily read or interact with mobile emails, retailers risk losing business."
To help retailers get their mobile email campaigns ready for the holidays, Campaigner has introduced responsive design capabilities, which feature mobile-optimized email templates. These templates not only make mobile email content visually interesting and simple to read on small screens, but they also allow retailers to create response-friendly links and buttons to make it easier for consumers to take an action directly from the message. Plus, the templates are customizable and feature fonts, layout, and imagery that are effective for responsive viewing.
Discover additional insights about how consumers interacted with mobile emails last holiday season by checking out the infographic below: