Mobile email not as great a challenge as first feared?
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In recent months, mobile email has become the giant carbuncle on the otherwise dainty email marketing nose. Hard not to see, but nobody wants to talk about it.The problem is the relative lack of understanding on how to adjust email design and sending practices to cope with the growing number of people reading email on mobile devices...devices with tiny screens and software that panics when confronted by HTML email.
ExactTarget made a commendable effort in a report last year, but it's been head-in-the-sand time since then. Fortunately, that strategy may be paying off.
Apple's iPhone was the first bit of good news, as it was purpose built to be compatible with HTML email.
And recent weeks have seen unsubstantiated rumors that future Blackberry models may support HTML email. Which would be great news, since the market for Blackberrys is growing and no longer confined to business folk. Some 3.9 million Blackberry devices were sold in Q3, 2007 alone.
The Radicati Group predicted last November that over 16% of worldwide active e-mail mailboxes will be accessed with a wireless push email solution by the end of 2011.
So this trend is not something we can ignore. Maybe 2008 will be the year that we learn how to cope with mobile email.
More on designing for mobile email | Tags: email marketing, mobile email, wireless email, email design
Permalink | January 02, 2008 | 2 comment(s) - add yours!
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2 Comments:
Yes, mobile email is still a challenge and we do anticipate that this will be the year we learn how to deal with mobile email. At ExactTarget we are continuing to research this issue and we are in the midst of testing various tactics for addressing the mobile email situation. I am confident that the follow-up to our original report will be consistent with the quality of research you have seen from us in the past. In this follow-up we intend to report on tested and actionable strategies so that when we propose a solution as a best practice we can provide support for our claims. We have not intentionally been “head-in-the-sand” about this, but we have consciously resisted the temptation to provide simple anecdotes to this complex challenge. As we articulated in the original report, there are thousands of potential rendering scenarios and as you rightly point out in this post, the game is changing fast, so we are trying to hit a moving target. Look for more from us soon, thanks for helping keep this important topic top of mind!
By 
Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget, on
08 January, 2008
Thanks Morgan. Glad to hear about a new report coming out. Look forward to that.
Just to be clear, also, the "head in the sand" dig refers to the industry in general and not to ET.
By 
Mark Brownlow - Email Marketing Reports, on
08 January, 2008
