This month I’m converting clients to MailChimp’s new mobile-friendly email designs. After looking at stats and seeing how many subscribers are using iPhones and Android devices, there’s really no room for debate here. And, it turns out that if you’re using MailChimp, it’s pretty darn easy at this point.
In case you still need convincing, think of how often you read your email while you are in bed, on public transit, or waiting in line somewhere. It’s not just you — that’s a common user behavior. This comes back to my mantra of knowing your audience and responding to what they want.
If you’re a MailChimp user, just plan to spend some time re-creating your templates using their new editor (they call it the “Drag and Drop” editor). All these new templates are set to adapt to mobile viewers as well as they can (one of their techs told me there are limits to what you can do for subscribers using Gmail on mobile phones, but I was satisfied with what I saw on tests on my phone). And whatever service you use keep in mind:
- Your two-column layout will become one column on a phone — might be time to just lose that sidebar.
- Don’t place different links too close together — users have to be able to select a link with their finger without hitting another link that’s right next to it.
- You can drop those 600-pixel-wide email headers. No images wider than 200 pixels. When placing images, be sure that you’ve reduced the file size before sending them so that they load quickly over mobile.
More on emails and mobile-friendliness:
- Best Practices for Mobile-Ready Email Design by Donor Digital
- 4 Ways to Make your Email more Mobile-Friendly by Mobstac