The three most important words in email marketing might soon be location, location, location. If you’re trying to deliver your emails at just the right time so your audience is more likely to take immediate action, I want you to know about a trend that might cause you to become just as concerned about location as you are with timing. How can location have anything to do with sending email?
According to the latest annual Email Addiction Survey (conducted each year by AOL), 16% of your customers are likely to be checking email on mobile devices, and they are doing it:
- In bed in their pajamas: 67%
- From the bathroom: 59%
- While driving: 50%
- In a bar or club: 39%
- In a business meeting: 38%
- During happy hour: 34%
- While on a date: 25%
- From church: 15%
There’s no need to start sending “mobile emails” because most phones don’t display html very well yet. (I’ll help you reach mobile users in a future blog). However, you should start including calls to action in your emails that deter your audience from deleting your email just because they aren’t in front of their computer or because they’re on a laptop in a coffee shop and don’t want to enter their credit card information on an open network.
In order to help your audience make decisions — while putting the actions off until they are in front of their home or work computer, try using these calls to action as guides to create your own.
- Save this email – it contains your 50% off coupon.
- In this email: 3 new products, 1 new event, photos from our road show.
- On a mobile device? View a text-only summary. (link to a text-only paragraph that the bottom of your email using an anchor tag)
- This email is archived on our website. (include a link to your archive)
- Please call (phone number) if you’re unable to order from this email.
- Visit (website address) for complete information.
- Are you driving right now? Stop reading this! (just kidding)
* For more marketing advice from John Arnold, check out http://www.johnarnold.com/