Have you tried to open an email on your phone, only to realize it’s too difficult to see because it’s in a tiny font? You spend the next few minutes pinching and zooming with your fingers, trying to enlarge the text so you can read it and see the images.
Chances are you’ll get frustrated and read very little — if any — of the email’s content, let alone interact with it or make a purchase. Another sale bites the dust before it even started.
“Not me,” you might be thinking. “My emails are mobile-friendly — my customers won’t experience this issue.”
Think again. You might be surprised to hear that what I’m is describing is considered a “mobile-friendly” email message. That’s when your email system automatically shrinks your message to fit the screen of the recipient.
The problem
Although the message might now fit on your audience’s phones, there’s actually a higher probability that they won’t read it at all. In fact, 69 percent of users say they instantly delete emails that aren’t optimized for their screens.
For real estate agents in particular, this can have a major impact on regular communications with potential customers, and, therefore, your overall business. Shrinking an email full of text is bad enough — but shrinking one full of property images is practically a crime.
The solution
Go beyond mobile-friendly with responsive design. A responsive email template automatically adjusts not only in size, but also in format and layout — so your email is easily readable on whatever screen your audience chooses, to ensure an optimal reader experience.
Consider an email campaign with eight to 10 of the latest featured property listings. On a regular monitor, the images appear horizontally across the screen.
On a phone, with a responsive design, the horizontal content is automatically rearranged to display vertically on a small screen, with fewer listings per row to ensure each one appears clearly. The text is noticeably larger and easier to read, while the rest of the elements fit the screen perfectly and are the ideal size for a person’s finger to interact with on that medium. No more pinching, zooming or squinting.
According to Google, approximately one-fifth of real estate-related searches happen on mobile devices, and the IDC Research Report notes that email is the most popular smartphone activity (78 percent) among users age 18-44.
The fact is, today’s consumers live in a multiscreen, on-the-move world. People conduct more and more business via mobile devices and tablets each year, and consumers expect businesses to be as mobile and tech-savvy as they are.
Think about how much time you spend preparing a home for a showing. Shouldn’t your email marketing for that home get the same attention?
Moving from a mobile-friendly format to responsive design can have a tremendous impact on the readability of your emails — and ensure your audience is regularly reading and responding to the latest listings you’ve shared. Be sure to turn your email campaigns into prime real estate.
Eric Krattenstein is the chief marketing officer at Mailify. You can follow Mailify on Twitter or LinkedIn.