Trends on Tuesday: Mobile eMail

Do you think about where people are when they open your email? Well, you should.

According to comScore,

• 40% of mobile users (all phone types) used mobile email.
• 78% of smartphone users use email on their phones–and more people are using smartphones every quarter.
• 64% of the people who use email on their phones do so almost everyday.

Now, take a look at the email that you are sending–especially the emails you send to the public and your stakeholders.

• Are there links in the email? Follow these links. How long does it take to download the page? Would you wait that long?
• What does the page look like? Can people read it? Are there targets–buttons or links–that are too small to touch with a finger?
• Are you including a big splash page with a flash slide show? If someone can’t use flash (iPhone or iPad), what do they see?
• Are you asking people to complete a survey? Fill out a form? Can they do this via mobile?

Now do this same exercise with emails you send to staff.

Some marketers have reportedthat almost 1 out of 5 emails are opened on mobile devices. This number will continue to grow. So will the problem of bad email destinations.

Last question. When you are driving people to your website, are you driving them into a mobile abyss?

Discuss.

**reposted from the Mobile Gov Blog from the Office of Citizen Services & Innovative Technologies at GSA**