Email marketers have had mixed reactions to the dramatic increase of individuals who read their email on mobile phones.

Over the years, marketers have established all kinds of “best practices” for email marketing: subject lines, action points, content requirements and image use have all been under scrutiny

The question is, does the dramatic rise of people accessing email via mobiles change the rules? What is the best way to deal with the limited real estate offered by different types of mobile devices? And what about mobile devices that don’t display HTML mails?

What’s the problem anyway?

Email marketing has surely changed. Some emails now have all of the design glow and appeal of award-winning websites, with beautiful graphics, creative subject lines, dynamic content and compelling calls-to-action. Throw mobile email access into the mix, however, and it may seem that all of this effort has gone to waste.

Between limited screen space and varying HTML displays, the most carefully crafted email may fall short.

The increased commoditization of smartphones means that mobile email use increased by 36 percent in the three months ending in November 2010.

How are we accessing email?

In addition, mobile phones have changed how and when individuals access email. Xobni reports that 19 percent of mobile email users check their email while in bed.

• People check their email on mobiles between 5 am and 8 am and then between 4 pm and 5 pm
• People don’t read email on mobiles, they scan
• People are less likely to click on links via their email

As mobile technology changes and develops, it’s hard to keep up with the predictions or decide what to do with email marketing strategy.

What does this mean?

Mobile smartphone adoption continues to increase at unprecedented rates, and accompany mobile email use are moving with it. At first glance it looks like we all have to create tiny templates with a couple of words in plain text to accommodate the change. But what it really means is we need to make smart choices based on our target audiences and their real needs and requirements.

Don’t worry

The newest email applications for mobile increasingly accommodate emails as do many smartphone screens. It’s not business as usual, but more a matter of creating emails with mobile in mind.

Doing it better

There are some best practices that can take the panic out of this trend. Consider the following best practices.

Don’t under-design. Your kneejerk reaction may be to create the simplest, plainest email ever. Keep in mind that mobile users will check their email again on their PC. You may lose content impact if you over-simplify.

Offer a mobilefriendly URL. A link to a plain-text version can often solve the problem of viewing for mobile devices that don’t support HTML.

Provide alternative text for images. Since many mobile email programs don’t display images, make sure that important images have meaningful alt text that captures the image.

Write a meaningful subject line/ preheader. Summarize your key messages using this text, since it will give readers a clear idea of what is included in the email.

Control your links. Limit how crowded links are in your email message to ensure that even the biggest fingers can open links. (Sometimes a single actionable link has more impact.)

In addition, include these links at the top of your email so that readers have the opportunity to respond without reading the entire mail.