Responsive design options for navigation in emails

Posted by Jordie van Rijn
August 19, 2015December 5, 2016

Making the navigation responsive in mobile emails is a key area in improving usability by offering functional links to a message and guiding recipients to your site, even if they aren’t receptive to the particular message or offer in the message itself. Today, on average, half of all emails are opened on a mobile device so it’s critical to ensure they are easy to read and interact with whichever device they are being viewed on. Thanks to responsive email techniques you can choose different email design patterns when it comes to navigation. Reduce the number of items When you look at the mobile version of an email, the first tactic that comes to mind is to reduce the number of…

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Outlook for iOS – the user experience

Posted by Mike Parry
February 3, 2015April 24, 2015

So here at display block we’ve taken the time to do a user experience piece by @mikepickn on the new Outlook for iOS. @omgitsonlyalex has also looked at it from a technical perspective here. I have taken a few days to use and get to know Outlook for iOS and I am glad I have. When I first downloaded it I had the real feeling that it was a solution for a problem that didn’t exist. iOS had it’s own tool, mail that was indigenous to the product and built on the iOS system. It was a tool fit for purpose. This was further compounded when I tried to set up my work email account and having never used an…

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Keeping up with the mobile Joneses

Posted by Tony Macpherson
November 19, 2014June 8, 2016

As email marketers, it’s easy to become trapped in the focus of what our company is doing and how best to reach people we want to sell our products and services to. But it’s important to hop over the fence now and then and try and understand how people shop now. I read recently that, on average, only 3% of people that visit websites buy. The good news is that leaves a whopping 97% that can be converted into paying customers. So what can you do you bump up the numbers? As always, it’s about making the journey from initial interest to purchase as quick and easy as possible, but taking into account that there are added distractions creating break…

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Tapping potential – email click through rates

Posted by Tony Macpherson
September 11, 2014April 24, 2015

With 60% of emails being opened on mobile devices, we all want as many people as possible to tap links and visit our websites. So, what can you do to encourage people to get tapping? Email design is key and should be all about clear communication. Your message should be both precise and concise in our overloaded and fragmented digital World. Email click through rates can be improved by adopting the following actions; Don’t think, feel Our reactions to most things aren’t driven by thinking, they are driven by emotions with desire and fear usually right at the top of the list. Tapping on an image is easy if we see something we want. Equally, a fear of missing out…

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Top 10 things to consider when building responsive email.

Posted by Josh Green
July 30, 2014April 24, 2015

Your users Having a good understanding of who your subscribers are and knowing what types of devices they use is obviously the most important thing. You should not only understand who your users are but consider whether they have the latest devices or possibly only read emails on the desktop. Most email broadcasting platforms these days give a device breakdown. This is important but it is also worth remembering that most people use more than one device to check their emails. What are you trying to achieve? This is a question that relates to all email but is especially relevant when it comes to responsive email. Some marketing managers are too keen to hide vast swathes of the email, wrongly…

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image showing responsive email building blocks

Responsive email 101, make it legible on a phone

Posted by Mike Parry
July 24, 2014April 24, 2015

I think we all agree that people look at their phones a lot, I think we all agree that they are looking at your emails on their phones, the numbers are compelling and all retailers are seeing in excess of 50% of their opens on devices, most b2b’ers are seeing 30% plus, the jury are in and the verdict is people are looking at your email on their device. The question then is not are they looking but what sort if experience is your brand giving them? Truth be told, with most marketers it is a less than perfect user experience. Low res images, text over images, text that isn’t “live”, email that is poorly designed for devices, a one…

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Calls-to-action. What are they and how can I use them effectively?

Posted by Josh Green
July 22, 2014April 24, 2015

What is a call-to-action? In email marketing a call-to-action (usually abbreviated as CTA) is a button, banner or some type of graphic or text meant to encourage a user to click. The action you want people to take could be anything: purchasing items to booking hotels and attending events. Calls-to-action are common place not only in email marketing but on websites, ebooks and even at the end of blog posts. Email newsletters should have some sort of call-to-action, a response you want readers to complete. But how do you encourage users to act? How do you create an effective call-to-action? Here are a few quick, essential tips for creating a quality CTA. Striking design For a reader to click on…

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We deserve a better user experience

Posted by Mike Parry
July 2, 2014April 24, 2015

More than half of all email opens we see are now on mobile devices, not just for the cool young peoples brands but for pretty much everyone – mobile has overtaken the desktop and the trend is continuing. Every retail and travel client we work with see over 50% of their emails opened on mobile devices, so why do so many businesses continue to send emails which, on a phone don’t render properly, with text too small to read and images that aren’t optimised? Why do they make it difficult to tap links, make their customers do the finger and thumb wave to read their message, pixelate their images and get lost in their copy? In essence why are they…

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Necessary elements of a great email design.

Posted by Josh Green
June 26, 2014April 24, 2015

You can usually tell if an email has been well designed as it lands in your inbox. If the designer and coder has done their job well you will immediately be aware of a few things. The email is legible without the use of images. The text content is actual text and not hidden within an image. This is good for a number of reasons but mainly it allows the user to engage with the email immediately. The email will also employ colour in the spaces where images should be. This type of image-off optimisation encourages readers to enable images, see the email in all of its glory and continue reading. If the email is well designed the alt text…

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mobile marketing

Recommended reading – how to make emails more useful

Responsive design options for navigation in emails

Outlook for iOS – the user experience

Keeping up with the mobile Joneses

Tapping potential – email click through rates

Top 10 things to consider when building responsive email.

Responsive email 101, make it legible on a phone

Calls-to-action. What are they and how can I use them effectively?

We deserve a better user experience

Necessary elements of a great email design.