Don’t let a smartphone make you look stupid — especially to a valued client or hot prospect!

When sending email communication including email newsletters and eFliers, it is important to consider that roughly 35 percent of business professionals check email on a mobile device. And that percentage is swelling as smartphone display screens increase in size and clarity and as mobile Internet connection speeds improve. In fact, a mobile email study by Return Path released May 17, 2011, revealed an 81 percent growth in mobile email viewership. This growth, coupled with the popularity of tablet devices like the iPad, adds another critical layer to the email design process.

Today’s email marketer must take extra steps to ensure that email communication is effectively displayed no matter the format. There are a variety of tips and tricks to consider when designing email communication for the mobile user.

• Pay particular attention to the width of an email to avoid making mobile users scroll from side to side to read the email’s content. Specific HTML code can ensure that your newsletter width automatically adjusts to the display width of the device on which it is viewed.
• Offer a link so the entire email can be viewed as a webpage instead of an email.
• Avoid small or highly detailed graphics that lose their clarity or meaning when displayed on a small screen.

“The art of ‘designing for the small screen’ may prove to be evolving to the art of designing for the reader on the go,” said Bryan Dreller, product manager at Return Path. “While still critical to the email design process, rendering quality itself is still secondary to sending the right message at the right time.”