Responsive Email Design - Stick or Twist?

Every thing's going Mobile. Well actually that's not quite the case for email design.

With the numbers for how many emails are being opened on mobile ever increasing, Litmus suggesting over 40%  you would think that brands would be jumping on their digital teams to ensure that their email designs were responsive.

But look at your emails on your smartphone and take a look to see how many are optimised for that screen. Not many I'd suggest

So why is that?

Is it because brands believe that email has no future ?

Well according to Radicati that might be a mistake with their recent report claiming that the number of worldwide email accounts is expected to increase from over 3.9 billion accounts in 2013 to over 4.9 billion by year-end 2017 and actually marketers are expecting growth in email alongside other digital channels

Maybe its because even with the use of Media Queries that still won't cover all the various operating systems out there including versions of Blackberry , Microsoft and even Mobile apps such as Gmail ( check out the list at Campaign Monitor)

Or is it because the open or click through rates done seem to vary too much whether you bother with an optimised design or not? 

That's what Tim Watson from Zettasphere seems to suggest with this chart take from his report produced in conjunction with Communicator Corp




So we should stick?

Or should we twist?

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” – Oscar Wilde

To be honest only you can answer because only you know your brand and your audience.

Some questions to ask yourself

• How many of my customers are opening on mobile devices?
• Which devices?
• How well do my emails work on those devices based on what I'm asking my customers to do when receiving the email?
• What would it cost me to redesign to make my emails mobile friendly?
• What would it cost me to make them mobile optimised?
• What will lose as part of any redesign and making my emails simpler?

..and the biggest one of all..

• how much will my customers thank me for improving their overall experience?