Still, with mobile marketers gaining a few years of experience on their belts, mobile as a marketing destination remains somewhat of a mystery. People have a comfortable idea of how to use it, but there are few completely solid mobile campaigns. It is a difficult thing to understand, being such a huge platform, but in time all the answers will fall into place. For now though, let’s take a look at a recent study from BlueHornet, which serves as the email marketing branch of Digital River, a global ecommerce solutions provider. The study looks at the results of a survey of over 1,000 American mobile users, who were asked about their mobile email experiences.
The number of people that actually open and read emails, and convert those opens to actual purchases straight from their mobile devices, seems to be on the up. However, there are still many mobile users that delete marketing emails on their mobile devices without even reading a single word. So, the biggest problem for mobile email marketers persists.
To be more precise about the numbers, a total of 43 percent of mobile consumers stated that they do in fact read the majority of the emails that they receive on their mobile devices, even from businesses. Of those who do read their emails, 74 percent stated that they actually use their mobile emails to show discounts to store cashiers as a sort of coupon. More importantly, 63 percent of those surveyed said that they are more likely to make a purchase upon receiving a mobile email and they are likely to do so on the mobile device itself. These consumers do have expectations of mobile email marketers though, with 75 percent stating that they want to see offers and deals in the emails that they receive from companies.
Now, here comes the issue. Last year, a whopping 70 percent of those surveyed said that they will delete an email simply because of how it appears, and they will do so immediately. This year, however, the number jumped to 80 percent, as people expect more and more from marketing emails. Consumers know what they want when they receive marketed emails, now so more than last year it appears.
What is BlueHornet trying to tell us with this report? Well you have probably guessed it by now, but the key for success with mobile is optimization. In the case of email, things have to be taken even more seriously with mobile, as a smaller screen means less room to pull consumers in. Marketers and retailers have to offer more to the mobile user with emails, and not simply bombard their inboxes until they happen to open one. From the report, we can see that users want offers, they want discounts, and they want to know that they are there before they even open the email. Clearly, mobile email can be very affective, considering the amount of people that do use it regularly, but it does take a bit of effort from the marketer as well.
