Mobile e-mail is a useful marketing tool if done right, study says

Because mobile e-mail users rarely act on commercial e-mail messages directly on a handheld device, marketers need to design mobile e-mail in a way that generates follow-up viewing on a laptop or desktop computer, ExactTarget says in a new study.

The study, “Email Marketing for the Third Screen,” found that only 54% of respondents had ever clicked on a web link in a commercial e-mail received on a mobile device, but that 88% routinely review e-mails on a laptop or desktop computer after first noticing them on a handheld. The study was based on a survey of more than 4,000 mobile phone users and conducted by ExactTarget’s Morgan Stewart, director of strategic services, and R.J. Talyor, e-mail strategist.

"While computers remain the predominant method for viewing e-mail, the growing popularity and increasing affordability of mobile devices such as the Blackberry, Motorola`s Q and the Treo is beginning to impact e-mail marketing," Stewart says. "As mobile e-mail technology rapidly changes, so do user habits.”

The study suggests that marketers can send the most effective mobile e-mail by designing “brief, interesting messages” in both HTML and text-only versions of multi-part MIME, or multi-purpose Internet mail extensions. MIME is an e-mail format used to send multiple types of content, including graphics and video files. By combining MIME content with brief, attention-grabbing messages, marketers are more likely to get recipients to recall a commercial message for later review on a laptop or desktop, ExactTarget says.

Using multiple forms of content helps to overcome the tendency of some content to render poorly on mobile devices, the study adds. The study notes that e-mail text-only content renders properly 50-60% of the time when a multi-part e-mail message appears on a mobile device, but that including text-only content helps to overcome the tendency of HTML content to appear garbled.

"There is no simple solution or magic wand to mobile e-mail marketing," Stewart says. "By sending brief text messages intended to generate follow up on laptops and desktops, marketers can alleviate some of the challenges to mobile e-mail."

The study notes that most mobile e-mail users are 18 to 44 years old, affluent and highly educated. But while 72% of users have a household income of $100,000 or higher, the decreasing cost and wider selection of web-enabled phones are attracting a wider demographic audience, it adds.