3 Ways to Enhance Your Email Performance

In October 2013, email testing company Litmus reported that 48 percent of email is first opened on mobile devices. Then, this January, VentureBeat reported that 65 percent of email is first opened on mobile devices.

Sure, there are likely differences in the methodology of the two reports, but the trend cannot be denied. Mobile email open rates continue to climb, and there are major impacts of this trend on your nonprofit.

Here are three things this trend will drive your nonprofit to address should you want to continue to use email to engage and fundraise.

1. Responsively formatted emails
When you get an email from a source that has not taken the time to make sure the email is formatted properly for a phone screen and causes you to pinch and swipe to try to read the email, you likely get frustrated. Inversely, as your frustration rises with trying to read something not formatted for your phone, your interest in engaging further drops. This is how relationships suffer and end.

Make sure the email system your nonprofit uses recognizes the device opening the email and presents an optimized view. Same thing applies to your primary domain, but that’s another conversation.

2. Calls to action
Let’s say that your email renders well and is easy to navigate on a mobile phone. You’ve covered No. 1. But now you have a link in your email to a call to action to check out some content on your PC website.

Assuming you are like the majority of nonprofits and you do not have a mobile-optimized version of your primary domain like Google strongly suggests to protect your search rank, the experience of waiting, pinching and swiping illustrated previously is repeated. There is a wealth of research available that suggests people will wait in line for a burger longer than they will for your PC site to load on their phones.