Going Mobile With Email

Every successful retailer uses email to communicate with their customers and prospects to keep their brand top of mind. In 2021, 42% of email opens occurred on mobile devices, with the average user having their device in their possession for 5,840 hours a year. Brands must optimize their strategy for this mobile-first world, which also includes delivering a frictionless experience for today’s cross-channel consumers.

The Key is Orchestration

At Listrak, our retail clients know it’s more than just email. Today, they are orchestrating cross-channel journeys. When a retailer communicates with a consumer in the channel they most recently engaged with you in, conversation rates significantly increase. And when multiple channels are used – take email and SMS, we see:

• 10-30% higher CLV when subscribed to both email and SMS vs just one channel
• 15% more orders
• 10% higher average order value

A significant piece of orchestrating and optimizing the channels is integrating all the data into one platform. When you use disparate vendors for acquisition (Email, SMS, Identity, and Push) the engagement and browse data do not always sync properly or in real time, which can cause lousy marketing experiences.

Have you received the same email and SMS message a few minutes apart? Have you engaged on one device/channel, purchased, and then gotten a cart abandonment message on the other device/channel? At Listrak, retailers and brands partner with us to fix that. Our single platform synchronizes interactions across channels via Journey Hub, connecting customer data and driving higher revenue with a lower total cost of ownership. Look out for features and functionalities like these when choosing your email marketing provider to ensure you offer the most seamless experience to mobile customers.

Collecting Zero- and First-Party Data is a Must

Another change over the years – and one that every marketer is navigating today – is customer privacy, specifically the ongoing third-party cookie deprecation, lockdown on app tracking, Apple’s Email privacy feature, and more. All of these changes are causing almost 70% of the data marketers had previously relied on for targeting to be either less impactful or obsolete. The answer? Focus on ‘Owned Channels’ such as Email, SMS, and Push and target consumers who have explicitly permitted you to market to them using their browsing and engagement data (zero-party and first-party data). When you strengthen your commitment towards your owned channels and those customer interactions, the less external disruption you’ll experience.

Marketers today must prioritize data capture at acquisition to learn as much about new customers as possible to ultimately keep them. Use the following strategies and tactics to identify and collect as much data from every person who interacts with you.

1. As much as 95% of your website traffic is anonymous, so work to identify and collect data from every person who comes to your site, such as with Listrak’s GXP, to personalize the shopping experience and accelerate purchases with targeted communications and offers.
2. Capture both email and mobile numbers with a two-step, intent-based, responsive pop-up. Based on your brand and consumer behavior, determine your optimal cadence – asking for email first followed by SMS, or vice versa.
3. Target your mobile traffic and capture SMS subscribers with tools that make sign-up quick and easy such as Listrak’s Tap-to-Join pop-up which enables a simple “tap” and autofill of the shortcode.
4. Make the data collection fun and interactive using gamification. You’ll grow your list and collect more data for future personalization and recommendations. Read how a Listrak client discovered a new target audience to grow.

Best Practices to Boost Mobile Commerce Sales

For any brand looking to succeed on mobile, your email program must be mobile-optimized too. You need to make it easy and enticing for shoppers to get from their mobile inbox to your website. Follow these best practices to create your most engaging emails.

Design for Mobile

If your emails are not designed to be mobile-responsive, you may be neglecting a whole segment of your audience. Your text might be too small to read, images pixelated, or buttons un-clickable. Fortunately, you can optimize your emails for mobile with just a few simple tweaks.

1. Consider your layout – A single-column layout will be much easier to read on mobile devices. Stack elements like category buttons and product recommendations where appropriate.
2. Make sure it scales for readability – Use live text and retina (high-definition) images. Don’t forget to test for mobile responsiveness on the smallest screens in use.
3. Ensure mobile elements are easy to tap – Buttons and inputs should be at least 44px in all directions.
4. Make copy easily scannable – Respect your customers’ time by chunking copy, using clear headlines, and putting the most important content up top.
5. Use A/B testing – Experiment and find out what works best to convert your mobile users.

Get Personal

71% of consumers expect personalization, and this is even more important on their mobile device. Build relationships with your subscribers and focus your content on what they’re most likely to engage with using zero- and first-party data.

1. Include personalized, dynamic product recommendations that make it easy for shoppers to find exactly what they want or need.
2. Segment your list and send targeted messages based on browse or purchase history.
3. Create automated emails that can bring the shopper right back to their cart for checkout or back to a product they were browsing.

Cross-Channel Optimization

Build a seamless experience with your marketing strategy. Your emails should feel like you in order to establish trust with your subscribers and elevate your messaging from your other channels, such as website, social, SMS, and web push.

1. Send targeted emails to segments of your audience that interact with content from other channels to boost the effectiveness of your message.
2. Examine your email data to find out what mobile users are interacting with most in your messages. Use that information to guide your strategy for other channels.
3. Run a re-engagement campaign encouraging dormant email subscribers to engage with your other channels if preferable, so you can reach them where they want to be engaged.

Closing

In 2023 and beyond, email will continue to be an essential channel for boosting your mobile commerce sales. Furthermore, a focus on subscriber growth and building relationships with your mobile subscribers across channels (Email, SMS, Identity, and Push), and across devices, will lead them to conversion and your business’s continued success.

Reach out to Listrak for more guidance on how to deliver a seamless cross-channel customer experience and generate year-over-year revenue growth.

About Listrak

Listrak’s customer engagement platform is trusted by 1000+ Retailers and Brands for best-in-class Email, Text Message Marketing, Identity Resolution, Recommendations, and Analytics. Its single platform personalizes every interaction at scale to engage shoppers and drive unprecedented growth with the power of unified data. www.listrak.com