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Issues relating to Email Content specifically around email marketing/campaigning.
Which of the platforms are the future of mobile? – smartphone trends.
21 year ago
I came across statcounter.com earlier this week which collects stats on web browser/OS, screen resolution etc. All the basic stuff you find in web server logs but analyised and the data made freely available to anyone who wishes to view it.
In terms of sample size, statscounter.com have circa 16.3 billion web hits each month which they analyse and segment by country.
What I found interesting on the site was their mobile vs desktop graph which shows that 12 months ago 98.85% of all web hits within the sample came from desktop computers where as now its only 96.19%, what fills the gap? Mobile. Mobile usage is growing (1.15% of hits 12 months ago, now 3.81% of all web traffic sampled) and no doubt you will have seen countless blog articles about how important mobile is likely to be in your future marketing mix. Some of this trend will doubtlessly be due to the rise in social networking which is already fully integrated to mobiles devices like iPhone, iPad, Andriod, blackberry etc. but consumers email usage patterns are also changing. At least 5% of all email received is now read on mobile devices (Source: Gauge April 2010).
This got me thinking, what’s the trend within mobile itself? Which devices are growing?, which are fizzling out? and what is the future of mobile likely to be? Conveniently statscounter also had the answer.
Figure 1. All mobile platform usage over period 2009-10 to 2010-10
So what does figure one show? It shows traditional mobile operating systems like symbian (Nokia), Sony Ericsson and Samsung OS are on the decline whilst the new generation BlackBerry (RIM), Android and iPhone unsurprisingly are rapidly being adopted. So which of these are growing the fastest?
Figure 2. New Generation smartphone adoption over 12 months.
A week ago thenextweb.com posted an article on the US sales figures of these three big players for the 3rd quarter of this year. Their findings were that some 43.6% of smartphones sold in the US in the third quarter of 2010 were Android devices. Apple sold only 26.2% of the total US smartphones for the three month period. In terms of units thats 9.1 million Android units were sold vs 5.5 million Apple smartphones, whilst Microsoft managed to sell 3% of the overall market with their phone 7 offering.
This tallys quite well to the actual web traffic figures that statscounter.com publish, in the last 12 months blackberry has gone from 9% to 18% of traffic, a doubling in web traffic market share. Apple however has shrunk in its presence from 30% to 23%. Although more iPhone units are being adopted each day, iPhone adoption as a percentage is dropping. Losing out to blackberry and massively to Android which according to thenextweb.com is selling nearly double the number of phones in the US and whos smartphone web usage has shot up from 2.5% to 10.5% in 12 months, that’s an increase of over 400%.
Don’t expect this to slow either, as more handset manufacturers see the power that Android offers both their consumers and them as manufacturers more are and will continue to adopt android. Infact some of the lower end phones are now coming with Android OS installed.
What does this mean for marketers?
- Develop your mobile marketing apps across the three main platforms.
If you are thinking about creating a new app to promote your brand, make sure you develop it across all three platforms, and especially consider developing for Andoid, the smartphone marketplace is no longer a 1 horse race consisting of iPhones and as time goes on less of your potential customers will have access to your app if you don’t go multi platform.
- Test your emails on mobile
You likely already test your marketing emails on various webmail clients, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc. You should start testing on mobile devices too, how does your email look to the 5% and growing people who are opening your email on their phones?
- Consider investing in mobile marketing.There are many geosocial applications out on the market place now like facebook places, foursquare, geomium. which allow you to target people based on their location, if they are near one of your shops, let them know why they should visit. More and more potential customers going forward will have the capability to receive this form of advertisement as smartphones continue to be adopted in large numbers.
Further update: March 2011 figures briefly reviewed.
Updated Gmail via Safari on the iPad
11 year ago
If you have been using your iPad to check your Gmail account you will have noticed that recently Gmail has changed to give you a full compose window rather than having a split screen between the inbox and compose screens.
Google have updated the Gmail website to detect iPad’s and to hide the inbox messages on the side and make more of the compose screen which is now visible immediately.
Below: The iPad showing the new Gmail compose window.
To try out Gmail on the iPad, just go to gmail.com in Safari. Please note that the new interface is only available in US English at the moment and google have not confirmed plans to roll this out in other languages.
How will the new Apple iPad impact email marketers?
01 year ago
On the day before the launch of the Apple iPad in the UK, Email Manual shares a couple of thoughts on what impact it may have on email marketing in the future.
Target audience
Lets think for a moment about the iPad’s target audience, business or home user?
Without a doubt the iPad’s target market is predominately the home user. Likewise their mac’s, mac books and iPhones are aimed at home users. Yes sure there are business users, but predominantly the target market and where Apple excel most is the home user.
What does this mean for email marketers?
The iPad is designed to be mobile, this allows home users to use it sitting comfortably on the sofa browsing or whilst commuting and enables them to email and use apps whilst relaxed. It is not designed to be used at a desk, for answering email after email and therefore the user is likely to be more relaxed and have more time to absorb your brand message. If a user opens their email they are less likely to be short of time and more likely to engage with the content provided its relevant and targeted to them. Arguably mobile devices offer the same and for sure mobile use of email is increasing month on month but the iPad offers an unparaelled experience where the web is not compromised by smaller screens, incompatible webpages and emails and consequently we expect to see higher engagement on the iPad than the current mobile devices.
HTML 5 Standards Support including video in email
The iPad uses the standard apple webkit to render emails, this means that if you currently test your emails on Apple Mac’s or iPhones your email is likely to display identically in the iPad as it uses the same rendering engine.
In addition to supporting modern web standards the iPad offers images on be default as soon as an email is opened, and even in the preview pane. For email marketers this means opens are tracked from the moment the email is displayed within the large preview screen without having to have the user click or enable images for your email.
The apple webkit also has HTML 5 support, which along with being able to render images on the fly has native video support. Yes, this means video in email without using third party products such as goodmail certified video or having to use a streaming server and relaying on third party components being installed remotely on the device displaying the webpage or email.
Size of the market
Within 12 months of the iPhone launch the market penetration grew to be over 4% of people using email. Most of these people combine their use with another device but if your email didnt look interesting to start with on the iPhone the chances are it got deleted and never reached the PC/Mac which traditionally you may well have been designing for.
If iPad usage grows in a similar fashion we may well find that close to 10% of all emails we send will either be opened by an iPad or other mobile device users. The Email Manual advise is that you start testing your emails on mobile devices as this is becoming a huge proportion of your potential customer base and if your emails don’t work properly on these sorts of clients you are likely to find the subscriber emotionally unsubscribing from your emails. Emotional unsubscribes result in more spam complaints, less converted prospects and ultimately less revenue from your email marketing campaigns.
Do you have an Apple iPad already? Would love to hear your feedback specifically around how it handles email.