Getting too many emojis from Nana? They aren’t gonna stop anytime soon—and I love it. Grandparents of this day and age have become increasingly tech savvy and are beginning to explore all the wonders of the iPhone world. Many send emojis, stay up late on Candy Crush, virtually coupon clip in their mobile inbox, and some even try their hand on Tinder… yikes. If they’re trying so hard to keep up with the Joneses, we should too. It’s time to reimagine your mobile email marketing designs and make sure they are legible on a mobile device for Grandma’s viewing pleasure. A lot of people refer to mobile email design as mobile friendly, mobile responsive, responsive design, etc., but for the most part, it just means emails that are easy to comprehend on a mobile device. There are actually a few categorizations of mobile email design:

• Mobile-Aware Design: For this type of design, you format for mobile across the board. You design the email for how you would want to view it on a mobile device. So in this case, it may look a bit XL on desktop. You use larger fonts, stacked images, and text, nothing side by side. In other words, the email template’s layout is the same on both mobile and desktop.

• Responsive Design: This is the most common form of mobile style design. It is when an email is coded in HTML to render differently on a mobile device than it does on a desktop. Typically, there are rules written in the code to scale up the font size on mobile, stack the images so the don’t shrink, and call-to-action buttons are enlarged. Basically, it is a controlled formatting and layout that adjusts when viewed on mobile vs. desktop.

• Responsive Aware Design: This is the most customized design when speaking about mobile styles. In this case, the HTML can be edited to render two completely different layouts when switching between mobile and desktop. You can remove the navigation bar and then move it to the bottom on mobile only, and you can cut out certain text modules, change CTA button text, etc. Basically, the world is your oyster with a responsive aware design.

If you don’t have the resources or budget available to have your designs coded in a responsive design or responsive aware design template, there is always to option to do a mobile-aware design the first time around! Remember, Grandma’s love to spoil their loved ones, but they won’t buy your product if they can’t read your emails!

Ready to fully charge your mobile marketing strategy? Access our white paper on the mobile marketing mix!