It's more important that marketers optimize web content for mobile readers, including both technical aspects and the messages themselves.

Brands that ignore mobile will be left behind, according to a Constant Contact study. Around 80 percent of surveyed consumers say it’s extremely important that emails render correctly on mobile devices. If web content doesn’t properly display on smartphones or tablets, 75 percent said they’d delete them. This means marketers who fail to consider mobile are drastically reducing their content ROI opportunities.

“The fact of the matter is that consumers are opening emails on their phones first with increasing regularity,” said Jim Garretson, Constant Contact’s mobile product manager. In fact, the study found that 88 percent of 18- to-30-year-olds read emails on mobile devices, including 82 percent of iPhone users and 72 percent of Android and other smartphone owners. It’s important to note that mobile optimization is not just about effective technical integration that ensures emails are visible on smaller screens. It’s also about adjusting content to meet users’ needs.

“The great thing about mobile emails is that shorter content and fewer calls to action actually perform better than complicated and dense messaging,” Garretson added.

88 percent of 18- to-30-year-olds read emails on mobile devices.

Mobile consumers may not scroll through a long-form email to reach CTA buttons at the bottom of messages while reading on the go. It’s crucial that marketers anticipate these restraints and adapt email content to match recipients’ behavior.

The same principle applies to news updates intended for mobile audiences. Brafton recently covered a study from the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RUI) at the University of Missouri, which found the majority of consumers (regardless of age demographic) read articles on mobile devices. People between the ages of 35 and 44 represent the highest saturation of smartphone news consumption at 73 percent, followed closely behind by every age bracket besides the 65+ crowd, of which only 35 percent read stories on the web.

To ensure brand messages are read – and not deleted – marketers must consider audience preferences and use content analytics for benchmarks. If email open rates are tanking, it may be time to consider a new approach that breaks online content into smaller sections that are easy to read at a glance.

Lauren Kaye is a Marketing Editor at Brafton Inc. She studied creative and technical writing at Virginia Tech before pursuing the digital frontier and finding content marketing was the best place to put her passions to work. Lauren also writes creative short fiction, hikes in New England and appreciates a good book recommendation.