As with every Apple event, the Apple Watch announcement is – deservedly or not – one of the most hyped tech conferences of the year. Smart watches have been done before. They haven’t performed too well, either. There are serious questions about whether the Apple Watch will be a success or a failure, if it will redefine wearable technology or turn into another Google Glass.
But, if it’s possible, let’s put aside that debate for a second and focus on something else: the impact that this kind of wearable technology is going to have on email marketing.
The Wearable Era
Even if the Apple Watch doesn’t sell 20 million units this year as some optimists are expecting, it’s going to have a core group of early adopters. Imitators will learn from Apple’s model and try out new ways and new wearables.
Wearable technology is going to fundamentally change our relationship with everything on our screens… and this has very important implications for email.
How can email marketers create effective emails when people are looking at them on their wrist? How are people going to treat their inboxes when they’re accessing them as if they’re just checking the time?
Responsive design in email means a lot more than just appearance and usability on mobile devices – it means thinking about mobile behavior, too. Whether it takes the world by storm or not, the Apple Watch is a chance for email marketers to finally acknowledge that.
Time and Time Again
Email marketers know that their emails are getting opened on mobile devices – our own mobile research pegged that number at 67%. Despite the predominance of mobile email, however, Salesforce’s 2015 State of Marketing report found that 42% of marketers said they “rarely or never” designed responsive emails.
You think emails that aren’t mobile-optimized are hard to use on smartphones? Imagine trying to navigate one on a watch.
The Apple Watch is a sign of things to come. By 2020, 80% of adults are going to own a smartphone. Wearables will be hitting the market in rapid succession, along with connected devices like refrigerators, coffee machines, and cars. The Internet of Things will become so ubiquitous that we won’t even think about “logging on” or “signing in” to email inboxes – we will just take a look at them, wherever and whenever we want, on the device of our choosing.
Designing emails that can dynamically change to accommodate the screens of laptops, tablets, phones, and watches is just the first step. The bigger challenge for marketers will be building emails that can accommodate the behavior of recipients.
It will be much different to engage someone who’s checking email on a watch as opposed to a desktop. Your campaigns will have to know which device type is being used to access the email and react in real-time.
If someone sees an interesting email on a watch or a smartphone and saves it for later, that same email should present an optimized, relevant, real-time experience when they check it again on a laptop.
Responding, with Context
Designing for a connected, multi-device world means redefining responsive as we know it today. Email marketers have to create emails that are useful in the moment to recipients – but how? And what kinds of opportunities are there for emails that become responsive to not just mobile device, but mobile behavior, too?
Read Part Two of our take on the Apple Watch here.
Want to learn more about taking responsive design to the next level?
Download Re:New Responsive Email Strategies and you’ll learn:
– How customers are using mobile devices today
– How marketers need to think of “responsive” in a mobile-first world
– Five different ways you can create next-generation responsive emails
