Remember the adage, “You have seven seconds to grab their attention?” For us ad folk, this originated around radio and TV, then morphed into the mantra for print, and eventually web. But thanks to Steve Jobs et al, seven seconds now feels like seven minutes. Actually, Litmus.com says 51% of recipients delete your email within two seconds of opening it. People are busy, folks. That’s one reason why you’ll be hearing “mobile first” even more loudly in 2017. So when we sit down to design and develop emails, designers need to focus on designing for mobile, then expanding that to desktop. The challenge in 2017 is catching your audience in that crucial fraction of time it takes to swipe up. Having design that looks good and works on smartphones is what’s going to make that difference.
-Damon Dycus, Web Developer