Marketing & search · Practice guide

Make campaign emails easy to read on a phone

Illustrative situation

A campaign looks tidy on a large monitor, but its key sentence is embedded in an image and the booking button is difficult to use on a phone. Many people read emails quickly on small screens. If the central message exists only inside a picture, or the main link is hard to use, the design can get in the way of the action you want readers to take.

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Healthcare marketing calendar, campaign materials and a laptop showing anonymous charts.
Help the right people find your service and take a useful next step.

What this means for your practice

Test the reading sequence with images unavailable and at a narrow width. Make the core message and action understandable in ordinary text.

An example to discuss with your team

Disable image loading in a test message and follow the main action using only its text. Confirm the destination still matches the message.

Healthcare marketing planning with an editorial calendar, audience question and campaign brief.
Start with the audience question and a clear content brief.
Healthcare marketing enquiry journey connecting a service page, message and appointment calendar.
Connect the public promise to a supported next step.

What to discuss with your agency

Ask the agency to send a test email and review it with images unavailable. Can you still understand the offer and next step? Try the main link on a phone-sized layout and check its destination. Keep important wording as ordinary text so the message does not depend entirely on decorative artwork.

Put the brief into practice

Review the email in the conditions readers are likely to encounter: a narrow screen, a quick scan and images that may not be visible. Essential wording should remain readable as text, with links that describe their purpose. Ask the agency to explain the intended reading order and check whether decorative sections interrupt it. Use a representative set of test clients agreed with the team rather than assume a single desktop preview covers every presentation. Follow the main action through to the destination and try to complete the promised step.

A readable email still fails its purpose if the linked page is difficult to use on the same device. Record defects by template so recurring problems can be fixed once at the source. Keep imagery useful but proportionate, and check that any text baked into an image is not the only place important conditions appear. The aim is a message whose meaning survives ordinary reading variations, not merely a screenshot that looks polished in the designer's preferred view.

How to check the result

Record defects found in pre-send checks and recurring issues by template.

Turn reading into a next step

Your action checklist

Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.

Checks to discuss

Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.

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Further reading

These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.

Related guides

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