At the heart of any email marketing campaign, there’s a key element that stands out – the customer-focused experience. Delivering the right message, to the right people, at the right time matters the most when using this approach to boost the bottom line. In theory, this might seem easy to attain; in practice, however, things a lot more challenging than meets the eye. During the rise of the almighty social media phenomenon, email marketing was completely forgotten, declared uncool, under-resourced and even pronounced dead by some people. However, things are changing. Email marketing is now in the center of attention once again because it has turned into an efficient mobile strategy.
Reading emails is a fundamental activity on smart devices, and increasingly more people use their tablets and smartphones to access their email, rather than a laptop or a computer. Thanks to a growing adoption of responsive email design, companies are starting to see email marketing with a fresh pair of eyes. The email industry is going through a notable integration phase. ESPs are currently being included into resource planning and customer relationship management (CRM) suites. Email marketing is not just a top-tier digital advertising channel, but also an important source of information for analytics. It doesn’t have great potential on its own; however, the data it can generate helps power up additional marketing efforts through actionable data insights.
Email Marketing Trends
Here are 5 trends that will completely redefine the way we look at email marketing in the following 12 months.Click To Tweet1. Hyper targeted emails will go mainstream
When people connect to their favorite brands, they want the experience to be unique; and even personalized. Considering that a user base keeps growing, it is becoming difficult for companies to cope with that many “fans”. Dealing with thousands (or in some cases, millions) of email conversions is just too difficult for company teams because they’re nearly impossible to manage on time. Fortunately, there’s email automation ready to be used. This new technology permits HR departments to create and send personal messages (even though they’re automated). An automated message system makes use of a special software to assess behavior. This guarantees that the message you’re about to send out to your customers is engaging, relevant and useful.
Automation tools are advancing pretty fast, and there’s a high probability for them to become fundamental when marketing a business. This means marketers will have more than a few ways to use them creatively. Products and apps will feature even better integration, thus allowing marketers to send out emails that depend on in-app behavior, as well as additional interactions. There will also be an expanding trigger list to allow startups to deliver targeted messaged that depend on a wealth of details; these will be completely personalized and will feature a greater contextual meaning.
2. Limitless control over email templates
Modular template designs will dominate email marketing this 2016. In case you don’t know what modular templates designs are, picture this: a building block made of Legos that you can rearrange, fix and then use to suit your needs and requirements. The goal of this technique is to be able to edit designs fast and effortlessly without starting from scratch; this will improve email consistency and quality. Considering that email automation has already started winning a lot o ground, it’s safe to assume that marketers will appreciate an editable alternative of their emails, where they can explore many versions of the same email template rather than start a new one.
Modular templates can be incredibly convenient. They allow marketers to keep segmenting without spending any extra cash, thus saving precious time. The content editing part will be done manually/dynamically to match each purpose and segment. In summary, modular email templates are all about relevant, personalized and timely emails for avid subscribers
3. Insane customization
2016 will be a big year for automation in the email marketing environment. Thus far, many companies have dealt with low-scale automation systems across lucrative customer experiences and touch points (e.g. welcome messages, cart abandonment). Many marketers have attained great success with these simple automated campaigns. However, there’s more and email marketers are perfectly aware that they need to perfect their skills to be sure they’re adhering to the right strategies. More time is being invested in automation as opposite to email broadcasts and scheduled campaigns. What can this mean for the average consumer? Since most of them ask for a relevant and personalized experience across all channels, the most efficient way to deliver just what they need is performed via email marketing.
4. No more coding HTML emails
Email marketing is a marketer’s most powerful channel. In the last 20 years, we’ve noticed several changes happening to email marketing – from multimedia content and text-only to desktop and mobile approaches. This 2016, on the verge of witnessing a major revolution – the death of coding emails; since email design has become so simple to perform through drag and drop, there’s really no need to code extensively to enable marketers to craft professional, attention grabbing email marketing campaigns. Advanced technology has helped us redefine the way we see email design. Today’s modern emails feature edge-to-edge designs as well as flipping screening irrespective of device and size. Modern emails now feature impressive banners with interactive, engaging content and crystal-clear calls to action; they’re a lot more relevant and they serve up the customized needs of each user.
5. Interactive emails will foster brand awareness
Genuine user interactivity embedded in powerful emails and animations beyond average GIFs (often called kinetic email) permits marketers to craft engaging and eye-catching campaigns that can make an impression on recipients. Kinetic emails are just starting out, and right now they’re in an experimental stage. They’re incredibly promising because they feature ambitious interactive designs. Famous brands such as B&Q, Pret and Ledo have already started to acknowledge the great potential of interactive emails; many agree that they have the power to alter the overall experience of someone reading an email.
Readers won’t just be able to see advanced kinetic content straight from their inbox; they’ll also be able to see that kinetic offers have relevant capabilities. They provide companies brand new opportunities to express themselves, expose their brand identity and keep customers engaged. Experienced markers argue that it’s just a matter of time before interactive emails hit the market and go mainstream.
Email marketing is a big thing, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. The strategies keep advancing and the techniques are improving, thus persuading companies to think outside the box for once and do things differently than their competitors The future of online marketing is changing, and for companies to thrive they need to adapt to those changes. In the following 12 months, we’ll see great strategies and technologies materialize in the marketing environment. Emails are now hyper-targeted, there’s a special focus centered on email automation, and personalized emails are starting to appeal to increasingly more companies around the country.
Companies can use technology to their advantage; however, if they’re not paying attention, they will hit rock bottom. In spite of the great potential of automation, this doesn’t mean you should use it to send useless emails to people in the hopes that they will buy your product. Smart email marketing is what matters the most!
Author Bio: Charles Goodwin is the writer to this article. He is a regular contributor at many sites and mainly focuses on business and marketing related topics. He also writes for a site http://romax.co.uk/ offering direct mail marketing and mail distribution services.
