Email Marketing: How Trendy are Interactive Emails?

How trendy are interactive emails in the email marketing industry?

A quarter of today’s marketers emphasize that 2017 belongs to interactive emailing. Interactivity is better defined as an action within an email; its purpose is to trigger an event or compel an action within that same email. Some of the best elements that define an interactive email are:

• Offer reveals
• Search bars
• Hamburger menus
• Image galleries
• Sliders
• Reviews
• Hot spots or product tours
• Extra functionalities within an email (e.g. add-to-cart feature)

Email interactivity brings a number of interactions that usually occur on a landing page and places them within an e-mail. By permitting actions to be taken within an associated email, the engagement barriers are reduced. The result: interactivity compels clickers to have higher intent to read emails.

How do you settle on the right email marketing campaign?

With social media setting the bar so high, it’s challenging for marketers to integrate email into their strategy. And yet, just because it’s tough to compel people to open your email, read it and take some sort of action, it doesn’t mean it’s something impossible to attain.

Challenges associated with implementing interactive emails

Interactivity is not something all subscribers agree to; however, there are some that are willing to try out something new. The best approach is to test multiple types of interactive emails. When fallbacks are adjusted properly, subscribers become more intrigued about what you have to offer. Implementing fallback could be a way to revamp your email strategy and bring more variation into the mix.

Regardless of the type of your business, you should want to know why aren’t people opening and reading your emails. But you should also want to know why they are reading. Feedback – whether positive or negative – is more than welcomed. It will help you mold and perfect your email marketing strategy. Maybe you’ve targeted the wrong people! Maybe your content is not structured properly, or maybe your emails don’t have a suitable call-to-action.

For your emails to be interactive, first they have to be beautifully crafted. You should address directly to the reader with content that is actionable and useful. A compelling subject line matters just as much as the content itself. Keep in mind that most of your prospects will want to scan the text first. In this case, attention-grabbing headlines are fundamental.

Tracking & Attribution changes

Interactivity pulls the core action a user takes when visiting a landing page and transports it into an email. Because you must preserve click rates, you must focus on engaging your prospects with something equally enticing. Most marketers are afraid to change email templates that have provided them sensible results. Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that interactivity is new trend that must be assessed very carefully.

By tracking response rates to interactive emails you can make notable changes that stir your subscribers into the right direction. If you can’t afford to invest in an automation tool for monitoring emails, go for Google Analytics. When tracking email open rates, check to see how many viewers visited your website, and clicked on the “subscribe link”. Don’t forget to segment those prospects; this will help you target them a lot better, and in the future send the right type of email to the right type of people.

BIG data customization in emails 

The right type of content, delivered to the right group of people, at the right time is the winning blend for a successful email marketing campaign. Personalization is key; to get started, the first step is to break down the information you have on your subscribers into groups. Next, assess them across all social channels and extract the data that interests you the most. Answer yourself the following question. What do they want to read? What sort of content would they want to get into their inbox?

Customization drives content, and content entices your readers. Generic emails sent in bulk are instantly marked as spam. The issue with spam messages is that you can’t know that people who get your email, don’t open them. With customization, you will be sure that your emails get open and read.

Email automation

Sending automated emails to subscribers in an attempt to drive interactivity is an ongoing trend; especially now that there are so many tools you can use to send mass emails to prospects and subscribers. Nonetheless, do not confuse email automation with bulk emailing. Done right, you can reap a lot of benefits. Once again, segmentation comes into play.

The secret to efficient email automation in the world of inbound marketing is all about crafting content that doesn’t look automated. When trying to convey a message, do it in a conventional, human-like way. Watch the tone and voice of your brand when writing, but don’t write like a robot. Treat your brand as real human being and make your emails feel authentic.

After you’ve targeted your audience, you should have them segmented in smaller categories. This strategy will help you send promos or newsletters to the right prospects. Be careful when crafting CTAs. These should relate to your content, and provide the info you emphasize in your message.

Interactive Emails: Best practices

Interactivity is everywhere on mobile devices. On a desktop, support is limited, meaning that when you design a campaign you have to assess both the content you have available and the objective. This will help you analyze how interactivity applies to your emails. Use the functionality to boost user engagement, and keep your message relevant and crystal-clear.

If the message is not clear enough, your audience might get confused. Sure, they will (or might) read your email, but they won’t feel compelled to click on the “CTA” or “Subscribe Now” button because the content provided is not what they initially expected. To avoid that from happening, make your interactive emails action-ready.

Don’t use interactivity with the sole purpose to compel subscribers to act without quality content. Take all the time you need to test actionable emails and assess the response you get from your prospects. Their replies should stir you in the right direction, and eventually, your email marketing strategy will thrive. All you need to do is to adhere to the best practices when using email as a marketing medium.

Settle on the right message, and find a way to engage your audience with quality content. What would they like to read in your newsletter? Keep the information you provide short, and to the point. Take advantage of the interactive feature of an email and use it to perfect and refine your email marketing strategy.

There’s no doubt that there’s potential in using interactive emails when marketing your products and services. However, there are strict guidelines you should use to make the most of your campaign. List segmentation, membership card printing, smart automation, and monitoring and tracking metrics are guidelines you shouldn’t overlook. Take the time you mold and adapt your strategy so that you can keep subscribers fully engaged and action driven. Make email your trump card and use the best strategy to increase ROI and boost engagement.

Author Bio: Charles Goodwin is the writer to this article. He is a regular contributor to 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 services.