5 Key Email Marketing Trends to Watch

You want your email marketing to be as effective as possible, right? Right. Of course you do. Who wouldn’t?
In order to stay ahead of the curve, you need to be aware of the key email marketing trends to keep an eye on (and work into your strategy) in 2016.
And guess what? We’ve put together a post outlining five of the most relevant, important email marketing trends. Your life just got a whole lot easier.

Email Personalization

According to eConsultancy, 74% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement. Now, if three-fourths of marketers are saying a specific tactic is proven to work–that’s pretty believable, don’t you think?
How to use it: Personalization can take many forms, such as using the subscriber’s first name in a subject line or within the body text, serving up custom content for specific subscribers, etc.
The bottom line: Email subscribers are now expecting tailored content, not one-size-fits-all messaging. If you want to get the most ROI on your email marketing, remember to personalize to increase value for your audience. Save the mass-messages for someone else.

Email Automation

eMarketer tells us that B2C marketers who leverage email automation have seen conversion rates as high as 50%. Um…yes please. Automated messages are those automatically send after a specific date or date or action takes place–and they work by sending the right message at the right time.
How to use it: You can use automated emails for drip campaigns, birthday messages, new blog notifications, subscription renewal notices, purchase confirmations, lead nurturing, helpful tutorials, and much more.
The bottom line: Automation frees you up to focus on other parts of your business while still keeping the conversation going with your important customers.

Video in Email

Some data predicts that by as soon as 2017, as much as 74% of all internet traffic will be used on video. Video is powerful because it helps share ideas in a simple, easy to understand format using text, audio, and visuals (3 of the 5 senses–not bad.) Within an email context, it can help condense a complex message into a concise format in a short window of time.
How to use it: You can use video in email to send a message from your team, introduce new products, talk about your company mission–you name it. Video makes your content more interactive and engaging than standard text and images.
The bottom line: Email is no longer just message-based. Utilize video to make your correspondence more impactful, interesting, and sharable.

Segmentation

Fun fact: The DMA reported that segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue. So what are segmented emails? These are emails that have only been sent to a specific segment of a larger list (think back to what we talked about regarding personalization.) When you send emails to different segments, you’re sending hyper-relevant messages instead of mass e-blasts that aren’t very targeted at all.
How to use it: Say you own a sporting goods store. You might have some different lists of email subscribers who are specifically interested in baseball equipment, running gear, and and swimming products. Rather than sending out a mass message promoting all of you different offerings, you send these lists promotions based around their specific interest areas, which appeals to their unique preferences.
The bottom line: Stop sending mass emails, and start breaking down your list into smaller segments for more relevant email marketing.

Mobile-Centric Emails

We can no longer think about mobile-friendly email templates as a “nice to have.” It’s almost more of a mobile-first mentality in 2016. Why? Because more than half of all emails are opened on mobile devices. Your emails need to open and display correctly on any mobile device AND be easy to use on those platforms, too.
How to use it: Work with an ESP that delivers mobile friendly email templates and test User Interaction/Experience with a focus group to ensure everything works smoothly.
The bottom line: Days of desktop are on the downhill slope–everyone uses their smartphones these days. Keep that in mind for your email marketing.

Email Marketing Trends 2016: Optimize Today

With personalization, automation, video, segmentation, and mobile-centric formats in mind, you’ll be creating email marketing messages that are a home run in no time.

These are just five of the major trends we see happening, but what trends that aren’t listed here have you noticed?

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