Email is still the best means to reach customers
Though spamming, cold messaging, and irrelevant messages have spoiled email’s perception among consumers and marketers, it is still the best way to connect and build trust with customers. The rise of social media and search has further made email a key communication channel for digital marketers.
To figure out the future of email marketing it’s necessary to first understand the latest email marketing trends. Being a marketer, you will have to see where email marketing is at present and going to be in 2021 and beyond. Preparing for the future can help marketers full proof of their strategy and achieve the desired outcome.
2021 Email Marketing Trends
Email marketing can adjust, adapt, and improve with technology. Email marketing may be operating for a long time but it is still the best means of communication with your audience and customers. Whether you are a B2B and B2C enterprise company, email marketing can help you stay at the top.
9 Latest Trends in Email Marketing
- Minimalist email design
Your recipients may be receiving hundreds of emails a day so it’s crucial for businesses to stand out from the rest. When it comes to creating engaging emails, most people believe that bright and colorful images can attract attention. However, plain text emails show more authenticity and clarity. Thus, a minimalist email design helps to sell more.
Customers are looking for authenticity, so sending simple emails helps to build a positive impression and establish an emotional connection with customers. This also helps to stay one step ahead of their competitors who focus on their products and not on building trust. Minimalist email design can help to:
- Improve email load time
- Deliver a refined brand message
- Focus on the offer and not on images
For example, Calvin Klein ran an email marketing campaign on Mother’s Day to provide customers with gift ideas and promo code to encourage them to take action faster. The message simply said, “CELEBRATE MOM with up to 50% OFF”.
As you can see, this minimalist email design does not take much time to understand the main idea of the message. These kinds of email designs are very simple to construct and also assures more number of your subscribers get your message.
- Hyper-personalized automated campaigns
In 2021, email marketing will be not about having a one-size-fits-all approach. With a focus on personalization, brands can increase an open rate if they personalize their messages and think about individual choices and problems. It’s in our nature to give attention to people who remember your name. For retail businesses, remembering your previous customers is a proven way to convince people to buy from you.
When it comes to email marketing, hyper-personalized automated campaigns are the future of personalization. Segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue so with hyper-personalization, companies can consider looking into browsing behavior, active hours, and real-time data to send highly-relevant emails.
For example, hyper-personalized automated campaigns help to reduce cart abandonment and increase sales. Companies like ASOS know that visitors leave their website for a variety of reasons. With automated campaigns, it’s easier to collect the right data and deliver the right message without spending much effort and time.
- Mobile-first optimization
Almost everyone has a smartphone these days. The number of smartphone users around the world has crossed 7.26 billion by the end of 2020. Most people use their mobile phones to save time and solve their various problems on the go. From reading emails to making purchase decisions, the mobile phone has made browsing and communication much easier. Not only around 61% of all emails are opened and read on mobile devices, but also 79% of mobile users have made a purchase online with their device, which means customers are more likely to make a purchase from mobile devices.
But the truth is, only 20% of email campaigns are optimized for mobile devices. This means customers can’t read your email the way it was designed to.
A well mobile-optimized email is clean and simple to look at. Moreover, when you optimize your email for mobile, you are more likely to increase the email click-through rate and deliver your brand message more effectively. Here is an example.
- Social media integration
As we all know social media users are constantly growing. According to Emarsys, about 42% of the world’s population is on social media. For businesses and brands, this means an alternative way to reach their target audiences, establish a connection, and deliver the brand message without being too formal.
To make the most out of your email marketing, it’s important to integrate it with social media as people use networks to discover products and read customers’ reviews. Moreover, modern customers crave peer recommendations before making the purchase decision, so working with social media influencers is a great way to leverage reviews.
You may have noticed on YouTube and Instagram, many brands and businesses sponsor social media influencers’ videos and posts to prove the product’s popularity and credibility. The brand also adds brand hashtags and social media buttons to let its subscribers know how to find the product or company.
- Video content popularity
Today, people spend more time watching videos online than reading articles. It has become one of the most favorite types of content for 90% of customers. Product videos such as product unboxing, product review, tutorials, new product launch announcements, and expert roundups are helpful in the decision process. With video content, it’s easier to present your product, explain how to use it, and even build brand authority.
Videos can be a great part of your email marketing strategy if you want to create interactive emails that deliver business results. With videos and GIFs getting popularity more and more brands are using motion graphics to show off products.
Instead of selling its products with video, the company invites fashion gurus to share their tips and tricks that can help their target audience live a better life. As a result, the brand gains credibility in a creative way, and it becomes the number one option when it comes to making purchase decisions.
- Brand storytelling
In the era of brand authenticity, it’s time to humanize your brand with the power of brand storytelling to hook your subscribers and engage them. Stories have a great impact on our perception as they are more memorable than plain facts. Moreover, brand storytelling helps to connect emotionally with your subscribers, humanize your brand, build brand authenticity, hold customers’ attention, and influence consumer behavior.
With the help of brand storytelling, the company can take subscribers behind the scenes to show people who stand behind their brand. Although the email invites subscribers to take a look at tips from the experts, it tells the story, and therefore it humanizes the brand and influences the audience.
- Interactive Emails
In 2020, people are looking for ways to interact, be it through comments, reviews, feedbacks, or simple questions and answers. Marketers should focus on creating interactive email experiences and let your subscribers engage through the email. People are also looking for suggestions to make their decisions easier. According to a survey, 35% want offers and promotional codes included in their emails and 38% of people want product reviews and ratings in their emails.
- Use User-generated content
User-Generated Content (UGC) is any text, images, audio, or visual content created by the user or the public. One of the popular ways of using User-Generated Content is by gathering product reviews and customer feedback buy email marketers must know when, how, and why to gather customer reviews. Simple icons like thumbs up and down can largely help to interact with subscribers and gather customer feedback.
- Animation with HTML and Graphics
Email animation is one the top of the top email design trends. GIFs, animated graphics, and CSS animation can be fun as well as engaging experience for customers. Animations are never enough in emails; more there are the more appealing it looks.
3 tips to prepare for the future of email marketing
Building a roadmap to improve your business and email program is critical for the future of email marketing. Here are 3 steps of email marketing by which you can secure the future of your business.
- Find your gap
Check what elements are missing in your emails. Some of the elements that you can focus on are presentation, readability, structure, send frequency, sent time, engagement, subject line, and clicks. Find out which elements do you need to create a perfect email strategy.
- Create the strategic path forward
Create a plan to execute your email marketing with strategies and tactics. Incorporate elements that are helping you gain new subscribers and remove those that are not working. Follows rules and use automation to carry on the engagement with your customers.
- Work hard and gather knowledge
Work fast and work fast especially when you are in the experimenting phase and focusing on new trends of marketing. Be eager to learn and always analyze what works and what doesn’t. Marketers need to keep on developing and experimenting with new marketing strategies to stay ahead of the competition.
Email Marketing Strategy Advice for 2022
Email marketing should always be based on strategy and your desired outcome so marketers must plan to develop a future-focused strategy. Marketers should also learn, innovate, and keep on experimenting with their emails. Planning a clear goal in email marketing and creating a well-thought action plan can make your work a lot easier and effective. By personalizing your messages, segmenting your customers, testing your copy and design, engaging customers and sending automated emails when possible can effectively gain the attention of your audience.
Looking forward for an effective email marketing solution for your business? Get in touch with our experts at Digital Presence Today and we can help your brand grow.
