Top 7 Email Marketing Latest Trends

Do you know what online marketing technique has the highest return on investment?

Since you have already read the title, you have probably guessed its email marketing.

Email marketing produces an average ROI of 4,300%, more than PPC advertising, social media marketing, direct marketing, or content marketing. It delivers the best performance when it comes to driving sales and it costs a lot less to implement than other strategies.

If you too want to use this direct and highly-effective marketing channel and get the most from it, you’ll need to do it the right way. This means providing value through your emails and gradually cultivating in your subscribers the desire to buy your product, as well as keeping up with the latest email marketing trends. Here’s our checklist:

1. Mobile optimisation

Optimising your website and email messages for mobile devices are a no-brainer – most people check email on their smartphones, and Australians spend an average of 2 hours on their smartphones every day. The transition of email from desktop to mobile devices won’t stop, and the emergence of wearable devices is yet another proof of this evolution.

On the other hand, mobile devices change subscriber behaviour, and marketers are having a harder time delivering messages that people open and read. Email browsers are becoming increasingly supersized and many experts are advising marketers to keep their subject lines under 35 characters so they are fully captured by mobile browsers.

2. Personalisation

From receiving an email that has your name on it to being announced when your favourite product is on stock again, personalisation works best with email because this marketing channel is direct, virtually allowing you to communicate a different message to every subscriber. And due to marketing automation tools, congratulating your subscribers on their birthday or asking them why they gave up buying those shoes happens without you needing to personally reach every prospect.

It’s high time you stopped sending the same email to your entire list; consider personalization as it creates an emotional bond between your brand and its customers and it also enables you to send more relevant messages.

3. More simplicity and better use of white space

It has already been a while since simplicity is a dominating trend in design, and email marketing is not an exception. Making things simpler is not only about the overall user experience, but also about what people see when they interact with your business.

The old saying “less is more” is truer than ever because people are already subjected to a huge amount of stimuli every day, and the human brain reacts to this informational flood by ignoring irrelevant details and visual clutter. Balancing content with white space and avoiding redundant text or images are the best strategies for making sure your message reaches its audience.

4. Meaningful email animation

Simple should not mean boring, though. We don’t suggest giving up all your bells and whistles; you just need to use them more wisely. Animated gifs and subtle animation effects unravelling as the user keeps scrolling down and reading your email can increase your conversation rate sensibly.

Let’s take Dell’s example – the company obtained a 109% increase in revenue after including an animated GIF in their emails promoting the Dell XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook. The idea of using a GIF came out of necessity – their new product was a laptop with a hinge design that allowed it to transform into a tablet and they needed a way to show the feature to subscribers without crowding the copy with explanations. Aside from the higher revenue, Dell also managed to achieve a 42% increase in click rate and a 103% increase in conversion rate.

5. Embedding video in emails

Video has been proven to make email content more shareable. For a long time, video could not be streamed into an email, but HTML5 is currently making it possible to embed video in emails. This is actually easier than clicking through from an email to play it. The downside is that video streaming features have not been enabled across all email clients. Nevertheless, it’s worth trying, because the benefits of this strategy are undeniable:

• Video leads to an average 55% increase in click through rates.
• The use of video determined 44% more subscribers to forward the message.
• Video increases the conversion rate by 24%.
• Video email offers a 280% higher return compared to traditional email.

6. Sending location-specific emails

Geolocation can be considered another form of personalisation and it enables you to make references to places and events relevant to a segment of your audience. You can track the location where a subscriber opens your emails, which means you can segment your email list automatically and send different messages to people from each area. Moreover, you can make offers based on current or previous location points and attract more people to your physical location.

7. Adapting email for wearable devices

Wearable technology like smartwatches is used, among others, for filtering unimportant messages from essential ones. Later you can use your smartphone to reply to short messages, and wait until you reach your laptop or desktop to handle important emails. If your subscribers are or will be using wearable technology extensively, the probability of ignoring your email and not reading it later on another device is higher. This is why subject lines, heading text and sender details are becoming more important than ever.

Follow these trends to make sure your email marketing strategy will thrive. It’s more important than ever to create excellent email content that draws the attention of your prospects immediately, before they even open your message.

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About the Author
With over 33 years’ experience in Print Media, Sales and Marketing, Online Services & Marketing plus Financial Service industries. John Bond brings a wealth of knowledge to Visual Marketing Australia. His Online Services knowledge includes: Web Design & Development, SEO, Mobile App. Development, Online Marketing, Online Video Marketing and Email Marketing Solutions.  Find out more at: Visual Marketing