Email has become one of the most important channels in the world of digital marketing and is used by many businesses as a way of engaging and converting customers. In today’s world, more and more consumers are shopping online, and with that comes a greater need to connect and engage with them digitally. Email is one of the best ways of doing this, and by using personalisation and automation to create your strategy, you’ll be able to engage your customers with relevant content that really speaks to them.
That’s why we thought we’d share 5 email marketing trends that will help you to stay ahead of the game and really supercharge your strategy…
1. Incorporating user-generated content
User-generated content can be incorporated into your emails and is a simple, but effective way of generating organic website traffic and converting more customers. Your email list is more likely to trust your brand, product, or service if they read good customer feedback and they’ll be more likely to convert into a paying customer. One of the best things about user-generated content is that it’s completely free, so use it! By adding poll or survey results, testimonials, and customer reviews into your emails along with a CTA button, you’ll increase trust.
You can even use email to generate further user-generated content by asking email readers to complete polls and surveys so that you can collect this content easily in the future. You could even try encouraging your social media followers to post pictures of themselves using your product or service and asking them to tag you or use a certain hashtag so that you’ve got the images in one place. Like we said, this type of content is free, so take advantage of it!
2. Personalisation
The instantaneous nature of today’s online world has increased customer expectation. Customers want to feel listened to and valued by the brands they interact with, and a one-size-fits-all approach to communications is a no longer enough.
A powerful CRM platform will allow you to gather data about your customers, such as their purchasing habits and engagement behaviours and will allow you to craft content that is relevant to them and send it to them at the right time, via their preferred channel, increasing customer satisfaction and driving sales.
3. Optimise emails across all platforms
It’s super important to ensure that your customers have the same great experience when reading your email, no matter where they view it!
Research suggests that 46% of all emails opened are open via mobile, therefore ensuring that your emails optimised for mobile is crucial in catering to potentially just short of half of your audience.
Make sure you keep your email layout clear and simple, this way, when viewed on a smaller screen, there won’t be any difficulty in viewing the content. To do this, consider using a simple stacked layout, rather than including multiple columns, this will allow your customers to view everything with ease.
Following on from this, prioritise the content that you would like to appear at the top of your email, as your recipients will have to scroll down to see the full email. Including eye catching visuals or attention-grabbing written content will help to engage them from the get-go.
Having a clear CTA is also very important, it should have a strong message that compels your audience to click on it, ultimately leading them to your end goal. However, it shouldn’t just be clear in message but also in the way that it is presented to the reader. As the majority of mobile devices are touch screen these days, users will scroll and click with their finger, therefore meaning that your CTA has to be large enough to click on it without your users struggling, but not too large that they keep accidentally clicking when they are trying to scroll.
It can be presented in the form of a button or a link, either way it is imperative that you make it stand out so it will catch the attention of the viewer. Use brand colours, and leave lots of breathing room around the CTA, this will make it noticeable to your audience.
4. Privacy
Customers today are more concerned about their privacy than ever before, so it’s important to gain their trust. To ensure that you are meeting customer expectation in relation to their privacy, make privacy a central point in your email campaigns by analysing data privacy legislation and using email to notify customers of any changes to their data privacy and how you are protecting their information.
It’s also important to give your email subscribers the choice to unsubscribe from marketing emails and make opting-out of emails easy to do. This will also allow your business to focus on communicating with those customers who want to hear from you and ensure that your email list is current.
5. Making emails for interactive
Interactive marketing is great for increasing engagement and helping you to create a good customer experience. It can also help you to personalise your emails. Here are some things you could include to make your emails more interactive:
- Gifs
- CTAs and animated buttons
- Interactive product carousels and imagery
- Polls and survey
