Even though email may seem old fashioned in today’s age of social media, it still plays a vital role in any marketing plan.
Email Marketing Remains Relevant Today
At a whopping 122 percent, the median ROI of email marketing is four times higher than any digital marketing format. Plus, the number of new customers acquired through email marketing is almost 40 times higher than through social media, and an estimated 91 percent of U.S. consumers still use email on a daily basis—with the number of users in the U.S. expected to exceed 258 million by 2020.
Although email has been recognized as an effective marketing strategy for decades, its techniques used are constantly evolving, from how consumers consume email messages to the platforms used to manage campaigns. Brands that fail to incorporate the latest innovations and consumer behaviors into their email marketing strategies risk falling behind their competitors.
MDG Advertising’s experts studied the research and uncovered the nine top trends that are expected to define email marketing in 2019:
1. Focus on Design
When it comes to an effective email, looks are just as important as the words. Design details, such as a color scheme, typeface, and visuals that work with your logo and business values, can improve the effectiveness of your email. Other design trends include making sections of the email sharable on social media, increased use of illustrations and graphics, and making emails more interactive with the innovative use of CTA buttons, sliders, search bars, and image galleries.
2. Be Mobile Friendly
More than half of all emails are opened on mobile devices, and that number is expected to increase over the coming years. The length of email messages and how they are formatted and displayed should be formulated with mobile devices in mind.
3. Incorporate Video Content
During 2019, video is expected to account for as much as 80 percent of all Internet traffic. Make this the year that you break away from traditional text-based email campaigns and start incorporating video. Because the majority of information transmitted to the brain is visual and the brain processes visual information faster than text, consumers are more likely to remember and act on video content. According to recent surveys, video ads increase brand association by as much as 139 percent and purchase intent by 97 percent.
4. Make It Personal
Gone are the days when marketers can “individualize” email campaigns by simply including the recipient’s name. Marketing platforms already provide marketers with a wealth of data enabling them to create targeted content and offers based on a customer’s past or predicted behavior. Although it’s rapidly evolving and set to become more sophisticated in the coming year, more than 80 percent of marketers today say their open rates have increased with personalization. Using a truly personalized marketing approach can increase unique email open rates by 29 percent and unique click rates by as much as 41 percent.
5. Harness the Power of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence has practical applications in a number of areas, including email marketing. AI can help marketers maximize the effectiveness of email campaigns by optimizing the frequency and send times of emails, predicting audience actions, and aiding in the development of topic and subject lines for more effective content. The field of AI is developing so rapidly that many more applications are likely to be available by the end of the year.
6. Utilize More Triggered Emails
Triggered emails are only sent when a potential customer takes a specific action, such as subscribing to a newsletter or leaving items in a shopping cart. The fact that these emails have a 102 percent higher average click-through rate and a 71 percent higher average open rate compared to more general emails shows that they could be a vital part of your 2019 marketing strategy. The effectiveness of triggered emails is due to the fact that the individual has already taken some sort of action, which provides greater insight into their intent so that the messaging can be made more relevant. The recipient is also less likely to be annoyed by the email or send it straight to the trash as spam.
7. Make Emails More Interactive
Emails can be more than just a static piece of text. They can be a channel for direct engagement and interaction. Today’s marketing platforms make it possible to create emails with interactive elements, such as image galleries, clickable hotspots, navigational anchor tags, drop down menus, and share icons. Companies and brands should focus on incorporating as many of these elements as possible into their email and other marketing strategies in the coming year as a way to increase customer engagement.
8. Protect Consumer Privacy and Data Rights
It seems that a data breach involving a major retailer is in the news almost every day. Consumers everywhere are concerned about how retailers and marketers obtain and use their data. This past year, the European Union adopted the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) that places strict controls on the collection and use of consumer data. Now that consumers have much more control over their information, common practices, such as buying email lists, are questionable. In the U.S., the California Consumer Privacy Act will place similar restrictions on U.S. marketers starting in 2020. Companies and brands should start revising their approaches to data use and collection now in order to remain in compliance.
9. Create a Unique Voice
There’s a reason your email inbox is always full. An estimated 293 billion emails are sent every day, and that number is expected to exceed 333 billion by 2022. As mentioned, using personalization, AI, and other means to increase the relevancy of email content can help you break through the noise. Creating a unique voice for your brand or company is a strategy that is as old as marketing itself; however, it remains relevant even in today’s high-tech world of digital marketing. Creating a unique voice will also help your message stand out from the pack and make it quickly recognizable to your target audience.
About Michael Del Gigante, CEO of MDG Advertising
In 1999, CEO Michael Del Gigante founded MDG Advertising, a full-service advertising agency with offices in Boca Raton, Florida and Brooklyn, New York. With his unique insight and decades of industry experience, he turned what was once a traditional ad agency into an integrated branding firm based on an innovative 360-degree marketing philosophy that provides a full spectrum of traditional and digital advertising services.
