Since the past many decades, email marketing has played a fundamental role in the success of digital marketing. It has been a constant support for business leaders in achieving an increased number of traffic and an increased return on investment. The bright future of email marketing is quite evident. This is portrayed through the multiple webinars carried out on this topic and reviews of the latest trends, predictions and improvement tips to enhance the productivity of email marketing. A very wide range of industries has gained an advantage over the time from this marketing style. Everyone from the agricultural sector to the commerce industries, advertising agencies and all around the world to the medical facilities have sped up their brand promotion by sending emails. Is email marketing still effective?

Do you know why? What is so special about email marketing that enchants the marketers all around? Here are the top reasons that make email marketing indispensable for the coming years:

Email marketing is a targeted approach. Instead of randomly advertising your product and brand, you have the liberty to segment the email contact list and send the email to specific people. The segmented list is made on the basis of lead status, demographics, location and other data. A personalized message always helps in generating higher conversion rate and it is completely cost-effective as well. Email marketing requires a genuinely authentic strategy and a running internet connection. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing brings $40 for every $1 spent. Considering these two facts, who wouldn’t want to enjoy this highly specific and economical marketing approach? The head of the leading advertising agency also talks about how emails help to stay at the top of the mind of the target audience.

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Other than this, the several highly advanced trends in the email marketing field show how important it is going to be in the coming future. Gerald Marshall, a renowned figure in the marketing field, recently went through 134 email marketing predictions for the years 2017 and picked the best 4 which provide ultimate positive results. Yes, 134! You heard us right! This is how popular the email marketing trend is. The four that were picked include data analysis, emails and ESPs, segmentation of the contact list and generation of quality content. Surely this means that the trend of sending emails to promote the business image is going to stay here for long.

The few modernized prediction and trends for email marketing are as follows. These are going to help the marketers a lot in the coming years.

Is email marketing still effective?

1. Chatbots will be running e-commerce email marketing

We have seen how customer behaviour can trigger automated emails. With the advent of chatbots, it is expected that they’ll be running the automated workflows. They will be responsible for sending confirmation emails, abandoned cart emails, newsletter sign ups and so on.

The technology is so advanced that many people think that artificial intelligence and chatbots will take over the trend of email marketing. In reality, according to Forrester’s report, a slightly above than 4% of digital businesses are presently using the chatbot. This means that the chatbots are here but they will simply aid the business marketers in strengthening their already present marketing strategies.

Conversica, a popular company, is known for its use of virtual sales assistance. As soon as the viewer shows interest in the business, this virtual assistant reaches out to them within minutes to win their support. The AI emails sent are even replied by most of the receivers. The success depends on the conversational tone of the email and has proven to be the new big thing of the present era.

2. Content and word count of the email

The word count in emails is decreasing day by day. A research from 2016 suggests a word count of 50 to 125 for producing an optimal effect on the viewers. Moreover, the use of HTML5 videos in emails is increasing. The subject lines have a solid effect on the viewers and so it needs to be creative and innovative. 33% of the people are known for opening the emails only on the basis of the subject lines.

Now, let’s talk about the type of the content. Is it necessary that the email’s entire content is based on a promotional offer? Like the reader might get tired of receiving the same promotional emails every now and then. How would you feel if you are told about the latest advancements and offers of a brand? Even if it’s your favourite one! Wouldn’t you like to see a change in the content’s idea? This is exactly how the email receivers think. Thus, while you are generating the content for the emails, make sure it is full of a variety of ideas. Keep the purely brand promotional emails to a limited number per week and extend your helpful services to the potential customers by offering them emails with solutions to their queries.

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3. Emails will follow a more conversational tone

Interactive emails are becoming the new future of email marketing. It is becoming necessary to keep a conversational tone in the emails. A casual conversational tone which produces a response from the reader’s side is required. You can ask questions in the email and provide relevant information to solve some typical queries about the subject (like mentioned above). This helps in keeping the attention of the reader intact and also results in generating leads.

A well-known artist once said that (main idea being) start making conversation and you might be able to convert a few more. This quote showcases the power of conversation. By writing the content in a conversational tone, you get the chance of persuading your audience. By using the right words, you can actually convert leads into sales. A few tips in this regard are as follows:

• Stay real and cover the major grounds
• When we talk to our friends and family, we know a lot about them and they can sense it in our tone, right? Why not deliver the same feeling through the emails to the receiver’s end?
• Add questions that would initiate an interesting gesture and the readers would want to respond

4. Shareable emails will be preferred

Every minute, nearly millions of users from all over the world are logged into their social media network accounts and are looking for some interesting news and gossips. These social Medias can be of great help for the email marketers. The main aim through the emails is to promote the brand and create awareness among the individuals through a personal approach. What if the email receivers were able to share the useful content with their family and friends? Would it be beneficial?

The shared content would add into the information posted on the social media platforms and it will give the social networkers a great chance to appreciate the content. This means that the shareable content must be on the go and emails containing useful information must be shared on the social media platform as well. Thus, all the marketers should get ready to see this trend become viral in the coming future.

As the receivers tend to share the useful information with their friends, they would need a tool through which they can do it easily. Here, adding the social sharing buttons within the emails would be of great help.

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5. Data analysis

William Stam says,

“E-mail systems move towards the data instead of other way around, senders will need more data-points to personalize communication that will drive user engagement.”

And so the role of data analysis becomes indispensable in email marketing as well. By analysing different aspects of the customers and viewer’s response, the marketing team can easily deduce different informative ideas and results from it.

Data analysis helps in finding out the opening rate of the emails, click-through and the bounce rates. This ultimately helps in improving the email marketing strategy. Some of the major effective email marketing KPIs are as follows:

• Click-through and bounce rates (as mentioned above)
• Conversion rate
• List growth rate
• Email sharing and forwarding rate
• Overall ROI
• Spam Complaint rate
• Cost per lead
• Time on site

According to a few marketers, the metrics mentioned below aren’t quite reliable for email marketing analysis. Better keep them at the end of the list. They are as follows:

• Email opening rate
• Unsubscribe rate of the emails

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Email marketing, though it is a thing of past, it is here to stay for a long time; and yes, email marketing is still effective. It forms one of the basic pillars of digital marketing that helps in revolutionizing the digital marketing efforts for the sake of the success of the business. It is one of the major sources of promoting the business brand in the audience and so, is an ultimate source of increasing the return on investment (ROI). Make your email marketing strategy useful and do add the latest trends for better results.

 

About the author:

Junaid Ali Qureshi is a digital marketing specialist who has helped several businesses gain traffic, outperform competition and generate profitable leads. His current ventures include Elephantation, eLabelz, Smart Leads.ae, Progos Tech and eCig.