For all of the emphasis on social media and digital marketing, Email marketing remains an exceptionally cost-effective and useful way of marketing to your customer base.
After all, everyone has an Email address and the vast majority of internet users check it on at least a daily basis, meaning that you can potentially connect with your customers every day. More to the point, Email marketing is constantly evolving. Here are some marketing innovations within this realm that everyone is talking about.
Automation
Marketing automation trends are always occurring within the digital world, and this past year has been no exception. With the right Email client, you can automate your Emails in order to make Emails more relevant, and do so in less time. This means better integration with content that is relevant to your customer, integrating their shopping habits, website clicks, and other important information. You can also track their past open rates and create content for them that is based on the information they have reviewed.
Automation is not only easier than ever, but it’s highly effective. Some studies have found that automatically created Emails are more likely to have higher open rates and more click-throughs. This means that automation isn’t just a time-saver: It’s a money generator.
Personalization
Every Email can be personalized with the use of someone’s name as a greeting. That being said, thanks to increased interaction between customer management software and Email marketing databases, Email blasts can get even more personalized.
It is now easier than ever to integrate a customer’s purchasing habits and shopping patterns in order to incorporate content that is relevant to them. This can be language in the Email blast, links for them to click on, and more. Indeed, this area is truly exciting, and even more so when combined with the automation trend above: You can easily automate the personalization, creating highly relevant content with minimal effort. However, personalization is not as easy as just snapping your fingers: You have to make sure you have a robust CMS that can easily integrate all of the relevant information.
Entertainment & Interactivity
The days of Email being boring text and maybe a couple of pics are long gone. It is easily possible to add a wide array of elements of interactivity, including mini-games, in-Email movies, or “scratch-off” features. This means that people will be more engaged with your Email, which we all know is absolutely critical in this attention-based economy.
To be clear, this requires some advanced features: You will either need your own programmer to create content, or you’ll need to utilize advanced features within your Email marketing system. This is all relatively easy to do, but it does take some extra time and effort.
The events of 2020 and 2021 have put an increased emphasis on digital marketing and the need to be more creative than ever. Thankfully, these opportunities exist for all small businesses to utilize in order to create better marketing material and generate additional business.