Email is all set to metamorphose into a more powerful marketing channel. Let’s see the top email marketing trends we expect to see in 2023.
Email is all set to metamorphose into a more powerful marketing channel. Let’s see the top trends we expect to see in 2023.
The email has a glorious past and an even better future. It has evolved to be one of the most effective marketing channels for businesses, small and large. If you are not yet harnessing the power of emails, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to grow your business. There are several new advancements that you should know as an email marketer in 2024.
To help you stay abreast with the email progression, we are here with the top 11 trends to look forward to in 2024 and the years to come.
1. Omnichannel marketing approach
Creating a consistent brand experience with an omnichannel marketing approach will be paramount in the coming days. Integrating SMS, push notifications, social media, and email will help reach the audience more effectively.
For example: If a person places an order through your mobile application, they should receive a text message, push notification, and an email about the purchase confirmation. It will ensure a seamless shopping experience throughout the touchpoints, irrespective of the channel used.
More and more brands will revamp their marketing strategy to adopt this trend to drive maximum business growth. They will allocate more budget to email and SMS marketing than PPC and social media ads. Often, marketers are reluctant to carry out SMS marketing. The good news is that 75% of all mobile users have no problem receiving text messages from brands if they have opted into the service.
2. Artificial intelligence in emails
Marketers have started using AI-driven tools like Phrasee to generate attractive subject lines. AI will be used to write marketing emails and newsletters in the coming days. The software will automatically take an RSS feed and generate a new title and summary for your newsletter. It will be of great help in writing relevant automated emails.
Predictive analytics will be employed to create triggered emails to bring maximum conversions. It will also provide information about the subscribers keen to purchase or unsubscribe. The marketer can use these details to build data-informed segments and more relevant campaigns or journeys to garner conversions.
The day is not far when robots write humanized emails without manual intervention. ESPs will become competent enough to train the AI according to what works. This technology will soon be as commonplace as a spell checker in the coming days.
3. Strict privacy rules
The launch of iOS 15 and Mail Privacy Protection is all set to change several things for email marketers. One is that the email open rate will no longer be a reliable tracking metric.
This is because the email will be downloaded in the background even if the user does not open it. Also, people will have the option to hide their IP and email address. This would imply that if a user shares their email address with you, they trust you with their personal information.
To turn on the privacy protection, follow the steps shown in the screenshot below:
Enterprise email marketers will consider multi-touch attributions to evaluate how each touchpoint drives conversion. For instance, suppose a customer wants to buy headphones. First of all, they come across a targeted ad by JBL. That advertisement does not appeal much to the reader. Subsequently, they see a sponsored ad on their social media feed and visit the JBL website.
As the last touchpoint, they receive a marketing email from the store with a coupon code and purchase. Closely monitoring the customer’s journey will help the marketer deduce which channel works best for them and craft their strategy accordingly.
4. Changes in email marketing job structure
For some years, a single marketing professional was supposed to look after all the email template production tasks, including copywriting, design, coding, and deployment. Now, hiring executives and decision-makers will look for more comprehensive roles. Email marketers will have to know a bit of CSS and HTML to create customized emails in the ESP or CRM tools.
Organizations will ensure that their hiring and promotional practices follow the norms of inclusivity. Moreover, email industry professionals will understand the value of community and participate in organizations like Only Influencers. Healthy merger and acquisition activity will also impact the job structure in the email marketing niche. Newer ESP services, deliverability, and reputation tools with innovative quirks will emerge in the future.
5. Microsegmentation and Hyper-personalization
Marketers will go back to the basics and realize the importance of segmentation and personalization. They will also go a step ahead and go for more advanced segmentation parameters like past purchases and interaction with the brand. It will help hyper-personalize the emails, delivering more value to the readers. Like B2C emails, B2B emails will also get more personalized and give the feeling that they are exclusively created for the reader.
You will have to segment the users into iOS and non-iOS users to analyze the campaign performance accurately. In addition to the latest technology, fundamental best practices will continue to trend even in the future. A/B split testing and message maps will be inevitable to win at email marketing.
6. Better email automation workflows
Lead scoring models in tools like Marketo and Salesforce will help make robust automation workflows. In 2023, we expect to receive more cart abandonment emails, browse abandonment emails, triggered product recommendation emails, and other personalized newsletters according to your preferences. Brands will automate their email programs as much as possible to free up resources and focus on business profitability.
Whenchoosing email marketing tools, there are a few factors to remember. Most important is to consider the needs of your business. Most email marketing tools can help to save you time by automating the process of creating and sending emails. You can refer to their comparison like Getresponse vs Convertkit for better understanding.
7. BIMI Authentication
BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is a technology through which you can show your brand's logo beside the email. It has not been very widely used, but in 2022, brands will go for BIMI to reduce email phishing. Filtering fraudulent emails will also help enhance email deliverability and sender reputation.
Your subscribers will instantly know that the email is from you. So, your email will be more likely to be opened. It will also increase brand recall while reducing spam complaints. Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, and Netscape currently support BIMI. Other popular email clients are expected to extend support to this trend soon.
See how Wayfair and Sleeknote have incorporated BIMI in their emails.
8. Interactive emails and gamification
Interactivity will be an essential design element to increase subscriber engagement and stand out from the competitors. The brands hesitant to try this feature in their emails will experiment with it and create out-of-the-box emails consisting of polls, surveys, forms, or hover effects. Besides, gamification will also be a powerful trend that brands will follow in 2023.
These functionalities will make Holiday emails all the more interesting for the subscribers. The conversion rate will be higher for interactive emails as they will eliminate the need to be redirected to a landing page or third-party website. The reader can take action from the email, which will take the user experience to the next level. Interactivity and gamification are beyond the passive elements of animated GIFs and countdown timers.
9. Back to plain text emails
Plain text emails will get their due credit once again. Amidst the overflow of visual and interactive emails, it will be a pleasant change to get text-based emails every once in a while. While sending these emails, you do not have to worry about compatibility issues or fallbacks while sending these emails. Plain text emails will be accessible and rendered the same way across all devices and email clients. Lead nurturing emails work well when sent in this format.
10. Enhanced email client support
Email clients will support newer features and technological advancements. As a result, email marketers will get a vast playground to explore different designs. Enhanced compatibility will also improve the user experience and make email navigation easier.
11. Accessible emails
Accessibility should be the foundation stone of email designs. To ensure that all your subscribers can read and understand your emails, you must use larger fonts, good color contrast, responsive layouts, and subtle visuals with suitable Alt-text.
Here is an example of a completely accessible email by Quest Diagnostics.
Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest-growing custom email design and coding companies, and specializes in crafting professional email templates, PSD to HTML email conversion, and free responsive HTML email templates in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz, and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.
