In 2010, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg stated, "Email is probably dead," which is quite a shocking analysis. Because even after a decade and more, email is growing stronger than ever before, especially during the pandemic and the post-pandemic marketing paradigm shift.
Email is Universal. It is everywhere. There are roughly 4B email addresses globally, with apps, channels, and devices that need operational email addresses to support and be functional.
About 293 billion emails on average were sent daily in 2019. And as per Radicati Group1, this daily traffic is expected to grow by 4.2% by 2023. The primary reason behind this growth is the continued internet access through mobile.
It is predicted that by 2022, more than 347 Billion Emails2 will be sent daily.
This is just from 294 billion in 2019. Email Marketing is increasing as a form of customer service, lead generation & nurture, and sales outreach.
Then why is the rumor circulating that email marketing is dead?
Let's check Email Marketing in terms of volume and reach. As expected, email is still crushing most other marketing channels. It’s pretty obvious that almost anytime you visit a webpage – at some point in time a pop-up will appear asking for your email – whether it’s to subscribe to their newsletter or cash in on a decent discount. It’s quite rare to find a page that doesn’t have a pop-up (And for good reason—if they don’t, they’re missing on major sales!)
To stay ahead in this competitive curve and still be connected with your audience in these tough times, you need to bolster email marketing in your business strategy.
Don't know where to start? Well, we have some trendy strategic email marketing tips in 2022 for you.
Let's have a fresh look at Email Marketing.
Email Marketing is one of the highest converting channels in our marketing platform. Email marketing is a very flexible tool if executed with proper knowledge and expertise, and this can prove as a very effective technology tool for the B2B market sector.
1) Email Marketing is Making and Moving Money
The market continuously changes, and so does the platform with constant adjustment and adapts to the technological landscape advancements.
If you are thinking about including email in your marketing plan, you are going in the right direction. Here are a few things to think about to ensure your business gains maximum lead from this proven and growing channel.
2) Improve Email Marketing with User Generated Content (UGC)
You can gather product or service reviews, customer feedback, and showcase it in your email marketing channel as a stimulated voice of your brand.
- You can also use Email Marketing to gather feedback with the modules available on the email campaign platform or ask questions in an exciting form that gives leads.
- Highlighting gamification or interactivity in the email will boost the response rates.
- Encourage the use of social media to spread the word and publicity.
The audience is more likely to trust a brand that sees feedback from diverse consumers and will boost the chance to convert as a paying customer.
Here's a multi-product review-based email in a modular design from Coastal 3, the eyeglasses brand. Instead of featuring just one product, the brand shows reviews of multiple frame types.
Coastal also highlights the subsequent pair of glasses per review, and each one has its own CTA button. This way, users can directly check out the landing page of the brand and increase their sales.
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3) Optimizing Emails for all devices
Emails are now no longer read-only in the traditional way on the desktop. Still, a majority of the consumers read emails, newsletters, or articles on their cellphones, and thus it is essential to create a device-agnostic plan. Keeping this in mind, the best email marketing agency will ensure that you're optimized for cellphone subscribers and focus on them.
Almost 55% 5 of global Internet Traffic occurs on non-tablet mobile devices.
This means that if your emails are not mobile-optimized, you will miss out on many views.
According to Statista, nearly 55% of global website traffic is generated from mobile devices, excluding tablets.
According to the US-based Digital Marketing firm eTarget 6 media’s Managing Partner Harris Kreichman stated that "Brands realize that they can keep emails fresh and personalized by leveraging new email technologies, artificial intelligence, new design models, and mobile-optimized designs."
Thus, this makes it easy to understand that will require the following:
- Running a few tests for better email content that is mobile-optimized.
- Avoid using long texts and craft to-the-point messages for better readability and hence engagement.
- Go for optimized quality images for speedy displays.
Optimization is crucial for any email marketing campaign as it guarantees your audience the same experience regardless of device variations.
Jetstar 7 brand, for example, streamlined their emails for mobile and looks identical to their desktop version. Their content is easy-to-read, has consistent design, minimum errors with a responsive email template.
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4) Holistic Approach
The holistic approach gives you another perspective that acts on building values more than generating sales. Email Marketing performs the best when used as a tool to build a relationship and not sell products. These emails are referred to as 'relational emails' intended to be educational and entertaining for the consumers.
- In the end, your revenue growth is related to how well you build relationships with your customers. So, think about this –
- What if your Email Marketing Strategy were a way for customers to engage not only with your brand but also educate them with new trends and topics surrounding it?
Net-a-Porter 9 brand is known for its unique content and style tips on how-to's for its users. Because buyers don't purchase clothes just for the sake of buying clothes: they are buying to feel & look good.
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By sharing secrets of "how to's," the brand frequently builds momentum and drives over 30% of its sales through email.
Offer as much valuable information as you can to your audience. Engage and connect by educating about something the brand relates to, and they'll love you for it. Email is a thoughtful medium to connect and share content. It is a direct, personal, and focused form of communication.
Embrace it!
5) Personalization Method
In one survey 11, 88% of respondents said they look more favorably on personally crafted emails.
Makes sense? Doesn't it?
How likely are you to purchase a product/ service you need v/s one you have never heard of before?
Personalized emails highlight how well a marketer knows its customers on a personal level.
Personalization improves results!
Also, brands can use the Holistic Approach and reach the audience with a more Hyper-Personalized Campaign.
Users want to feel valued and their opinions to be complimented. The lack of personalization can be a concern for the brands.
Evaluate your users' buying habits, open rates, and preferred products or services before drafting an email related to those behaviors.
Possibly some audience has a habit of leaving their carts before making a buying. In this case, your personalized mail would emphasize offering a helpful reminder with CTAs that make an impact.
In 2022, it is predicted to focus on hyper-personalization rather than just personalizing elements of campaigns for email strategy. This is how you can capitalize on this trend:
- Recommending product/service by audience segments.
- Customizing promotions and content by audience segments.
- Recommending products or messages for individuals.
- Trigger emails based on the user's behavior.
An excellent personalized email that leveraged a user's interest to offer a value-packed and relevant branding message by Spotify 12.
Phrases like "top listener" and "be the first to get access" lend themselves to a sense of exclusivity -- making the user feel significant.
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6) Market Segmentation
Don't send everyone the same thing!
There are a few ways to divide your audience base. One of the most popular is the RFM method.
Recency (when did a customer last purchase)
Frequency (how often does a user buy)
Monetary Value (how much does the audiences spend)
Segmentation increases click-through rates by 50%. 14
As per the DMA, email segmentation can lead to about a 760% increase in revenue. If the emails are not converting, you could be sending the same email to all your subscribers instead of segmenting the audience based on the qualified leads.
Unlike advertising, Email Marketing nails its Audience Target each time. Email is the perfect way to customize your reach and message by setting triggers and segmenting the market.
Why? Because savvy marketers know the value of email segmentation. An increase in open rates through mail personalization has been reported by 82% 15 of marketers. And however, 70% of brands fail to implement it.
Segmenting the audience is relatively easy by gathering data for a specific group, like gathering intel on age group- Millennials are likely to open emails with infographics. At the same time, Gen X and Baby Boomers 16 tend to read about a particular topic then click on the action button.
7) Majorly 59% 17 of Millennials and 67% of Gen Z check email on their mobile phones.
The younger demographics love mobiles, and since they are quickly becoming the leading buying audience, mobile optimization is crucial to keep them engaged.
Demographic segmentation includes age groups, geographic zones, educational qualifications, etc., and customization based on the data. Sharing with you some easy-to-collect data ideas like
- Subscribe quiz- which is also a great interactive tool that builds quality leads as well.
- Behavioral segmentation creates a fascinating profile of the users and arranges them into different categories.
- Opt-in Surveys can be used in gift or freebies email types and adding a short survey to understand a little about your audience.
Adidas 18 sends out two completely different sets of email campaigns based on gender.
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Even a few simple segmentations will put you ahead of the pack. Next time you send out a promotional newsletter, have at least two segments: Customers that have purchased before and new customers.
A clever, more advanced trick is to use trigger-based emails to send separate emails to your customers based on what they do on your site.
Use your users' details to segment while sending your campaign emails, and you will be ahead of all the competition.
First, understand each of these groups' specific qualities and segments and then customize your email marketing strategies as per each segment and drastically increase your conversions.
74% of Baby Boomers, 72% of Gen X, 64% of Millennials, and 60% of Gen Z Users 20 consider email the most personal communication method.
We like these numbers!
Nothing can beat email marketing when you genuinely want to engage with the audience and drive conversions.
It would be best if you created your marketing campaign as precisely as possible, so the right message hits the right audience at specifically the right timing. And for this to happen, email segmentation is an absolute must for your brand strategy.
8) Interactive Elements
Millennials and Gen Z's age is an all-fast and fascinating world, and the attention span is gradually becoming shorter. Thus, an Interactive Element in the Emailer will easily stand out from the competition. Interactive elements have been the trending topic and have been noted a recent rise in animation 21 and interactive features by some major brands.
Interactivity drives excellent engagement, and responsive design for mobile will be the best campaign as it also engages user experience. It is now the time for marketers to go balanced yet straightforward engagement that delivers a better user experience with hot click action buttons.
Hot interactive email elements trending in 2022:
- Animated call-to-action buttons
- Rollover effects to promote offerings
- Interactive Images or videos carousels controlled by the user
- Accordion features designed to create a compact emailer look
- Surveys & polls for user's interaction
Check out this excellent email survey by Expedia. This feedback form asks the users to select one emoticon that conveys their travel experience to the brand. It is one of the best interactive elements a brand can use to understand their service in a better way.
Staying on top of the email marketing game in 2022 is crucial for keeping your marketing strategy relevant and successful. If you are struggling to keep up, rely on the experts at Digital Experience to give you a hand.
Whether it is about the new data regulation or the post-pandemic marketing swing, we are there with you every step of the way.
Email marketing is one of the most effective platforms at producing revenue stated by 59% 22 of B2B Marketers.
There are thousands of email marketing strategies to implement to increase users' acquisition and audience retention. The best way is to have email marketing software to help set up email triggers and capitalize on lead behavior so that you strike when the iron is hot.
Thinking if your email marketing is just an added cost to your marketing strategy? Then think again!
For some organizations, having a digital presence is all they need in marketing and expect results to be grand. But sometimes, they forget that they should invest in all the different platforms to garner effective results.
- Email Marketing not only targets your captive market but also reaches out to prospective ones.
- Grow this audience on a minimal charge by sending news and updates or automating your process and personalizing communication.
- Not only that, but 87% of B2B marketers 23 reported email is one of their top free organic distribution channels because it is easy to quickly create an email to distribute your blogs or webinars and send it to only people interested in it that particular piece of content
- This traditional Email Marketing gives stunning results if created in the right way.
- The DMA study says that email marketing is even now more effective than SEO and PPC ads.
There are still several trends, tricks, and elements that play a vital role in this Email Marketing business, but with the recent Pandemic changes globally, this strategic thinking will surely help your B2B marketing grow among other Digital Marketing channels.
Today, several businesses will overlook email as a marketing tool even though it does grow your audience with a significant number. To have this quality growth, an ongoing and thorough email strategy is essential for your brand to connect with its consumers.
Don't forget that Email Marketing is the only traditional marketing tool that directly builds long-term relations and trust with consumers.
Not all strategies serve the same purpose, and each email marketing campaign delivers an exceptional result. We don't just promote sales but are Sales Heroes! Exceed your Email Marketing goals with our Digital Experiences, where strategies are planned and tailored as per business needs.
Are you ready for the best way to engage with your customers?
V2Solutions is your trusted digital transformation partner helping you grow your business with powerful email marketing insights and automation tools and reach your customers in a more personalized, thoughtful way. Create an ongoing relationship with your subscribers that leads to increased sales and happier customers, with us.
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