10 Email Marketing Trends 2018

An effective email marketing campaign is supplemented by relevant and effective content delivery. As the year comes to an end, it is but natural to wonder what’s in store the next year. The future of email marketing is complex, significant and important not to miss. We have made a list of trends that will help you tackle the coming year efficiently through email marketing. Following are the most talked about email marketing trends to look forward to in 2018.

1. Interactive email

Interactive email is going to be among the leading email marketing trends in 2018 for engaging and retaining customers. It allows users to view interactive content within the inbox thereby reducing the effort required by a user to perform a task. Interactive content can be available in various formats. For example, integrated forms, surveys, polls, and quizzes can be completed without directing users to a separate page.

Social sharing links are embedded within the inbox making it easy for them to share. Rotational banners encourage interaction with content and improve conversion. Marketers will use countdown timers to create a sense of urgency for customers to act on the offer. Apart from that, search bars, animated GIFs, menu options, add-to-cart functionality are all being included in the email.

2. Mobile-friendly emails 

Many studies claim that many users check notifications and emails on mobile. This makes it clear that mobile is the future of email marketing. Emails must be mobile-optimized so that they are faster to load and generate high click-through rates. Responsive email design ensures that email is readable and actionable irrespective of the device used to view it. For higher readability on mobiles, emails with a short subject line, short body matter, single column template, large font size, and a small image will be in vogue in 2018. Besides that, prominent call-to-action will make emails more actionable.

3. Incorporating AI for personalization

Artificial intelligence will become an essential part of email marketing strategy to bring in more personalization. For instance, AI will help you to figure out the right time to send the email to increase open rates. The right time is determined based on customer’s previous interaction. Customer’s past behavior and purchase history will make it easy for marketers to send personalized product recommendations. Machine learning algorithms will help marketers to segment emails based on their appeal to a specific age group, high-value or loyal customers. This will help in improving the effectiveness of your email campaigns, save time and resources and increase conversion rates.

4. Two-step newsletter sign-up 

Building email list is an essential part of email marketing. Many marketers tend to use single-step newsletter sign up in exchange for customer’s email address. Single-step approach for newsletter subscription may generate a list filled with many bogus emails. Such emails may include customers who were not really interested to subscribe but just did it because it was too easy.

Customers don’t take such emails seriously because they forget having subscribed to these emails. However, when you ask customers to fill out a survey or an opt-in form and then ask them to exchange their email address for newsletter subscription, you can hope to build a much more authentic list. Such customers who subscribed deliberately are not likely to mark you as spam and they remember having subscribed to your newsletter.

5. Email list segmentation

Email list segmentation is a method used by email marketers to send targeted emails by dividing their list into segments. List can be segmented into various categories based on location, age group, preferences, interests, purchase frequency, purchase history and likewise. For segmenting their list, marketers will be required to collect more data about customers.

To organize such data, they will have to use the best email marketing services like Constant Contact, AWeber, EmailConnect, etc. As mentioned above, artificial intelligence will play a significant role in list segmentation. Thus, list segmentation is going to be a leading email marketing strategy in 2018 to increase open rates and boost the effectiveness of email campaigns.

6. Automated emails

Email automation helps you to save time and money. Marketers set up automated emails to send personalized emails to many customers using bulk email service. Bulk email service allows them to segment emails based on specific parameters set by them. It helps in lead nurturing process where emails are sent depending on lead’s position in the sales funnel.

Email automation improves the productivity of campaign managers and makes it easy for them to manage growing customer base. It ensures that the timeliness of email campaign is maintained by delivering the right message to the right inbox at the right time. Automation trend will be led by suitable email marketing software, such as our very own Email Connect.

7. A/B testing 

A/B testing is a method where you send different variations of email to a different set of subscribers to establish which email variation works the best for your subscribers. The variation can be produced in terms of subject lines, email templates, subject matter, call-to-action buttons etc.

There are various email tools like EmailConnect, available to help you A/B test your email campaign. Such tools can automatically send variations to select subsets. The email version that performs the best is automatically sent to the remaining subscribers. A/B testing is a remarkable way to improve open and click-through rates of your email and is the future of email marketing.

8. Embedded video

Email marketers don’t want to leave any stone unturned to get the attention of customers. The attempt to embed video in the email is a clear indication of that. Embedded video in emails improves user experience and ensures high engagement. Embedded videos are suitable for marketers who want to demonstrate product features. However, due to spam and security reasons leading email clients like Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo are yet to provide support for this feature. If that happens, an embedded video has the potential to become the hottest email marketing trends in 2018.

9. Conversational tone of writing

In a time where everything is left to machines, emails with conversational tone will make more impact over formal scripts. The conversational tone is primarily used to increase personal interaction and enhance user engagement. Short and easy paragraphs will dominate over long and exhaustive sentences.

Email marketers would ask a lot of questions before directing users to relevant landing pages where they can get answers. While the conversational tone is good for a B2C segment, it is always safer to maintain formal tone for B2B communication. 2018 is a ripe time for striking a personal cord with customers.

10. Send recap emails

Sending recap emails is a great way to ensure that customers take your campaigns seriously. Whatever email campaign you launch whether it’s a limited time offer or early bird discount, sending a recap email once the campaign is over is quite impactful and is going to be among the leading email marketing trends.

Recap emails can talk about the kind of response you got from your followers and what products were more in demand. Thank customers for being part of the company. A concluding statement like “customers who missed out this time, don’t worry, we’ll come back with more exciting offers” will go a long way in making your next campaign a success.

Choose what is right for your business

Interactive emails, personalization, mobile-friendly designs, segmentation, automation, and testing are some of the leading trends that will determine the future of email marketing. Many email marketing services and email marketing software are available to improve conversion and open rates. A genuine email marketing solution will be the one that targets the right audience, engages them effectively, helps nurture your leads, track the analytics and provides A/B test for better experiments.

Diadem’s Email Marketing EmailConnect is a Comprehensive Email Marketing solution which helps you achieve your business goals, efficiently.