Almost a whole new year lies ahead and it is the ideal time to take a fresh look at your business goals and how you are going to take sound steps to achieve them. Whether it is a new business opened or you are leading a business for quite some time, the emerging marketing trends are likely to attract your attention.Email marketing after being left on the lurch for some time again came revitalized enjoying more focus from all around. 2016 with an array of new approaches in email design and automation is likely to be a great year with full of promises for email marketing. Here are our picks on 10 killer email marketing trends that every business need to concentrate in 2016.
1. Gmail will offer style and media query support
Gmail for long accursedly left itself behind in the league of new email services with new look-wise approaches. But this year can be a turnaround time for the number one mailing service. By following some enhanced viewing and design standards and support it can just offer a whole refurbished feel to the subscribers.
Gmail is likely to add two important aspects to their mailing service, respectively as style support for their web-mail clients and for mobile apps long awaited media query support. With these two designers, marketers and ESPs will be able to ensure great user experience both on desktop and mobile.
2. Mobile will be principal device for email opening
Until last year, 49% of email opened on mobile devices but in the last quarter of the year this figure surged ahead tremendously. In 2016, mobile access and opening of emails on mobile devices will outnumber desktops by huge margin.
As businesses continue to turn their back towards expensive desktop suites accessing emails on desktop will further shrink and a large portion of this will switch over to mobile. Moreover, with the rapid proliferation of cloud-based software, on-premise software suites will continue to shrink resulting in email access beyond boundaries of devices and location.
3. More emphasis on personalization
Real time email marketing is getting popular with the new technology allowing proactive and agile feedback on user access. Blast email sending has stopped garnering any effective result long ago and in the days to come will only contribute to negative user feedback. Email recipients are now interested in messages that are addressed to personal taste, preference and focus areas rather than just their first name. Engaging emails that are likely to have bigger chances of business conversion or response should at least offer some personal attributes connecting the recipient almost instantly.
4. More emphasis on video and animation content
Video and animation in email content will continue to garner more importance and find wider application in the months to come. Besides attracting subscribers’ attention at a glance the moving and dynamic elements can also intuitively deliver suggestions and guide recipients towards certain actions. Use of moving materials like timer also can enhance the click through rate tremendously. Making users respond to graphic and moving elements is crucial rather than just adding such elements because they look cool.
5. Aesthetic appeal in details will rule
With focus on design and visual effects ruling the web nobody is actually interested anymore in simple, plain text emails. Creating beautiful impressively designed emails has now become extremely easy thanks to an array of tools. From using good typographic variation to the use of full blown images to using the right mix of white space with distinct contrast of color, aesthetic appeal rules supreme here and there are too many ways to ensure that.
6. Modular email templates will rule
In 2016, modular designed template for emails will add to the variety of look-wise choices with the same email content. The goal of modular templates is to be offer quick and easy design options by editing the design elements. This allows designing emails easily while ensuring aesthetic appeal, quality and consistency. This also helps email automation to take effect as designing emails through such templates is likely to take much less time than usual.
7. Social media and Email marketing will become more and more intertwined
Social media no longer can just say that email is dead. As by many users social media is increasingly being considered as a waste of potential time or just a folly of branding, emails are being taken more seriously. Obviously, the revived role of emails incorporating new design approach took a big role in this. In 2016, we can see these two facets of marketing coming more closer and being more intertwined. While social media is considered to be an ideal medium to build email list, the email content get richer by incorporating some social media content. In the months to come this trend is likely to foster even more.
8. Interactive emails adding more substance
Emails that drive user interaction already garner higher engagement from the user. By ensuring user interactivity within the email marketers can ensure much higher click through rate, traffic for the corresponding website and business conversion.
Simple experiments like image rollovers and animations like rain or falling snow that can be stopped by the email recipient with a click can add fun to the experience and make a lasting impression. Advanced level kinetic email content and options to control them can make a simple email campaign popular. Creative insight and skill is the key for such experiments.
9. Time to bid adieu to batch and blast emails
Email that is created for all subscribers and that are sent at one go without any consideration to individual preference is referred as batch and blast email. Sending such generalized mass produced email is no longer effective due to increased focus on personalization. In 2016, such emails are likely to be abandoned as a campaign strategy of bygone era.
10. In-depth and consistent tracking will lead campaigns
Finally tracking the effectiveness of email campaign and accordingly adjusting to consumer demands will be important more than ever. Focusing on data driven excellence in regard to the user appreciation will be the key aspect in the tracking of email campaigns. A detailed understanding of the data concerning email opening, accessibility, click through rate, comparing elements from various campaigns and their output and business conversion rate from email recipients, all these and many more data driven metrics can just let you track results in details.
Let’s Wrap Up
Finally, it is the creative focus and systematic approach that will make a email camping stand out from others. With the evolving technologies and design approach email marketing now is one of the fast transforming areas of digital marketing that can be effective for those who can address these emerging trends.