The Future of Email Marketing; Trends and Predictions for 2021
The business world has dramatically improved in recent years with the help of technology, much more so with the Covid 19 pandemic that ravaged the world last year. People have gradually adapted to online purchases. Today, every business owner who wants their business to flourish must find a way to advertise or market their product or service online. So, they use the internet to promote visibility and a chance of conversion in great numbers. Marketing experts have said that email marketing is one of the efficient ways of staying within the view of prospective clients or customers.
Email Marketing; What Does It Mean and How Does it Help You?
Most people are unaware of the fact that email marketing predates the internet. Another outstanding feature of the email is that while other forms of old technology are constantly replaced with more powerful ones, the email has survived many technological transitions unharmed and with new and laudable improvements on its interface. Ray Tomilson sent the first electronic mail in 1971. The first mass mail sent was done by Gary Querk, a man employed at Digital Equipment Corp (people often referred to him as the father of spam). His mass mail was sent to 400 recipients and was an advertisement for his company’s computers, and it resulted in 13 million dollars in sales. Putting into consideration the inflation, that will be sum up to be about 78.8 million dollars.
Essentially, Email Marketing is the sending of commercial messages to a group of people who serve as potential customers through email. It is a way of making people on your list aware of the products or services you sell. It is a form of direct marketing as well as digital marketing that promotes your business. It helps to build a relationship with your audience and drive traffic to your website, blog, online stores, and so on. Email marketing is a craft that you must hone to have positive results in terms of awareness or conversion. A marketing expert from assignment writing services recommends that you hire freelancers to help you write or manage your business’s email marketing.
There are certain things that you as a marketer must know before going into email marketing. They include that you must have a target or call to action for your audience, you must compile an email list of people who are interested in what you offer, you must not send emails all the time else you frustrate your audience into unsubscribing from your mail list
The Future of Email Marketing; Bleak or Bright?
To answer the question, marketing enthusiasts from college paper help pronounced that the future of Email Marketing is blindingly bright! This is because marketing has proven to be much more effective. Its ROI is 38:1(with some studies showing that it can be as high as 44:1). This means that you can earn up to 44 dollars on every dollar spent on an email. This conversion rate is very much higher than even that of T.V ads, which has a conversion rate of 1:3:1. This does not mean that Email marketing is free of hurdles. Hence, to adapt to the email marketing trends translates to acknowledging the functions of new technologies and their effect on your proposed audience. Some certain trending strategies and predictions can help an email marketer stay well and afloat in the industry, and they include;
- Artificial Intelligence
In this digital age, data keeps growing. The data includes people’s info, preferences, and other key information that will fuel the marketing industry. Marketing specialists often reiterate that data is the lifeline of the marketing industry, without which there would be huge losses in the industry. However, there is a problem. The number of data sources increased exponentially by 50% from 2017 to 2019, making it very difficult to assess customer information without help. Also, with the high number of emails sent daily (about 293 billion emails), there is a crucial need to manage data.
A.I. software can sift through all these huge data and give accurate trends, subscriber actions, identify correlations, and even suggest what to do to retain or interact with customers. Many marketing agencies are learning to properly harness the pot of gold that is A.I. to efficiently redirect their mails and make the most of their money.
2. Interactive Mails
Gary Albert, a digital and email marketing guru, stated that when writing a mail for conversion, you interact with your prospect the same way you would interact with a friend you have not seen in a while. He said a long time ago, and it has stood the test of time. In fact, experts teach the principle, albeit in a modern and more evolved manner. The evolved methods include images, carousels, menus or clickable items, and so on. Attaching some feedback to give an insight on how well the mail was received and perceived. Static mails are just a slow way of killing your business. Interactive mails convert twice as much as static mails.
3. The Less, the Better
The internet is filled with lots of information. As a result, people’s attention span is very short. So, it would help if you avoided unnecessary stories in your mail. It should not be so short as to be perceived as absurdly abrupt, and it should not be lengthy to the extent that your audience is bored and unable to connect. There are two major consequences of the latter scenario: the possible loss of an audience and lack of conversion, which defeats the purpose of the mail.
4. Plain text Emails
An email marketer from paper writing services review always prefers that texts should appear in plain text. The same applies to emails too. Mail contents should be plain, simple, and easy to read. It is not an avenue to show your font creativity. In plain text emails, you avoid emoticons or gifs that will distract your reader from the text. Some seasoned marketers might send emails in plain text and HTML format using Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME). This is one of the best email marketing tools of the year.
5. Segmentation of Audience Behaviour
Audience segmentation has been booed and faulted for being a move that lacked innovation. However, behavioral segmentation has been tested and proven to be the best. There are two major ways of achieving behavioral segmentation. They include;
- Purchase Behaviour
Your sales funnel is open to customers at all stages. Some customers may be new. Others might be midway through, while some would have purchased, intending to come back for more. That’s one way to segment your customers behaviourally to give them the right content to help them through your sales funnel, convince them to buy, and retain them as loyal customers.
- Benefits Sought
Marketing 101 teaches that you can market your brand as well as the feeling that comes with it. This begs the question of what do your customers benefit from you? What feeling comes after getting your services? For example, where you provide help for a customer, do they feel properly guided or unsatisfied? This means of segmenting your audience will also help you to have more knowledge about your customer base. This is also synonymous with customer experience in the general fold of marketing.
6. Automation
The last trend and prediction for the email marketing industry (in this article) is further growth and improvement, specifically, email automation. Automation is almost like lubricating oil for the email marketer. This is because it makes the work way easier and more efficient. Timing is very important in email marketing, but mundane work-life balance and time zones might hinder the timely delivery of email. When you use time triggers on your mail, the system takes care of the rest like you are there sitting in front of your computer while, in reality, you are not.
Authors Bio
Aziz Nicleson is an expert journalist. He works in a popular magazine in London. When he isn’t writing, he is playing tennis.
