So, you think email marketing is dead?

These statistics could change your opinion.

• 60% of customers prefer receiving promotional offers through emails.
• According to the Content Market Institute, 73% of marketers say that emails are critical to their company’s success.
• 78% of marketers witnessed an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months. 

As you can see, email marketing is thriving, and it can still generate an ROI of $44 for every $1 you spend on it.

The secret is to do it the right way. 

The secret is to know what tactics will help you convert your subscribers into customers.

In this blog, we will discuss some email marketing trends that you can use to improve your conversions.

Five email marketing trends to improve conversions

Make your emails interactive

Who said emails have to be boring? You can make them fun and engaging by using interactive elements such as - gifs, polls, and surveys. You can even add gamification to make your emails engaging. Take Kate Spade, for example. They use gifs in emails to show different colors of their bags. Adding interactive elements not just piques the curiosity of the reader, but it can also improve your clickthrough rates. 

Use Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already created ripples in the marketing industry by making marketing more intelligent and efficient. Here’s how you can use it in email marketing.

• Optimize subject lines by auto-generating subject lines that will bring higher clickthrough rates.
• Decide the right time to send emails to your segmented audience based on data.
• Predict the behavior of the audience and personalize the content.
• Boost sales by customizing the offer for each customer. 

AI can ensure that your emails are truly personalized for your readers, making it worthy for them to engage and take the desired action. 

Make emails mobile-friendly

As marketers, we are used to designing emails for desktops. But times have changed now. Today, over 70% of people access their emails on mobile devices. This means that you have to think of mobile when you design your next email marketing campaigns. Here are a few hygiene points that you must follow:

• Ensure that the formatting looks good on mobile devices. 70% of readers delete an email in three seconds if the email is displayed poorly. 15% unsubscribe from it. Avoid over-sized images, text-heavy formats, and do not miss the alt texts in your emails.
• Keep the subject lines short, so they don’t get cut when displayed on mobile. 
• Ensure that the message in the email body is concise so readers would not have to scroll down the page.
• Ensure that your call to action buttons are clearly visible on mobile devices. 
• Test your email on different devices before sending it to your subscribers.

Remember, people will read your emails on the go. So, try to get their attention within a few seconds with responsive email design and crisp content.

Use videos

Do you know videos can increase clickthrough rates by 200-300%? Video in emails can also improve your site traffic by 41%. The human attention span is as less as that of a goldfish. Most likely, they will prefer to view a video rather than read through the text. Videos are particularly useful when you want to give a demo of your product or explain something in detail. However, if you are planning to use videos in emails, remember that Android devices and Gmail may not support HTML5 playback (required to embed videos). So, use videos judiciously in your email campaigns. You can use gifs or a link to the video on your website as alternatives if videos don’t work well.

Ask for Opt-ins 

In his book Permission Marketing, Seth Godin made a case for asking your readers for permission to market to them rather than intruding on them with unsolicited emails. Opt-ins are now a necessity with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), insisting on taking consent from the user before collecting or using their data.

Asking for consent to emails will not just increase trust among your readers. But it will also improve the conversion rates because the people in your subscriber list will be genuinely interested in your content. Opt-ins will also ensure that the reader receives your email in their inbox rather than in their spam folder. 

Conclusion 

The above trends will unquestionably help in boosting your open and conversion rates. But eventually, it is your content, message, and design that will play a significant role in the conversion rates. Here’s a quick checklist that you can use to boost your conversion rates:

• Personalize your email, keep it relevant to the reader.
• Segment your audience smartly so you can personalize it the right way.
• Communicate your point clearly and as quickly as possible.
•  Test your emails. Ensure that they render correctly on all the devices and for email clients such as Outlook. Check if the links go to the right pages.
•  Use a conversational tone in your emails and ensure that it relates to the pain points of the customer.
• Use marketing automation tools to send emails to the right people at the right time.

Need help in planning and executing email marketing campaigns? Get in touch with us.