Monique Danao — May 21, 2018 — May 21, 2018
A lot of businesses use email marketing to communicate with their customers.
According to the Radicati Group, the estimated number of email accounts worldwide was at 3.7 billion—and the number of emails sent per day averaged a staggering 269 billion in 2017!
With so many marketers using emails to promote their brand, how can you set yourself apart? Here’s what you need to do to stay ahead in 2018’s email marketing game:
1. Send Follow-Up Emails
Follow-up emails are a top email marketing trend and for a good reason.
They give customers more opportunities to see your message. In fact, Yesware found that 91 percent of emails are opened within the day after its sent. Meaning that if you don’t get a reply on the same day, chances are, you should follow-up.
The same study also found that brands have a 21% chance of getting a reply on the second email, and a 25% chance on the third.
Example: SumoMe’s follow-up email
SumoMe, a website traffic tool, launched a 30% off SumoMe Pro discount. The result was a measly 0.41% conversion rate or 11 sales. Since the promo would end after 4 days, they thought that the low sales were due to a lack of urgency.
So, they sent another email on the last day of the promo.
The result? 102 conversions!
They sent another email 6 hours before the end of the promo and got 54 more conversions!
Just imagine if SumoMe didn’t send a follow-up. They would have missed a whooping 156 conversions!
2. Create Interactive Emails
Interactive emails allow users to take action within their inbox.
For example, let’s say you want to buy a T-shirt from Everlane. With an interactive email, you can view the product within the email, choose your size via the dropdown menu and add them to a cart, within the email. You don’t need to go to a separate landing page or visit a website because all the information is sent in your inbox.
According to the Content Standard, now is the time to dive into interactive email marketing. Statistics from Business 2 Community even found that they can increase click rates by 18 percent and click-to-open rates by 10 percent. So, if you’re not creating them now, then you are missing out on A LOT.
3. Use GIFs
GIFs are great if you want to engage your audience with compelling, attractive content. They’re easy to make and they allow you to showcase your message, product or idea in an eye-catching way. A study from MarketingSherpa found that they can increase CTR (click-through-rates) by 42% and increase revenue by 104!
For example, Kate Spade used GIFs to display the color variations of their Joanie handbag collection.
Through GIFs, brands can transform a boring and dull email into an interesting one. This gets customers to pay attention to their promotions, increases click-through rates (CTR) and conversions.
4. Integrate Machine Learning
Machine learning lets computers use past or present data to create relevant and timely content.
Let’s say, you’re a clothing brand. With machine learning, you can find out the styles of your customers, predict the products they love and send promos that reflect their tastes. This increases the odds of an actual purchase.
Machine learning has gained momentum for obvious reasons. It can use on-site behavior to determine patterns, predict long-term behavior and determine the products consumers love. This way, customers can move along the buying cycle.
Example: The Krazy Coupon Lady
The Krazy Coupon Lady emails subscribers with deals and limited time offers. They used machine learning, so recipients are sent deals based on their interests.
This move led to a 400% increase in their CTR!
5. Send Integrated Email Forms
Your marketing strategy is far from effective, if you don’t have the data to back it up. By data, we mean your consumers’ demographics, psychographics, insights and perceptions. This is important because it serves as the foundation of your strategy, and helps determines which strategies will work and which ones won’t.
The problem is customers seldom answer online surveys. FluidSurveys found that the average response rates for email surveys is 24.8%. Not surprisingly, people don’t want to answer forms that are too long or take more time to load.
Fortunately, you can use integrated email forms, to avoid the hassle of page loading times. For starters, this survey format lets users answer questions directly from the email. There’s no need to visit a separate page or wait for the pages to load.
Example: EmailMonks
EmailMonks collects customer feedback from interactive email forms like the one below:
Upgrading your email marketing strategy is crucial to your success. You can easily up your game through machine learning, GIFs, interactive emails and so on.
How will you upgrade your email marketing strategy in 2018? Let us know in the comments!
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