15 experts from the field of email
marketing have identified the latest trends in Email Marketing for the year
2021 and have attempted to predict the future.
1.
Email Marketing in the wake of the Pandemic –
COVID 19 and the norm of social
distancing, has compelled companies, which had hitherto disregarded email
marketing, to resort to employing email marketing campaigns to reach out to
their customers.
Nikki
Elbaz, an email copywriter by profession,
envisions that more 'brick and mortar
locations' (offline stores) will engage in email marketing to bridge the
gap the pandemic has created by sending emails and thereby, 'showing up where the customer already is'
i.e. the inbox.
2.
Demand for Agility –
COVID 19 taught companies to always be
prepared for the unexpected. In regards to email marketing, email content and
strategies should be prepared beforehand, so that the company, when
encountering an unprecedented situation, can launch an email marketing campaign
immediately.
Chad
S. White, of Oracle Marketing Consulting, opines
that '2020 highlighted a need for brands
to be more nimble and responsive with their email marketing...'
The co-founder of Origin Email Agency, Ryan Phelan believes that there will be
more shifts in consumer behaviour and the company has to be equipped to deal
with it.
Gavin
Laugenie, of dotdigital, postulates that "Your marketing needs to mirror the same agility
you and your team display..."
3.
Ensuring a place in the inbox
The founder of Email Industries, Scott Hardigree, reveals email
deliverability to be a key challenge in email marketing that has to be tackled.
He says, "...In 2021, high email
deliverability rates will be reserved for brands that do the hard work and
adhere to best practices."
Adam
Holden-Bache of Enventys Partners, states that
"Brands need to ensure they have
completed the necessary steps for email authentication and need to be reviewing
analytics to identify any points of failure in their email deliveries..."
for the success of any email marketing campaign.
The VP of Industry Relations &
Compliance at Kickbox, Lauren Meyer,
explains what BIMI is and how it will help email marketing. "BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message
Identification) is an emerging email specification that allows email marketers
to stand out within an ever-crowded inbox by displaying brand-controlled logos
right beside the emails they send..."
4.
New Technologies
Experts like Adam Holden-Bache also advocate that with the advent of new
technologies, such as AI, email marketing is destined to grow.
5. Automation
For the success of email marketing, emails
have to be tailored keeping in mind the customer's behaviour patterns and have
to look beyond just their contact details.
Jeanne
Jennings, the founder of Email Optimization Shop,
highlights the importance of behaviour-based automation as the next key trend
in email marketing.
6.
New Strategies
Dela
Quist, the founder of Alchemy Worx, suggests a
re-evaluation of the traditional strategies in email marketing for dealing with
active and inactive subscribers.
7.
Trends in Email Content
Rob
and Kennedy, the Email Marketing Heroes duo,
believe that email marketing needs to engage in more than just promotion to
grab the attention of the readers.
Emily McGuire foresees misguided
messages as a major challenge to tackle in 2021. According to her, email
marketing should be guided by empathy.
8.
Trends in Email Design
Email Marketing will also change in 2021,
concerning the designs of the emails.
Anne
Tomlin, of Emails Y'all, has mentioned that
companies will slowly start noticing and using dark modes. She says once the
statistics regarding the increasing number of customers using dark mode is
revealed, "...brands will either
create a separate dark mode design or modify designs to work in both light and
dark modes..."
Mark
Robbins, of Salesforce, proposes that
accessibility should be taken into account while designing emails for email
marketing.
Annett
Forcier, the founder of Email Boutique, posits
that possibilities and challenges need to be accounted for during the designing
process itself to deliver an improved user experience.
Samar
Owais encourages companies to produce more
interactive emails – "Emails that
use content to sell are great. But sales emails that are interactive and fun?
Even better! You can use something as simple as a poll to customize a
subscriber's email shopping experience."
These new trends, once incorporated, will
spell success for Email Marketing.
