By all means, the effectiveness of email marketing is getting stronger as more and more people turn their critical eye to other more intrusive web marketing tactics.
The power of email lies in its ability to reach people at their private addresses without interrupting their natural browsing flow.
There’s a certain amount of freedom attached to it because we choose which email to open, which to trash, mark as spam, or simply leave for later reading. It’s quite different than social media ads or website pop-up ads that are imposing and often irritating.
This infographic from Statista shows how many times a day did Northern Americans check their inbox in 2016.
The stats for 2017 most certainly bring more surprises as the number of email users grows by millions each year and the use of mobile devices in checking mail is taking over desktop by far. It’s all so easy to check mail on mobile whenever we have a minute to spare.
In another online survey, 400 white-collar U.S. workers estimated that they spend 6.3 hours daily checking emails, with 3.2 hours devoted to work and 3.1 hours to personal emails. This is an impressive number!
Now, let’s check how many of our predictions for 2018 you’ve got covered in your business.
1. Use of email automation tools
Not surprisingly, automation is the absolute champion of email marketing. If you haven’t yet incorporated one of the email marketing automation tools in your current workflow our warm suggestion is you do it this year.
It will help you automate the sending of emails and drip campaigns so that you can remain present and relevant in your customers’ inbox.
All these marketing automation platforms allow for highly customized email triggers, so that you can fine tune your campaigns and choose the right time to activate your audiences.
2. Do a better audience segmentation
Second big reason for you to start using email marketing apps is the precision of their audience segmentation.
To divide your contact lists and create meaningful audience segments is of crucial importance for your email campaigns. Effective targeting proves to bring better email open and click-through rates, plus your content stays super-relevant for designated groups.
3. Connect your subscription forms to email automation tools
2018 will require marketers to be more data-savvy and create advanced email campaigns. They will also need to be familiar with email retargeting practices.
To collect and utilize customer data and achieve laser-precision targeting, you will need effective email opt-in and contact forms. You can even have popup forms on your website which will allow you to collect contacts and build versatile lists for different campaigns you’re planning.
Once you have your forms set up and ready to collect data on your websites, blogs and social media profiles, you can integrate them with your email marketing tools. EmailMeForms integrate with major email tools like Hubspot, MailChimp, MyEmma, ActiveCampaign, AWeber, Campaign Monitor and more.
With data automation you’ll never miss a precious lead coming through your subscription and contact forms.
4. Use design and imagery to stand out
Of course we like to be noticed! We want our face to be remembered, our brand to shine with individuality and uniqueness.
In our age it’s hard to stand out. Aim for simple and unique expression. It doesn’t have to be high art, but it should to be consistent and evoke your brand in your customers’ memory. If they like your emails, they will be quick to respond most of the times.
A good way to make your brand more human is to introduce a mascot that will speak for your brand.
Recently, we designed a mascot for our email communications. With the mascot we’re aiming to boost our brand recognition and open rates.
Use header and footer space in your emails for imagery and design. This way, you will keep consistent and your email recipients will know it’s you who’s writing. Besides, you won’t have to create new designs every time you send out emails, which is a huge resource saver.
Most email automation tools allow you to create multiple templates that you can reuse.
5. Interactive elements for special occasions
Sometimes, though, you might opt in for something more extravagant, something to spice up your campaigns.
Interactive elements like surveys, quizzes, clickable event invitations, animated images, call-to-action buttons, and videos can make your emails more exciting and help you increase engagement.
However, it is not recommended that you use these too often since email clients sometimes have difficulty loading this type of content. It will change in the future as we keep seeing more interactive emails in our inbox every day.
6. Think mobile-first
This is the marketing mantra for 2018 and the years to come.
We certainly don’t need to tell you why. Just look at the crowd around you wherever you find yourself while reading this article. Our guess is that at least 60% of the people around you will have mobile devices in their hands. And they check their inbox all the time!
Make sure you create emails that look and work good on mobile phones, that’s all.
7. Use simple surveys
Because it’s in your best interest to know what your customers’ sentiment towards your business is.
Send out Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys and customer feedback forms every now and then to get a better understanding of how exactly do your customers perceive your company and your brand. These could be super simple with only one question and a text box for any textual commentary that your customers might have.
We use NPS survey all the time to find out how users perceive our service. It has helped us focus on the areas that are most problematic for the majority of our users. They really appreciate the fact that we act on their feedback.
Build trust on the feedback you get from your customers. They talk, you listen and act.
8. Plain text emails
Lately, you might have noticed the trend of plain text emails in your inbox.
Do you like them?
I do. They are devoid of flashy design and content. Simple to read, more direct, more human.
On top of all this, any email client can load and display them without glitches which is a huge relief for all of you who wish to get your message across. Simple textual emails are perfect for addressing audiences on important matters, without whistles and blows or being too “salesy”.
We’ve already tested these marketing tactics and they worked for our company.
If you haven’t done so already, we hope you’ll make full advantage of email marketing this year to boost engagement with your customers and stay on their mind for a long long time.
Good luck and write to us if you have questions about email marketing integration with your forms.
Jovana Milankovic
Jovana is a content creator and marketing manager at EmailMeForm. Her job is to curate our software to the world and make it more human for our users.
