The pandemic transformed the digital marketing landscape, mainly email marketing. It brought new challenges for marketers and consumers alike, such as the rising number of phishing emails and the increasing competitiveness among digital marketers. Likewise, it brought new opportunities for email marketing.
As 2024 enters the scene, keep your eyes on the changes in consumer behavior and the various new technologies to help you create the best email marketing campaigns. This can help you make better and more effective strategies to boost customer engagement and drive results through email marketing.
With that, here are some of the email marketing trends for 2024.
1. Increase in email users
Due to the various lockdowns in the past months, people have become more reliant on emails. They use it both for work and personal correspondence. As a result, the number of email users will reach almost 4.73 billion worldwide by 2026. And this figure will continue to grow despite the growth and popularity of other communication apps like mobile messengers and chat apps.
Two of the most popular email clients are the iPhone email app and Gmail. Both of which are web-based email platforms. On the other hand, desktop email clients’ open share had declined compared to the rising popularity of webmail apps.
Many online users use emails for website and newsletter signups. While this presents more opportunities for marketers to engage with their customers, this may also lead to the inevitable flooding of a spam mail in users’ inboxes. Hence, you need to ensure your email marketing content won’t accidentally get mistaken for spam mail.
Fortunately, there are ways to prevent your emails from going to spam. One of the best ways to do that is to use reputable email marketing software for your campaigns. Likewise, it doesn’t hurt to ask permission from your customers to send them emails or to whitelist your email address.
2. Heightened personalization
Personalization is key to improving digital customer experience and boosting conversion rates. A study by McKinsey shows that personalization yields 20% higher customer satisfaction rates. It also increases sales conversion rates by 10% to 15% and employee engagement by 20% to 30%.
With such positive results, more marketers will be focusing on heightening personalization in their marketing campaigns, especially with email marketing. Avoid using the same template, the same content, and the same format for all your customers. Don’t just settle for personalizing their names on your header. It would be best if you dive deeper into their minds to know what they need and want to see in your email newsletters, advertisements, and other content. The best way to do that is through email segmentation. This method divides your email subscribers into smaller groups based on specific criteria or commonalities. For example, you can group those of similar age, gender, location, interests, and professions/jobs. This helps you create relevant content for your subscribers. And as a result, they will be more motivated to engage with your email marketing content.
3. Impacts on data privacy and security
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation in all aspects of people’s lives. Nowadays, anyone can work remotely, shop online, and attend classes online. While this brings a lot of perks and convenience, it also brings its threats, especially regarding data security.
According to KPMG, 92% of customers expect companies to keep them safe regarding their data privacy and security. Likewise, in the same report, 55% of consumers want companies to keep their data secure as a number one priority. Unfortunately, hackers and cybercriminals often target email marketing campaigns to steal customer data. So it is your responsibility to protect your customers.
Take a proactive approach and help your customers understand the current risks online. Teach them what spam looks like and show how they can verify that an email legitimately came from you. Most importantly, keep your customer data safe, especially their email addresses. That means tightening your cybersecurity infrastructure, investing in reliable software, and encrypting email content and other data.
4. Demands for interactivity
Alongside email personalization trends, there will be more demands for interactive emails. These are emails that allow readers to do more with your email marketing content other than just reading. For example, an interactive email may require the user to move the cursor over an image to see it move or change. Others may provide a link that will allow them to complete the purchase within the email.
Some would embed short videos in their emails. A study shows that interactive videos can increase your lead generation by 15%. Others also may add infographics or visual elements in their email marketing content to make it more dynamic.
There are many ways to make your emails interactive. So don’t be afraid to mix it up now and then.
5. Rise of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is more accessible now than ever. Many marketing software offers AI and machine learning as one of their features. As a result, it is becoming a popular and indispensable tool for marketers. Statista lists it as the 4th most effective digital marketing tool worldwide. Most marketers often use AI and machine learning for marketing data analysis to improve personalization. Others use it for content creation and automation.
AI technology can go hand in hand with email marketing. You can use it to boost the personalization of your email marketing content. And likewise, you can use AI to gather and filter relevant data from your customers’ interactions with your email content. You can then import such data and integrate with a CRM software. This helps in keeping your customer database updated and tracks your progress with them.
You can also use AI technology to automate specific tasks in your email marketing campaigns. This includes sending bulk emails and audience segmentation.
6. Importance of mobile optimization
According to Statista, around 50% of global website traffic comes from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. The same report also claims that email usage is one of the most mobile internet activities worldwide. Hence, it is essential that you optimize your email marketing campaigns for smaller screens.
You can use a responsive or scalable mobile template for your campaigns. This also applies to your emails and videos as well. Likewise, keep your email short and to the point to avoid dense text on your subscribers’ screens.
7. Adoption of dark mode
More people now prefer dark mode to light mode on their devices, such as their smartphones and laptops. Hence, it is a trend for many apps to offer a dark mode option for their interfaces. This is especially true for web apps such as web browsers, social media apps, and email apps.
So when creating your email marketing content, you should also consider how your content will look in dark mode. Make sure that your text will remain readable amid the dark background. Likewise, make sure that any images or graphics won’t end up blending in with the black interface of subscribers’ emails.
New year, new strategies for email marketing
Email marketing is becoming one of the most popular tools among marketers. It allows them to reach out and connect with consumers. But as much as this can bring new opportunities for you, competition for consumers’ attention grows tighter as more marketers join in the wagon.
Every day, your customers receive tons of emails. Ensure your emails won’t get buried in their inbox by leveraging the latest email marketing trends and best practices. Explore what new technology to invest in for your email marketing campaigns. To give you a head start, check out MailBuster, a reliable email marketing software that will surely fit your budget.
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