Did you know that revenue from email marketing is expected to grow and surpass $11 billion in 2024? That’s right, email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to reach and engage with your target audience. It allows us to reach and interact with our target audience in a pragmatic and quantifiable way.
However, making the most of our efforts and achieving our goals requires that we be abreast of the latest developments and trends in email marketing. In light of this, we have compiled 7 important trends that every ecommerce email marketer should keep an eye on in 2024.
1) Progressing to hyper-personalization
Did you know that over 70% of millennials have an unfavorable opinion of brands that don’t send them personalized emails? Customers no longer want generic messages or offers. Instead, they want to feel like the brand is speaking directly to them. Marketers can take personalization a step further by using dynamic content, which changes based on the user’s browsing history or past purchases.
Let’s look at Amazon’s email personalization strategy. Whenever you leave a product page on their site, you can count on receiving a follow-up email with additional suggestions. With information like the shopper’s name, search terms, average time spent browsing, previous purchase history, typical order value, and preferred brand, Amazon recommends products of interest to each individual shopper.
As a whole, personalization is a potent tool that can strengthen a brand’s relationship with its customers and boost the effectiveness of its email marketing campaigns.
2) Creating more engaging content
Marketing emails perform better when they contain interesting content that piques readers’ interest. Engaging email content can increase open rates, click-through rates, and drive customer engagement.
Take Fortnum & Mason for instance if you receive an email from them, you won’t feel like you’re being sold anything, which is why it’s so effective at promoting their product. Seeing a picture of their biscuit can pique customers’ interest even if they can’t really try it.
On the off chance that a customer is not interested in the primary offering, they can look into the product recommendations provided below.
3) Mobile optimization will soon be a must
Smartphones’ growing influence and importance make them inevitable in our lives. With more and more people checking their emails on their smartphones and tablets, it is essential to ensure that the emails you send are easily readable and navigable on small screens. This means using a responsive design that automatically adjusts to the size of the device, and keeping the content of the email simple and easy to consume.
Wayfair.com, a home goods ecommerce site, knows how crucial it is to optimize its app for mobile users. The team has worked hard to ensure that the app offers the best possible mobile purchasing experience. They have improved the app’s user-friendliness by implementing features like smooth scrolling and filtering, enlarging photographs, and streamlining the purchasing procedure.
They also work to reduce app load times so that customers have quick access to the services they require.
4) Using interactive elements
Many ecommerce email marketers are already sending out emails that allow customers to engage with the content in a more dynamic way, such as by clicking on links, swiping through carousels, or filling out forms. These types of emails are proven to be more effective at driving conversions, as they provide a more engaging and personalized experience for the recipient.
By using polls, you can get a better understanding of your audience’s preferences and interests. Similarly, quizzes can be used to educate and entertain your audience, while surveys can help you gather feedback about your products or services.
In order to create interactive emails, businesses typically use HTML coding to add features such as radio buttons, drop-down menus, and form fields. However, as these types of emails require custom development, organizations may need to turn to specialized service providers to meet their needs. Due to the complexity of interactive emails, not all ESPs can handle this type of message.
Hers, a brand that specializes in products for women’s health and beauty, regularly updates its email subscribers with industry news and trends.
Detailed explanations of each finding are provided and organized in separate boxes. Each box is colored differently and neatly laid out. The reader is compelled to look at the accompanying graphic for each set of results.
These interactive elements allow you to gather valuable data and insights about your audience, which can be used to improve your overall marketing strategy and create more targeted campaigns in the future.
5) Adopting automation at scale
If you want to generate money with automation, don’t look at it as a way to avoid completing tedious work. There’s no doubt that in today’s automated world, marketers must think globally, and email automations help them do so.
An ecommerce company can use email automation to send a reminder email to a customer who abandoned their cart, which includes a special offer or a link to the cart to encourage the customer to complete their purchase. Similarly, a business can use automation to send a thank you email to customers who have made a purchase that includes a survey or a request for a product review.
Take a look at Smartwool for instance, at first glance, this email doesn’t seem to fit the profile of a “browse abandonment” email. However, the email’s heading, “Stop Looking. Start Exploring,” gives it away as an excellent sample of a browse abandonment strategy.
Smartwool is being subtly persuasive rather than overtly so (as in, “we saw you browsed this product, now come back and purchase it”). From the standpoint of the customer, this is likely a timely email.
6) Incorporating user-generated content (UGC)
Incorporating images and testimonials of happy customers using your products can effectively establish your authority and win the trust of your target audience. These images can help to showcase the real-world applications and benefits of your products, which can help to build credibility and trust with potential customers.
For instance, if you are a clothing company, including images of customers wearing your clothing in different settings and occasions can help to demonstrate the versatility and suitability of your products for different lifestyles. Moreover, showing happy customers using your products, can give your target audience an idea of how your products can improve their lives, and what they can expect if they decide to purchase. This can help to build trust and confidence in your brand.
Here’s how Judy, a brand that supplies emergency kits, showcases UGC in its emails.
Continue reading: User-Generated Content: Benefits, Strategies & Examples
7) Leveraging the power of storytelling
Storytelling is a powerful arsenal that can be used by D2C brands to boost engagement and build a personal connection with their customers. One way to do this is by using email newsletters to share your company’s history and give your brand a voice, this includes sharing interesting anecdotes from around the office, providing behind-the-scenes insights into the inner workings of your business, and highlighting key milestones and achievements.
Storytelling can also explain your products’ origins, evolution, and solutions. This can show buyers how your products can better their lives. Sharing customers’ stories and how your products helped them can develop emotional connections with your audience. This will show your audience how your products can improve their lives and boost sales.
Jack Mason, uses storytelling to emotionally connect with their audience. By painting a picture of their brand, they increase engagement and demonstrate the authenticity of their products. They use vivid imagery and descriptive language to transport their audience into the experience of using their products, creating a sense of familiarity and trust.
They showcase their products in real-life scenarios and tell the story of the craftsmanship and attention to detail that goes into creating their products, making it easy for their audience to envision themselves using and enjoying them.
Continue reading: Creative Storytelling by 10 Brands That Will Impress You
Endgame
In conclusion, email marketing remains a necessity for businesses of all sizes to reach and engage with their customers. However, with the constantly evolving digital landscape, it can be challenging for brands to keep up with the latest email marketing trends and best practices. It’s important to be aware of the pain points that email marketers may face and how the latest email marketing trends can help alleviate them.
One of the biggest pain points in email marketing is the struggle to stand out in a crowded inbox and capture the attention of the recipient. Another pain point is the challenge of creating personalized and relevant content that resonates with the target audience.
Brands can overcome these by leveraging data and using advanced technologies such as machine learning and automation to understand customer behavior and preferences. Additionally, businesses should strive to create interactive and mobile-optimized emails that are designed to engage and convert.
As the world of email marketing continues to change, it is important to stay up to date on the latest email marketing trends and best practices to ensure that your campaigns are engaging. By staying ahead of the curve and implementing these strategies, businesses can ensure that their email marketing efforts are as effective as possible in 2024 and beyond.
