Article

Ben Tomlinson
Ben Tomlinson 22 December 2016

Email Marketing in 2017 – Key Trends for the Year Ahead

2016 has been a successful year for email marketing. It continues to grow as a marketing channel and is an important part of the marketing mix. Whilst there has been a rise in other platforms (especially social media), email marketing remains to be integral for brands to reach and engage customers.

2016 has been a successful year for email marketing. It continues to grow as a marketing channel and is an important part of the marketing mix. Whilst there has been a rise in other platforms (especially social media), email marketing remains to be integral for brands to reach and engage customers.

Personalisation, automation and optimisation are three key focus areas for email marketing at present. Looking to 2017, all three will continue to grow and become more sophisticated but the application of each is changing to reflect new trends and technology.

Personalisation

Personalisation is becoming more effective, but it still has a long way to go. An area of particular focus is product recommendations. Amazon, for example, learns the products you are interested in and targets consumers with tailored content.  However, they haven’t quite reached the holy grail, for instance they might suggest an Xbox console to consumers when purchasing an Xbox game when they already have the console - their technology isn’t sophisticated enough to recognise this yet.

In 2017, we can expect to see technology increasingly being used to deliver hyper-personalisation and the optimum customer experience. Emerging technology providers are overcoming current challenges and in the next year you can expect to see brands delivering more tailored and intelligent content to inboxes.

Automation

Real-time automation will be a big trend for 2017. To engage consumers and get their eyes on your content, real-time automation is really important. Using real-time technology, brands can tailor their content to be relevant at the time of open. With eBay, email content is generated instantly and based on what the consumer has been searching for and purchasing – even for searches made after the email has been sent. This is a far cry from the email blast approaches of the past and brands must move towards are more tailored and real-time approach to engage future and current customers.

Optimisation

We’re seeing an increase in artificial intelligence when it comes to optimisation, especially with subject lines. Through understanding what emotions and sentiments lead to clicks, conversions and opens, artificial intelligence can be used to generate the subject lines that will deliver the best results for campaigns.

With the use of artificial intelligence increasing, there is a decreasing reliance on individuals testing email formats from subject lines to the content within the email itself. For instance, if you’re used to performing AB split tests you might believe version A works best but in fact version B is more effective. This is where machine learning can be very effective because more likely than not the technology will be correct and it removes the possibility of human error. This leads to optimisation of your content and ultimately an increase in engagement. 

The industry is taking great strides forward and email marketing continues to flourish as a marketing channel and will twist its stake further into the ground in 2017. However, something the industry is still failing to do effectively is attribution. We need better attribution of the email channel in order to determine how much money it makes in comparison to the rest of the marketing mix, and how much brands should be spending on email marketing. At present, there is far too much reliance on last-click attribution, and this is failing to take into account the many touch points consumers and businesses alike encounter before making a purchase or decision. In 2017, the industry needs to take strides towards finding a more holistic alternative for last-click attribution.

https://www.communicatorcorp.com/

Please login or register to add a comment.

Contribute Now!

Loving our articles? Do you have an insightful post that you want to shout about? Well, you've come to the right place! We are always looking for fresh Doughnuts to be a part of our community.

Popular Articles

See all
The Impact of New Technology on Marketing

The Impact of New Technology on Marketing

Technology has impacted every part of our lives. From household chores to business disciplines and etiquette, there's a gadget or app for it. Marketing has changed dramatically over the years, but what is the...

Alex Lysak
Alex Lysak 22 September 2020
Read more
The Carrot of a Bigger Market is More Powerful Than the Stick of Legal Action in Driving Web Accessibility Investment, New Research Finds

The Carrot of a Bigger Market is More Powerful Than the Stick of Legal Action in Driving Web Accessibility Investment, New Research Finds

Getting web accessibility right is a massive commercial opportunity. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3bn people worldwide are living with some form of impairment. The benefits of making it easier for...

Michael Nutley
Michael Nutley 30 November 2023
Read more
It’s Time For Brands to Move From Personalised, to Personal

It’s Time For Brands to Move From Personalised, to Personal

At a time when almost every brand is tailoring content and offers to individual customers based on their demographic data, purchase history, and online behaviours, are these personalisation efforts still adding value?...

Shafqat Islam
Shafqat Islam 27 November 2023
Read more
The 3 Most Important Stages In Your Presentation

The 3 Most Important Stages In Your Presentation

If you want to deliver a presentation on a particular topic and you have to prepare yourself for it you should make sure that you go through several very important stages in order to craft a compelling, persuasive and...

Nicky Nikolaev
Nicky Nikolaev 16 February 2016
Read more
From Success to Setback: Lessons in MarTech Decision-Making

From Success to Setback: Lessons in MarTech Decision-Making

We often talk to clients about the consolidation of MarTech capabilities across vendors, to the point that it’s often not too difficult to pick up a new technology if you’re comfortable working with an alternative...

Andrew Addison
Andrew Addison 29 November 2023
Read more