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10 important future aspects of e-mail marketing

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DQINDIA Online
New Update
Hiver

By: KG Manjunatha, Chairman and CEO , Kenscio Digital

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In a survey conducted by Kenscio, marketers’ second highest priority as a reliable marketing tool went to Email Marketing (59%), and preceded by Social Media (76%). Interestingly, Social Media Marketing has achieved overwhelming response globally within just a couple of years in contrast to more than two decades of existence since email technology was developed in early 90s. Social Media Marketing in the last couple of years has grown like no other, easily drawing the lion’s share of every marketing campaign; such has been its impact in so less time. However, it’s not that Email Marketing is lagging behind. As a matter of fact, ‘Email’ has become an integral part of day-to-day life and is too common to talk about.

The evolution of Email Marketing is slow but it’s steady so far. But with increasing competition at a time when an active subscriber is bombarded with thousands of promotional emails in a month, the future of email marketing in terms of its usability and deliverability will depend on several aspects of its logical and technological architecture. A few important aspects demonstrate what will shape the future of email marketing.

1)Personalization: Personalization imparts a sense of purpose and warmth to Email Communications. A well personalized Email responds to subscribers based on individual behavioral attributes. The gist of ‘one-to-one communication’ in Email marketing actually lies in successful implementation of personalization tactics in emails.

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2) Dynamic Content: Based on individual subscribers, email messages can be variant. This variation can be used to create dynamic content to target subscribers based on their online behaviors, past purchase behavior, email open behavior etc. Innovative approach to create dynamic content in emails can provide marketers tremendous business value in terms of reaching out right customers with right offers.

3) In-email Transactions: Email transactions by clicking in the embedded hyperlinks and re-directing subscribers to external landing page might become a history in near future. Quick transactions for special offers, purchase, form etc. can be enabled in the email body itself which will cut down the process time drastically and will make transactions hassle-free.

4) Automation and Integration with other channels: Innovative approach to integrate with newer channels/versions of platforms is one key issue faced by email marketers. The ability to work seamlessly with multiple channels can increase reliability of email marketing platforms to a great extent.

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5) Open-time based customization: Intuitive approach to understand “email behavior’ can help in multiplying email effectiveness. Email open time, clicking behavior, subject lines impact etc. are essential benchmarks for marketers. They provide whole lot of informative understanding of email subscribers and their behavior. If a consumer gets a promotional email at the moment of opening the inbox in the morning, it can have a better impact than hundreds of other promotional mails remaining unread. To make it technologically viable, a data-driven approach to deploy email is the only way out. Innovation can give the further ride to success.

6) Micro-segmentation: Micro-segmentation has contributed immensely to e-commerce brands in terms of devising an appropriate targeting strategy. Different theoretical models such as Clustering, RFM Analysis, Predictive Analysis, CLV Analysis etc. play pivotal role in sharpening targeting of consumers with right messages. It will be worth-watching how email marketers take competitive advantage through synchronic Micro-segmentation and Email Marketing strategy.

7) Email Triggers: Email triggers are response based automations of the recipient.  Building recipient communication and engagement based workflows in an automated way creates an expected and compelling relation between the brand and the customer. By personalizing emails, the content of transactional messages can deliver greater value to customers by being contextual in communication. Optimization of images/creatives of emails based on highest clicks is one example of such email triggers. How cutting edge technology can imbibe theoretical aspect of modern day marketing like urgency and social proofing in email marketing through technological advancement in future is going to be the key to competitive advantage.

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8) Mobile based approach to email marketing: Email Marketing in the last couple of decades has come a long way. Mobile has already overtaken Desktop in terms of most widely used devices to open emails. Adding to this, mobile application based approach to deliver value to customers is ubiquitous now. Synchronizing emails with such Apps is going to change the way of email interaction in mobile. Not many days are left when social buttons will include WhatsApp like button (if the email is opened in mobile) for interacting with a brand through WhatsApp.

9) Responsive Design: Besides desktop, there are dozens of different devices for opening emails. Being adaptable to each and every kind of device specific resolution is very essential to avoid distortion of designs/content of emails.

10) Innovate, Innovate and Innovate: This is the basic framework of all the points mentioned above. Email is the most reliable tool for reaching out to customers with latest news/offers/deals for a marketer. Innovation will keep email marketers moving up the learning curve. All new technologies become redundant after one point of time (we get used to it). An email marketer’s ability to keep an email fresh, live and new every time it arrives in your inbox will define whether you will open the email or not.

With these evolving advancements in context to email technology, email marketing is here to stay. Undoubtedly, innovation is key to its survival considering the increasing marketing and socializing platforms.  If wrapped by the right technology and for the right market at the right time, email marketing will continue to create ripples among the marketing fraternity and shall be regarded as one of the topmost effective means of marketing.

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