Is Email marketing dead? The question itself should be put out of its misery. Answered every which way by analysts, the consensus seems to be that email marketing isn’t going anywhere, given its reach, its adaptability to mobile, and its remarkable ROI (4,300 percent is a figure generally attributed to the Direct Marketing Association).

But if email marketing is to survive and thrive as the Instagram, Snapchat and Kik generation comes into its full purchasing power, it will only be because it’s evolving into an indispensible, dynamic product.

The evolution has been happening all this time, and email, as a result, is so much better. Among all those drab, text-based communications, perhaps ornamented with a call-to-action button and a stock image, are emails that don’t look–or act–like emails at all.

Email is becoming responsive and contextual

E-mail has continuously improved in the almost four decades since someone discovered that a mass email blast could successfully shift product (1978; Gary Thuerk; DEC Machines). Those changes have accelerated in the past couple of years as the targeting and location-based technology has improved. The most advanced emails of today are responsive to recipient behavior and the context in which they’re opened (and re-opened).

What do we mean by responsive? Over coffee recently, Noah Dinkin, CEO of New York based email creation platform Stensul, defined responsive email as “email that adapts any number of properties, based on the environment in which it’s consumed.” The basic environment, of course, is the device of choice.  “Personalization is already here today,” he said. “But it’s very dependent on data capabilities.”  Also, “the level of functionality is important.” In addition to screen size, functionality determines, for example, whether the reader can view images in a carousel or easily use a navigation bar.

But responsiveness goes way beyond mobile optimization. I met Daniel Incandela, SVP of Global Marketing at veteran email data solutions provider Return Path at Salesforce Connections in Atlanta last month.

Responsiveness, he said, “is enhancing email more and more. With information that hits [recipients] at the right time and right place–and is viable–you can reach customers you haven’t been reaching for years.” Responsiveness, said Incandela, “is everything from changing the subject line, to dynamic content based on browsing history, to responding to weather, based on location. It makes it a meaningful experience, which comes back to the story you’re telling.” More on that later.

Responsiveness means optimizing for device, for subject line and message, and for send time and frequency. Incandela described it thus: “Arriving in the right inbox at the right time, with the most competitive subject line, and with correctly displayed contents.”

Vivek Sharma, co-founder and CEO of New York email software and services vendor Movable Ink goes further, to talk about contextual email, and distinguishes between historic context–“first party data, demographics, past purchase and browsing history”–and current context (and disposition)–“device, location, geography, weather.”

Smarter emails in action

What does responsive/contextual email look like in action? Take, as an example, an appointment-based company. Modern email technology means that a user can not only identify Lenscrafters locations, but can interact with a calendar embedded in the email to schedule an appointment at the nearest one. Not ready to book? When you re-open the email, the calendar will be updated.

Article From: http://www.dmnews.com