Email Marketing:  The Year In Review

A lot can change in twelve months.  Email marketing has continued to evolve at pace this year and to keep up with the times, email marketers have to adapt quickly and this year has been no different.

In this post we will outline our highlights from Email Marketing in 2017.  Of course, there are many changes, trends and developments in email marketing but we have picked five here.   [Tweet This].

Emoji Laden Subject Lines 

We have spotted a huge surge in subject lines which include emojis.  For those who don’t know already, you can use these handy little graphics to make your emails stand out in the inbox.  Although we feel that overuse of emojis would make a company appear insincere, used sparingly they can be a fun and engaging marketing tool.

The humble emoji gives you the ability to communicate your emotions clearly and quickly, giving an emotional representation often missing from online communications.  You can use almost any emoji that you like, giving you plenty of ways to customise your subject lines.

Take this example from Lancashire County Cricket Club; the subject line uses three emojis to give the email a festive feel even in the inbox.  The clock emoji also communicates the limited time that the email recipient has to act.

Why not try an emoji in your next email campaign?  You will come across as friendly and fun loving and it might even drive a little more engagement.

Intelligent Use Of Data For Personalisation

Personalisation has become popular in email marketing, especially in the last twelve months.  Marketing professionals are becoming increasingly intelligent with their use of data to create the perfect individual email series.

Personalisation has existed in email marketing for some time but marketers are becoming more aware of how they can use the data to give a highly customised email experience.  Email recipients now expect emails to be crafted specifically for their needs and preferences.

Recipients love personalised email copy which appears to be written specifically for them.  A report by Invespcro highlighted that personalised emails receive both a higher open rate and improved click through rate.  They are well worth implementing in email marketing campaigns as more and more marketers are becoming savvy with their use of customer data.

Find out how the Wired Plus Platform can help you personalise your email marketing campaigns.

GDPR Mania

The most important development in the email marketing in 2017 is the impending launch of GDPR.  Marketers have scrambled to prepare for the changes to data protection regulations in the biggest shakeup since the Data Protection Act 1998.  GDPR has many consequences relating to the way that marketers can collect, store and use data.

The highlights of the new GDPR regulations so far include:

• No Purchased Lists
• New rules on data collection
• Companies need to provide clearer information on how data will be used
• Regulations apply to data stored off shore if the company operates within the EU
• Large financial penalties for non-compliance totaling up to €20 million or 4% of worldwide annual turnover

If you want to learn more about this hot topic, read our GDPR whitepaper.

Real Time Targeting

Marketers are using automation and triggers to target their customers and subscribers in real time.  By reacting to events as they happen, marketers increase the chance that they will capitalise on the user’s intent.

Marketing Land recently discussed how dynamic data can be used to take real time targeting to a more advanced level.  46% of marketers reported that they were set to introduce dynamic content this year demonstrating the potential for growth in this area.

We recently reviewed a targeted email campaign from Kat Von D which targeted customers who had abandoned their browse session.  The campaign was an impressive example of how a customer’s behaviour can be used as the basis for an email marketing campaign.

The ultimate goal for email marketers is to provide the right content, to the right person, in the right format at the right time and real time targeting brings this ideal one step closer.

Responsive Email

The way that email recipients view and take action on their emails continued to change in 2017.  According to a study by IBM, mobile is now the dominant email viewing device across the world.  Just over half of all email sends were classed as ‘read’ with a quarter of emails being ‘glanced’.  This has many repercussions for how email marketers need to design their email campaigns.

Emails now need to be truly responsive to the device used to view them.  We recently looked at how mobile optimisation is essential for email marketers.  The good news for many marketing professionals is that they have already adopted mobile friendly email templates.  In the future, the goal for many marketers will be to increase the conversion rate of email marketing campaigns on mobile devices which still lags behind emails viewed on desktop.

A truly responsive email campaign does not stop with the email, marketers need to create responsive landing pages to drive conversions.

Our Summary of Email Marketing in 2017

We have observed many changes to email marketing in 2017.  We anticipate that 2018 will be another busy year for email marketers as the ICO enforce the new GDPR regulations and competition continues to grow in the inbox.

We will publish our predictions for 2018 soon so keep your eyes peeled.  After Christmas as we are set to reveal how email marketing may develop in the year to come.

If you have enjoyed reading about how email marketing has performed in 2017, why not download your copy of The Complete Email Marketing Guide

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