Mobile
This is not so much a trend as it is an imminent reality, and therefore, an imperative if you plan to continue successfully marketing via email. Mobile devices are most peoples’ window to the world. Mobile brings consumer connectivity to a whole new level, since you’re reaching consumers in their cars, on the bus, walking down the street or having dinner with the in-laws. An investment in responsive email design – emails designed to intuitively flex and cascade based on the user’s device – is an investment in your marketing’s ability to reach consumers in the first place. According to ReturnPath mobile statistics, 88% of consumers check email via mobile daily, making the mobile trend positively mainstream. There are several theories that, in the near future, email will be entirely designed for and viewed from mobile devices. The idea is that technology will make mobile so reliable and so useable, that the use of computers for most everyday email activities will be obsolete. So, the time to set your business up for mobile email marketing is now, not later.
Video
More and more, consumers are in a “show me, don’t tell me” mindset. Not only is video intrinsically engaging, it offers many other benefits depending on your product or service. For retail, for instance, consumers can get a better sense of color, texture and fit from a video than a picture with a written product description alone can deliver. An excellent example of this is Zappos.com video product descriptions.
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Imagine short, informative demonstration videos for key products embedded in your emails, just like this one. How would your open rate respond if consumers knew they could expect a fun little moving picture show in each of your emails?
Additionally, If your product is at all complex or technical, video is a powerful tool for both educating and marketing. Detailed or large amounts of information are best delivered via demonstration. Since in-person demos are difficult and costly to execute, video is the next best option. Sure, many consumers will still want to read about your product, but imagine the power of a video demonstration complimented by concise and informative copy.
Marketers will increase their usage of videos delivered via email for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that mobile browsers are HTML5-compatible. This means that video will load quickly and more reliably on mobile devices than on a desktop operating system such as Internet Explorer. Consider the fact that YouTube reports 800 million unique visitors a month, with 20% of them watching videos via mobile devices. Try scoping out and producing a couple of short videos published to a business-dedicated YouTube channel, and you might harness some of that astounding video traffic for yourself. Embed these in your regular email newsletters, and watch your email metrics carefully for a marked improvement.
Infographics & Animation
For many of the same reasons video is such a fun and effective marketing tool, thoughtfully crafted, images, whether static or animated, tend to make consumers engage. Emails are becoming more and more design-driven, so consider refocusing your efforts on striking a perfect balance between design and copy.
An infographic is an innovative, creative, often witty and whimsical storytelling mechanism that can demonstrate a production process or a happy customer’s testimonial. A good designer can apply iconic representations of concepts to create mesmerizing marketing tales, often with color, humor and simplicity. Ok, so they’re not always simple, as in the Magnificent Multitude of Beer, but the best infographics are artistic, intelligent and just plain fun for consumers. They balance unique imagery with just enough copy in a way that’s intrinsically interactive with consumers. Still not sold? Check out this interactive example, 13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics, and perhaps you’ll be in the market for a talented designer before you can say, “cooooool.”
Animation speaks to your brain in much the same way video or infographics do, and are relatively simple to produce. Photoshop has an animation capability called Timeline that you can learn using a web-based tutorial website like this one on lynda.com. This tool lets you arrange your creative into frames and apply custom timing for the frames to transition. Then the program compiles the frames into a smoothly iterating GIF file. And you know the old saying about GIFs, right? “GIF files make big smiles.” Ok, so nobody says that, but you get the point.
Content Marketing
So, say you posted your infographic to your company’s Facebook page, and one of your consumers shared it on his or her timeline. Now, you’re into content marketing, the practice of providing valuable, engaging, relevant and informative content to your audience. Many businesses use content marketing as a way to indirectly convert prospects into customers by building a community around their brand. In a perfect world, this community’s ongoing conversations (likes, shares, etc.) would positively impact the business’s Google search results, but that’s another blog for another day.
Content marketing can come in virtually any form, from articles and essays to videos, graphs, maps, photos and more. The key is to provide a continuous stream of good information on audience-relevant topics. The neat thing that makes content marketing so accessible is that the content doesn’t even need to directly relate to your product or service. It just has to be quality content—with quality defined as original, authentically derived (not “scraped” or repurposed from another source) and relevant to your audience’s interests. Aim to improve your consumers’ lives by educating them, showing them how to do something or telling a story with which they can relate, and you’ve done a large part of the work toward making your phone ring (or email inbox blow up) with new business leads.
Custom Audiences
This is a trend that’s not so much delivered via email as it is derived from it. Facebook defines custom audiences as, “an ad targeting option that lets advertisers find their existing audiences among people who are on Facebook.” So, say you’ve spent generously on your email marketing efforts, yet there’s still a large contingent of your contact list that’s not opening your emails. Take this list, load it into Facebook, and tailor your messages for this untapped group. You’re probably part of several custom audiences right now without even realizing it. Yes, it’s a way to communicate with your list in the way that they’re more likely to engage with (i.e. Facebook vs. email), but you’re also making the most of your marketing dollars by segmenting a consumer list you’ve already paid for and taking a second pass at conversion.
These trends have staying power because email marketing is far from dead. Sure, there are sexier, more hip or exciting ways to go to market, but email is the foundation that will continue to deliver returns if executed properly, with relevance as priority #1. So go forth and infuse your emails with some of these fresh and effective methods and watch your marketing budget work harder, faster and smarter.
Filament would love to help you jump-start your email marketing into the future and beyond. Contact us to keep your emails on-trend.
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