Technology
Five marketing trends you can’t afford to ignore this year

As the new year start, many brands are looking for new ways to improve their marketing strategy. This means that changes will need to be considered to one of the most famous marketing channel that is E-Mail. Email marketing will drive insane revenue in 2018. Statistics show that despite there being many new ways, emails were still brands’ preferred way to communicate with their customers and looks like that this trend will continue to grow. Here are five email marketing trends you can’t afford to miss this year.
1) Personalization (List Segmentation):
The days of people getting excited when a company seems to be talking to them directly are long gone, mainly due to the fact that people have caught up to the fact that this general email will be sent out to thousands of people and because of it, they often perceive it as spam. People love content that speaks to them personally. Personalization is nothing new, but it is poised to go into a boom in 2018.
To achieve that, you’ll need list segmentation by separating users based on demographics, interests and other data. This will make it easier for your brand to send out personalized emails that are relevant to the receiver and increases your chances of receiver actually opening that email. Some of the tips to follow while writing a personalized email is to address your recipient by name and send them a reply letter if they respond. This will not only instill a sense of security in them but will also make them happy which makes them more likely to order from you the next time.
2) Visual feedback:
Interactivity within email is bound to pick up in 2018 and this means that marketers will have to find new ways to engage their potential customers in their emails. With mediums like GIFs, HTML5 and even clipped videos on a rise, we’re likely to see them incorporated into emails to make full use of. This will be the trend especially because creating and editing videos and movies has been easier now than ever before. There are numerous programs available for free like OpenShot, Filmora, Quik, Splash, iMovie and much more that will do the job perfectly. (If you want to know more about visual marketing, click here.)
3) Text Only Emails:
While eye catching emails full of animated content does seem more attractive and more likely to pickup in 2018 that does not mean that text only emails will die out. On the contrary, text only emails are predicted to further rise in popularity in 2018 because of two reasons. Reason number one being that small business and companies are not able to incorporate heavily edited or personalized videos and pictures in their promotional emails because of the cost implications involved and the second reason being that text only emails tend to feel more like a message than a spam advertisement. People tend to be defensive when they feel like marketers are trying to sell them something and many companies, even the big ones, are increasingly using this technique and it will only shoot up in popularity in 2018.
4) Informal emails:
Emails shouldn’t be thought as an advertisement in 2018 rather a conversation. A formal tone will be increasingly disengaging for your potential customers and you’ll be less likely to get a respond. That’s because people want to know that they’re talking to a person and not an automated email. They’ll resonate with a company more if the email is personalized and styled into a conversation rather than an advertisement. The way to achieve that is to use words you use in your day to day life and avoid jargons. You should try to read your emails out loud to see if they seem robotic. However you shouldn’t get too informal in which cast the recipient won’t take your email seriously.
5) Big Data:
Big data has mostly been used by big companies, but statistics show that it is increasingly popular amongst small ones too now since the advancement in AI technology provides that opportunity for small businesses too now. To stay competitive in the market, you’ll need to make use of thousands of customer data points that are available. You can then use that data to send emails to the people actually resonating with the product you’re advertising.
Author Bio:
Shawn Marshall is the father of two little girls. He is a digital marketer by profession and is utterly obsessed with the growing technology. He regularly shares her bright ideas on https://squareship.com/.