Technology tools and services come and go – since the invention of the internet we have seen the rise and fall of ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, MySpace, LiveJournal, and many more. Unlike most of those services, email continues to be a consistent and reliable digital channel year after year, used all around the world by different generations and for several purposes.

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According to Web.de and GMX, 625.8 billion e-mails were sent in Germany in 2016, 15% more than in the previous year and twice as many as in 2010, showing how the popularity of the good old email continues to increase. The acceptance extends to email marketing since, according to Adobe, 55% of Germans prefer to be contacted by a brand through email.

Worldwide, the use of email as a communication tool keeps increasing since 2017, and by 2025, the number of global e-mail users is expected to reach a total of 4.6 billion up from 4 billion in 2020. No wonder email marketing is still a highly valuable marketing channel to connect businesses to leads, customers, and partners. Using email is free, independent from the monopoly of big social media companies, and versatile, allowing most types of media. Moreover, when it comes to online advertising, email has seen higher click-through rates than on social media.

Another great advantage of incorporating email marketing into your marketing strategy is the fact that emails are measurable in detail. When you send out an email, it is possible to test, measure, and improve the success of a newsletter by looking at the open rate, click rate, and ROI.

Although email has been a constant in the internet environment, user behaviour and technology have changed throughout the years. So marketers need to stay on their toes to create an effective email marketing strategy that will generate more sales.

Check out 6 email marketing trends that will take off in 2022:

Omnichannel

Omnichannel is a business strategy to generate leads and engage users by using multiple channels to show products and offer customer support. Using email marketing in your omnichannel strategy is a great opportunity to directly reach leads and customers and encourage them to take action somewhere else. E-commerce emails, for example, can target an audience to purchase something on the website, while a B2B company can use email marketing to bring their readers to a webinar.

The founder of verygoodcopy.com, Eddie Shleyner, recommends omnichannel to take readers from email to a network where they can openly engage with your brand. “Email is a great opportunity to compel your existing audience, big or small, to take action somewhere else (e.g., LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora), where their engagement (e.g., likes, comments, shares) begets more engagement, exposure, and ultimately, sign ups”, he advises.

Microsegmentation

While social media is important for brand awareness and lead generation, email marketing has proven to be an outstanding channel to nurture the relationship between brand and customer, ideal for sending out engaging content and building reader loyalty. This means that your readers want and expect to receive a tailored message.

Instead of sending the same sales and product releases to all your email lists, how about creating a customed message that feels like your brand is addressing the customers' needs directly? Segmenting your email list based on behaviour and interest increases engagement and conversion, guaranteeing better deliverability.

Storytelling and human copywriting

The first element that everyone will see from your email is not the cool gif or professional video in the email body, but the subject. Writing a compelling and captivating subject is the first step to succeeding in your email marketing strategy, but it is not enough. When people open your email, it needs to be interesting enough for them to stay and engage with your content, and although visual elements can help, the text is the star of the show. And the best way of doing it is by using storytelling techniques and human copywriting.

More and more people are getting tired of feeling that they are interacting with a robot or a heartless brand. Make sure to have a conversational tone and include the human element in your email to engage your readers till the last line.  

User-generated content

One of the most effective and simple ways to include a human touch in your emails is by including your users in your content. Featuring pictures of your customers using your product or service, their reviews, and rankings about your brand or product can increase your users’ trust and improve your overall reputation, resulting in conversion and improving your ROI.

You can gather user-generated content by either sending emails that encourage your customers to write a review and send pictures of them using your product or creating social media content asking them to do so. This is also a way to put your omnichannel strategy into practice and distribute user-generated content you get from websites to your email list.

Mobile optimization

Do you know that nowadays more than 80% of emails are opened on mobile devices? That is why mobile optimization is not only an email marketing trend, but an absolute necessity if you want your message to come across and your readers to have a positive experience with your brand.

When you create an email marketing, it has to be accessible throughout different devices and all the elements must be visible and working whether your readers are opening it on their computers or smartphones and whether they have the latest smartphone on the market or a basic one with limited capacity.

Plain text

The mobile-first experience on email marketing and the need for personalisation turned the marketeers back to the basics: writing pain text emails without fancy pictures, gifs and videos. Returning to the good old simple text differentiates your brand because it gives a human touch to your message, removing the marketing elements that can drive your customers away.

Besides, the plain text, by removing the obstacles to(of) making your email readable through every device, makes sure your message reaches all your readers offering the same experience.

Conclusion

Email marketing continues to be a solid marketing channel for countless businesses, offering value for both companies and readers. Its use, however, has been changing due to technological advances and user behaviour.

Experimenting with trending strategies and conducting market research to test your emails can be a great asset to ensure your strategies work with your audience.

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