For years now, marketing strategists have pondered whether good old fashioned email marketing is going to fall by the wayside with all the various digital marketing options that currently exist. But never fear, emails are not going anywhere any time soon. 

Email marketing has only just begun to tap the surface in discovering how savvy it can be. 

A technology market research group has estimated that by the end of 2016, there will be:
• 4.6 billion email accounts
• 7% more emails landing in our inboxes

If email is still king, how can we cut through the crowd? How can your emails be seen, heard and effectively resonate with your target audience?

Across the board, analysts are responding to that question with the main ‘do it or die’ strategies to combat getting lost in the shuffle. 

The most common components to strengthen an email marketing campaign are:  

1. Ensure you have a responsive email template in your email campaign. 

a. Mobile devices are now the principal devices used in opening emails.
b. There’s a 23% higher click-through-rate with responsive templates.
c. 65% of total email opens occurred on a mobile phone or tablet in Q4 2015, compared to 54% in Q3 2015. - Experian “Quarterly email benchmark report” (Q4 2015) 
d. B2C emails get 57.4% more opens on mobile than B2B email, ranking 42.78% opens on mobile for B2C compared to 27.18% for B2B. - DDMA “Nationale email benchmark 2015” (2015)

*One thing to note is that there is a difference between a responsive email versus a mobile friendly email. Responsive emails respond to different devices by adjusting the text size and layout of the images. Mobile friendly emails do not change the design for smaller devices. This results in emails often having text that is too small to read on a mobile device, forcing the users to zoom in.

2. Segment your email audience.

a. “Batch & Blast” is out.
b. Focus on hyper-personalization. Go beyond “Dear First Name.” 
      • Use data analytics and CRM tools to gather more data about your customers.
c. Send different emails based on the unique qualities of your various subscribers.  
      • Where are they in the customer journey?
      • Group them by shared demographics.
      • Group them by differing buyer personas (psychographics).
d. Write emails that subscribers feel were made exclusively for them.
e. Click-through rates have said to improve 14%.
f. Conversion rates have gone up by 10%.

* You can segment for a variety of groups depending on what information you asked for on the sign-up form and what data is provided with your email analytics software.

3. Content is king. 

a. Make sure your email marketing messages are full of useful content and, if applicable, persuasive offers. 
b. A good balance is 90% educational and 10% promotional.
c. Subject lines are vitally important. Keep them short and sweet (less than 60 characters ideally).
d. Keep the look uncluttered. Keep copywriting concise and balance design with enough white space.

4. Test the open rates for what resonates with each segmented email subscriber group.

a. Test different subject lines – some shorter than others, some possibly humorous. 
b. Try different wording for Call to Action buttons.
c. Try testing with emails that include no images (plaint text emails).
d. Test who you want the email to come from – the sender name.

5. Budget for it. 

a. Allow for a budget to get the type of data collection and analytics information that’s best for your business. 
b. Budget for internal resources (staff) needed to implement and manage the technology and email communication.
c. The budget should also include allowances for testing to gain refined insights about your customers.

74% of surveyed marketers from 2015 said they still predict email communication to be one of the marketing channels that yields the highest return on investment. 

It’s been widely accepted that the return on investment (ROI) for email marketing is roughly about $44 back for every $1 spent. This healthy figure is mighty impressive, especially when you consider it’s factoring in many low-performing email campaigns to get the average number. 

So how are the super successful ones making that kind of return? 

The Direct Marketing Association says their best practices include “aggressive, smart spending on technology and services.”

Because of the increased demand for more personalized and relevant content, budget allocation for these advanced data analytic services is needed to keep companies earning an impressive ROI.

By creating dynamic content with a focus on customized emails, businesses provide their subscribers with useful information and ultimately develop strong relationships. Once this level of customer loyalty and brand recognition is reached, the less chances your emails have in getting marked as spam. 

BIS Designs offers customized email marketing services for clients in Mobile and Baldwin County, Alabama, to fuel their business through effective and well-thought out emails and newsletters. Download our free marketing plan and learn more about how to boost your business’ ROI with email marketing. You may contact us through our website or call 251.405.2535 to speak to one of our digital marketing professionals. 

As 2015 is winding down—with only a couple more months left until the New Year, we want to discuss some marketing trends to look out for in 2016.

One main theme we can expect is the continuing evolution of technology and how it will affect our marketing strategies. We can expect that 2016 will only become more wrapped up in the latest apps, social media platforms, and the mobility of the internet.

We’ve seen a rapid growth in the amount of internet users getting online via cell phone and tablet as mobile devices have advanced. And as mentioned above, with technology only becoming smarter, faster and more portable, it’s clear the majority of internet users are leaving the desktop computer in the dust.

But just what exactly can we expect for 2016 in terms of digital marketing? Well no worries, don’t expect something completely foreign. Actually, there will be many marketing strategies from the past few years still taking the limelight, but just progressing more. For example social media.

Social media has been around for the past decade, at first attracting only a few pioneers and internet savvy-users, but now everyone and their grandmothers have a Facebook account. Social media and the terms we use to describe social media are growing at a light-speed pace. Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, are some social media channels are just a few out there. Everyone is searching for the next social media app. And businesses can make great leaps in their marketing as they embrace social media.

So without further ado, here are the predicted marketing trends we should expect to see in 2016:

1)      Social media is becoming a main resource for articles and information.

Facebook and Twitter particularly have seen a big increase in users reading articles and watching videos on their platforms as opposed to reading articles and videos on the actual publisher’s website.

This means social media marketing will become even more important for your brand. If users are getting a brand’s information straight off social media and rarely going to its website, that means you need to be active in social media if you want to be heard. The more social-media centered our society gets, the more people will be looking for brands on social media to get their information from.

Note: This does NOT mean you should not have a website.  Websites should be a mandatory tool for a company. Websites help in SEO rankings as well as provide necessary information to customers that you just can’t put on a social media channel.

We all know social media is key to creating two-way communication with your customers, as well as creating meaningful relationships with them. A.k.a. not just spitting advertisements and promotional material in their faces. Refresher: social media should be used to engage and entertain your customers and potential customers, not directly promote your brand: Think that more PR and less marketing.

2)      Desktops are being left behind.

Mobile usage has gained rapid popularity and will only gain more traction in the future. In fact, it’s looking like the desktop may never go back to what it once was. As of this year, roughly 2,000,000,000 global internet users get online on a mobile device, which has surpassed the number of global users that use a desktop computer.

Google even decided that in order for a company to be ranked in SEO, the company has to have a mobile-friendly website, but doesn’t have to have a desktop-compatible website necessarily.

Put simply, if your company’s website is not responsive to different devices, then expect to be hidden from a majority of your potential customers.

3)      Video Advertisements will grow.

You’ve seen them in many places already- on websites, before your video on YouTube and in social media, but in 2016 video has the chance to become a mainstream digital advertising component. Currently, Google Search is testing out video advertisements. So instead of just those sponsored ads you see at the top of the search results page, embedded ad videos will live there too.

4)      Personal, meaningful content will be more important than ever.

As mentioned above, digital marketing needs to be relevant and useful for a company’s target audience.

It should be about providing interesting, relevant information that is within your business’s industry. For example, social media is where people want to read about topics that are important to them – not read about why they should buy your product. Entertain them, provide them with information they are interested in, but don’t try to directly sell them.

When it comes to a website’s content, make sure it remains meaningful and interesting to your visitors. Give them targeted messages that appeal to their interests and preferences.

This is true when it comes to content and digital advertising too. There are so many ways to collect consumer insights: what they use, what brands they like the most, what products are of most interest to them. By finding out these insights you can target your content to appeal specifically to a certain group of people.

If you walked onto a car lot and told the salesperson exactly what you wanted and they showed you cars that were completely outside of your preferences, you would be confused and probably aggravated, right?

Create content that is purposeful and specific to your target audience.

We can expect to see more than just these four trends in 2016, but the trends listed above will be more important and influential.

The only question is: is your business ready for the change? We know digital, that’s why we are in the digital marketing business. Our goal is to help businesses get the most out of their marketing efforts and help them navigate effectively through the digital world. Let us help you!