The competition between the brands to capture the attention of their subscribers is responsible for innovating email marketing. Email marketing has evolved from plain text email to interactive email that we are familiar with nowadays. And, marketers are still improving their strategies.
Here are the top email marketing trends for 2022 that will help you stay ahead of the curve.
4 new email marketing trends to watch out for in 2022
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Artificial intelligence
Currently, artificial intelligence is being moderately used in email marketing. However, it has the potential to change the face of email marketing altogether. Incorporating AI will give a competitive advantage to small and medium-sized firms. With Big Data and AI, marketers can analyze multiple data sets from various social media platforms to create highly personalized emails for their subscribers.
Some email marketers are already using AI to create effective subject lines. In the future, AI will be used to generate content, optimize survey results, maintain the hygiene of the email list and reduce the send time of emails.
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Data privacy
Recently, Apple launched their Mail Privacy Protection program that automatically downloads and saves all the emails in their own server whenever the subscriber opens their email client. That prevents the brands from tracking when the customer is actually opening their emails. Following the launch of MPP, some brands noticed their open rates spiked. However, these metrics show skewed results that might mislead the marketers. Recently, Apple launched their Mail Privacy Protection program that automatically downloads and saves all the emails in their own server whenever the subscriber opens their email client.
MPP is here to stay, and other email clients are likely to incorporate this feature soon. The email marketers should stop trying to circumvent this, and start using other metrics, like conversion rates and list growth rate, to gauge the success of their emails campaigns.
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Dark theme
Due to the pandemic, the average screen time of people has drastically increased. To reduce the strain on their eyes, people started using night mode and dark themes on their devices. Dark theme or night mode decreases the blue light emissions from the screens and enables people to look at their screen for longer. The trend of people adopting dark themes is only going to move upwards. Therefore, email marketers should optimize their emails to be readable on dark mode as well as light mode.
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User-generated content
One of the simplest email marketing techniques that will get traction in 2022 is user-generated content. User-generated content means including customer ratings, customer reviews, images of customers using your product, etc. in your emails. It also builds loyalty and encourages skeptical prospects to use your products or services. Smaller brands that do not have enough resources to create new content for their email campaigns can use this technique to consistently create effective email copies. Moreover, user-generated emails drastically increase the ROI as they are inexpensive to create and convert more subscribers into customers by building trust.
5 emails marketing trends that will continue to dominate 2022
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Interactivity
As personalization and segmentation tactics become the norm, brands are striving to create emails that stand out in the inbox of their subscribers. Nowadays, brands are including interactive elements in their emails to captivate the attention of their users. Creating a highly interactive email is challenging. However, including small interactive elements in your emails is simple and can increase your engagement metrics. The interactive email was voted as the hottest email marketing trend of 2017 and 2018 and is sure to rule 2022 as well. Animated GIFs, countdown timers, rollover images, and interactive sounds are a few examples of interactive elements that you can insert into your next email campaigns.
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Cross-channel marketing
The trend of using email marketing as the center of cross-channel marketing has picked up in the last few years. The way your subscriber interacts with your emails will give you valuable insights to create engaging and personalized social media campaigns for them. Similarly, data sets collected from the other social media platforms can also be aligned to create a more tightly knit marketing strategy for your email campaigns.
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Automation
Email marketers are trying their best to automate their email campaigns. This frees up resources and personnel which can be utilized elsewhere to create effective marketing strategies. Email automation helps the brand engage with their audiences by sending them the right email at the right time. By combining automation with customer analytics and AI, you can create relevant emails without sacrificing your personal touch.
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Gamification
Making ‘non-gaming’ tasks interesting and fun by adding awards and rewards is known as gamification. When incorporated with email marketing, it increases the open rate of emails by 30%. Gamification of your email campaigns through loyalty programs and other features creates brand awareness as more people start engaging with your emails. Gamification also helps drive cross-channel marketing efforts. For example, you can ask your customers to share their awards and rewards on their social media pages.
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Email accessibility
More email marketers are moving towards making their emails accessible to a diverse group of people. The process of making emails accessible can be as simple as increasing the font size of the letters. Some brands even use simple color combinations or monochromatic colors to not overwhelm the users. For example, adding an interactive sound element to your emails makes them more accessible to the blind community.
Conclusion
Just because a strategy or tactic is trending, does not mean that it will generate the same results for you. Therefore, always A/B test your email campaigns before sending them out to the general public. You can visit this infographic to learn what the experts are saying about the email marketing trends of 2022.
Author: Kevin George is the head of marketing at Email Uplers, that specializes in crafting Professional Email Templates, PSD to Email conversion, and Mailchimp Templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes & jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on email marketing blog.
