Email marketing has evolved throughout the past several years, especially as it becomes clearer that the average consumer is looking for interactions in this format. Small business owners need to keep track of the trends taking shape to ensure that they are best positioned to connect with existing and prospective customers, and engage them for longer periods of time.
Let’s take a look at some of the trends and news that have hit the presses regarding email marketing in the past few weeks.
Proof of preference
FierceCMO, citing data from Bluecore, reported that more than 60 percent of millennials are most likely to respond preferably to email marketing campaigns when compared to other channels and platforms, including social media. Email’s attractiveness appears to transcend generations as well, with nearly three-quarters of baby boomers stating that they too prefer this medium over others. Interestingly, certain email providers are excelling – and this is notable for small business owners and advertisers at large.
According to the news provider, Gmail’s relatively new “promotions” tab, which separates advertisements from personal and business emails, has been somewhat of a success so far, with just under half of users clicking onto the tab every day. Small business owners can use this feature to promote deals and events placed directly into the promotional folder of Gmail account users, and can also better target customers more likely to make a purchase using the tech giant’s various marketing tools.
The new era of strategy
Business 2 Community recently published a blog post from Hana LaRock that listed a few new statistics that should certainly hold some weight when business leaders are looking to freshen up their email advertising campaigns. According to the author, mobile is currently king, and any company that has not yet started to optimize their strategies for mobile consumption must do so soon. More than half of all email ads are viewed through smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, meaning that a failure to target this audience would be a major missed opportunity.
LaRock noted that businesses should also be tailoring their email ads, both in terms of design and content, when looking to attract male or female customers, as their preferences vary significantly. This also relates to the times of day email ads are sent out and their respective effectiveness. For example, the author stated that a click-through rate can go skyrocket above 150 percent when social buttons are added and the email is sent on a Saturday morning.
Time of the season
Seasons will change the best practices of email advertising. MediaPost recently summarized some of the findings of an IBM analytics study, affirming that some interesting trends might be right under the nose of the average marketing professional. For example, the source pointed out that email ads that did not reflect the holidays were actually opened more and acted upon during November and December of last year than those that were completely oriented around the season. This is more tangible evidence that modern consumers do not necessarily want to be sold to, but rather informed about deals.
Furthermore, MediaPost stated that marketers should not be sending too many email ads during the holidays, as this will generally lead to an adverse effect when considering consumer sentiments. By tailoring the small business email marketing campaign to the season but doing so in an intelligent fashion, the sky will be the limit for sales and revenues in the next couple of months.
