10 Email Marketing Trends to Expect in 2023 and Beyond
(Note: This article is contributed by Kevin George.)
Email marketing has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last few years. In 2022, interactive elements, hyper-personalization, and increased focus on customer data security were the most important email marketing trends. Like every year, we are likely to see some new trends in the world of email marketing in 2023, too.
Let’s take a look at the different trends forecasted in the email marketing world in the coming years.
1. Customer Data Platforms will Gain Momentum
Cross-channel customer data will be used more aggressively to make important decisions for email and digital marketing programs. This has become so pronounced because of the sunsetting of third-party cookies, the launch of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, and App Tracking Transparency.
However, the problem is that the data is spread in different databases that are out of sync.
To combat this issue, marketers will adopt customer data platforms and collate the data in a single repository. Consequently, it will ensure better data hygiene, mobilization of the data for usage across different channels, and enhanced access to it. It will translate to smarter automation with better segmentation and personalization.
2. Adoption of BIMI will Increase
BIMI, or Brand Indicators for Message Identification, is a protocol that allows brands to display their logo beside the sender name in the inbox. It will grow to be a must-have as marketers will prioritize security. With the increasing cyber threats, BIMI will help prevent spoofing attempts and fraudulent emails.
As users can view the brand’s logo, it will build their confidence and increase the open rate. Consequently, it will enhance your sender’s reputation and email deliverability rate too. Although the implementation of BIMI is an intricate process and time-intensive, it is worth all the effort in the long run.
The good news is that all the major email clients will support BIMI in the coming days. You will have the upper hand if you are among the early adopters of this trend.
Here’s how Everlane has applied BIMI in their emails.
3. Marketers will Choose Modular Email Templates
In simple words, modular emails refer to reusable email templates with editable blocks. These blocks serve a definite purpose; you can rearrange, add, or remove them according to the type of email you are sending. It helps scale up email template production while saving human effort and time.
Using modular email templates will also provide better branding and maintain email consistency. They will give you more flexibility and creativity as you will not have to design or code emails from scratch.
This approach can be especially beneficial during the holidays when you are facing a resource crunch and have too many email campaigns to send. Agencies can also take this approach when they have to cater to too many clients along with in-house email campaigns.
4. A/B Testing will Revive its Popularity
There is an ocean of information on email A/B testing and how to execute it effectively. Given these readily available resources, more marketers are employing them to optimize their email campaigns.
It is not just limited to marketing emails or newsletters but also extends to automated emails. ESPs like Mailchimp offer the feature of multivariate testing too so that marketers can test multiple elements at a time.
Look at this screenshot to understand how A/B testing works.
5. A.I will Hugely Impact Email Marketing
Not only large enterprises, small businesses will also use GPT3-type tools to create content for their emails. AI-powered technology will help automatically generate images according to user preferences. It will use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to draft more impactful emails that will bring better results.
Moreover, advanced CRM tools like Marketo and Salesforce have the feature of Predictive Analytics and lead scoring model. It will allow you to send hyper-personalized emails that will be more appealing to the readers.
6. The Use of Videos for Email Engagement will Increase
Videos can convey what long paragraphs of text and photos can’t. They can be used to demonstrate your product or share a preview of your last event. You can effectively use videos to draw the user’s attention and enhance your storytelling. They can also show emotion and add a human touch to your emails.
7. Marketers will be More Aware of Customer’s Journey
With technological advancement and easy access to data, marketers will have a better understanding of the customers and their preferences. They can build more relevant email campaigns according to the customer’s journey. As ESPs offer seamless integrations with third-party tools, targeting customers with behavioral emails becomes even more convenient.
8. Special Kits will be Available for Deliverability Testing
Maintaining an optimum deliverability rate is crucial for the success of any email campaign. Special deliverability kits will allow you to test general deliverability and check whether an email is likely to land in the spam folder.
Tools like Bouncer provide this feature and make sure that you have a high sender score. It will allow you to determine your email deliverability in three easy steps:
9. Clicks & Conversions will be the Main Parameters to Measure Email Engagement
Apple has launched Mail Privacy Protection Policy, according to which all emails received will be marked as opened, regardless of whether they are opened. It will also let users hide their IP address, location, and activity on the device.
So, open rate will no longer be a reliable metric. As a result, marketers will have to switch to click-through rate, conversions, and replies as standard metrics.
10. Marketers will Turn to Long-form Email Content
Popular opinion endorses short and sweet email content. However, some brands have challenged this thought and incorporated long-form content in their emails and newsletters.
Subscribers like reading longer emails if they are value-packed and insightful. They show no dip in engagement compared to the traditional two- or three-fold emails. So, many marketers will experiment with this trend in 2023 and in years to come.
Wrapping Up
If you track the email marketing trends, you will realize how far emails have come from what they used to be. Incorporate these trends in your future emails, and your subscribers will surely look forward to hearing from you.