Hey authors! I’ve compiled a list of my favourite trends for 2021 in email marketing and what my crystal ball can see becoming really important and effective inside your list.
There are trends within the trends and they all lead back to deliverability, understanding the algorithms, and even though it is not on the list, always be growing. Let’s get into my top six trends.
#1 Deliverability will be king
Deliverability is getting your email into an inbox as opposed to a spam folder or a promotions tab. As the algorithms and policies change, so will the rules about deliverability. Here are a few things you can do to get started ensuring your emails are getting delivered where they have the best hope of converting.
- Send emails frequently and consistently
- Segment
- Stop using the word “FREE” if at all possible. It’s a one-way ticket to spam town.
- Keep your list healthy and reduce ‘dead weight’
- Never buy a list
- Quality over quantity
- A big list isn’t better. Having the right readers on your list is definitely better than 10,000 uninterested subscribers.
- Keep your average unsubscribe, spam, hard and soft bounce rates low
- Mix text-only emails in with your stylized emails
- More advice on email deliverability
#2 Personalized experience
It’s no longer effective to create an email and hit send to all. Subscribers are looking for a connection to the brands they buy from and in order to achieve this, you’ll need to do a few things.
Personalization (the insertion of a first name where possible) into the subject line, salutation, or the email content and segmentation based on actions.
When you create segments of readers and deliver them their own customized content, you can really get granular on the call to action and the desired response to your emails.
Imagine if you sent one basic email to those subscribers on your list who rarely open and then another email to those who open but never click and a final email to those who open and click. What would the differences be?
- Subject lines would be different
- Conversations instead of sales
- Offers to pre-order vs offers to download freebies
- Special ARC updates embedded into an email
- And so much more
#3 Frequency
As social media implodes in deliverability, we’re watching the rise of email marketing (to its rightful spot LOL). Seriously you can make so much more happen with email than you think. But you have to give the sending and receiving algorithms enough data to play with in order to get your emails landing in inboxes. And this means you’re going to have to write emails more often.
We’ve all seen a rise in branded emails hit our inbox. It’s because most brands are watching their organic reach on social media nosedive and are heading back to the proven method of email marketing.
How frequent you ask?
At least once per week and sometimes more during a release period. Did you just get hives? That means you’re on to something big!
#4 Mobile friendly
This one’s short and sweet. If you’re not designing your emails to be viewed on mobile devices, your emails are going to be delivered less and less to inboxes. Plus the poor user experience is going to hurt your open rate.
More than half of your readers are reading emails on mobile devices so you need to create a mobile-friendly email design FIRST.
#5 Automation will be key to growth (my favourite!)
It’s just not going to be enough to send out an email every once in a while. You’re going to need a solid strategy with a follow-up system. That’s where automation comes in.
Automation is more than just a simple email after someone signs up to your list. It’s a long tail of nurturing them deeper into a relationship with your brand.
Imagine automated emails on a reader’s birthday, the anniversary of their sign-up date, a series of emails during a 6-week launch period that run on their own. A series of emails to a reader when someone clicks on a specific link that encourages them to buy the next book in the series.
#6 Data and privacy
Many countries around the world have adopted data protection and privacy laws when it comes to email marketing, but creating an opt-in gate (double opt-in) is still not something a lot of email marketers do. However, you’ll slowly start to notice that even those in countries without data protection and spam laws, the double opt-in will be used more as stricter rules around privacy come online.
A double opt-in also offers you the opportunity to qualify your subscriber even more. You can do this with a strategic double opt-in that is branded and moves your reader deeper into your offer and ensures that they know how to complete the opt-in process so that they don’t become one of the dreaded non-subscribes that you can’t access or send emails to.
Overall, I think it’s safe to say that email will need to be an integral part of your marketing toolkit. Maybe even the frontrunner. Because after all, statistics show that for every dollar you put into email marketing, you get an average of forty-two dollars back and you just can’t find that reliable ROI inside of social media any longer.
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