Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2019 and has been updated with new content and details for 2021.
It’s time to step up your email marketing game in 2021. With people’s inboxes constantly overflowing with countless emails from businesses and brands like yours, you need to think of ways to stand out from the crowd.
Email marketing remains an extremely powerful tool for nurturing leads, promoting ongoing engagement, building customer relationships, and driving lead conversions. A well-thought-out strategy is essential to ensure you get the results you want. Since your market, as well as marketing methods and technology, are constantly changing, your strategies will need to change from year to year to keep up with trends.
Here are some tips and principles to keep in mind when developing your email marketing strategies for 2021:
1. Understand your customer and their interests
A compelling email marketing strategy starts with how well you know your target audience. To deliver engaging email marketing this year, make sure you’ve done your research. If you haven’t already, it’s time to start collecting the data and creating customer profiles before creating and implementing your email marketing strategy.
Remember that you ARE the expert; you should know everything about your audience; from their consumer behavior to what draws them in to make them want to buy your product or service. From there, you can brainstorm different engagement tactics to engage with them through consistent email communication and guide them along the customer journey.
2. Understand copywriting best practices
Delivering compelling email marketing also comes with a solid understanding of copywriting best practices. If you want to send great emails that will help nurture your leads, here are some tips and guidelines to follow when crafting your email content, from subject line to body:
Subject lines
An effective subject line is an essential component of an engaging email. The subject line acts as the gatekeeper, and if it doesn’t grab your audience’s initial attention, they’re likely not going to open or read your email content. To find out which subject lines work best for your email campaigns, look into A/B testing. A/B testing allows you to test different subject lines to see which ones result in the highest open rates. Experimentation is key and ensures that your email marketing efforts don’t go to waste.
Another tip for writing an effective subject line is to use personalization whenever possible. Emails that are more personalized tend to perform better than those that aren’t. Personalized and highly targeted emails can lead to higher open and click rates.
Visuals
Including a variety of visuals is an effective way to attract and engage with your audience. Incorporating visuals like images, GIFs, infographics, memes, and even videos can help influence your audience. Visuals also help break up chunks of text in your email marketing campaigns and are a great way to engage with people (especially for all the visual learners out there). By making sure you’re using the right visuals that reflect your company’s branding, you’ll play a big role in delivering engaging emails this year.
Calls to action
Don’t forget to use actionable language and be clear and concise in the body of your emails. Ultimately, you want your audience to take action on something after they’ve read your email. Your goal is to get them to the next step in the customer journey.
At the end of the day, make sure your email copy aligns with your subject line to ensure readers click through to the email. Focus the reader’s attention with a “what’s in it for you?” mentality by talking about how they’ll benefit from your product or service and what you can offer them. Don’t forget to add your own style and personality to reflect your brand!
3. Segment your email list
Segmentation is more important than ever because not everyone in your audience has the same needs and interests. Sending the exact same email to everyone on your mailing list is no longer effective, especially when it comes to driving lead conversion. That’s because they’re likely at different stages of your marketing and sales funnel—some may have just entered the funnel, and others may be closer to the final decision to purchase your product or service. It’s important to understand and deliver the experience your future customers expect, even through email marketing.
As a result, segmenting your email list will help deliver more engaging email marketing this year. Think about different engaging tactics that will help you target your segmented audiences based on where they are in the customer journey. For a segmented list of people who have just entered the sales funnel, you’ll likely engage with them by tailoring your messages to be more awareness-oriented. On the other hand, for a segmented list of people who are closer to the end of the sales funnel, you’ll likely want to tailor your emails to be more action-oriented as they get closer to their purchasing decision. Craft and tailor your email copy to be relevant and relatable to your targeted audiences.
4. Optimize your emails for mobile devices
In 2020, 50% of all website traffic worldwide was generated via mobile devices. Another way to deliver compelling email marketing in 2021 is to optimize your emails for mobile viewing. By now, it’s clear that responsive web design is an integral part of your mobile marketing strategy. According to Hubspot, 48% of emails are opened on mobile devices.
- 48% of emails are opened from mobile devices
- 69% of mobile users delete emails that are not optimized for mobile
- 89% of those who use email for marketing are missing out on opportunities by not optimizing their emails.
To ensure mobile-friendly email marketing, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Keep subject lines short
- Keep emails concise and avoid large chunks of text
- Use images to break up large chunks of text
- Use a font size that is easy to read
- Place CTA buttons and in the middle of the screen
5. Marketing automation
Have you considered implementing marketing automation into your email marketing strategy? Not only can you use marketing automation to generate a steady stream of leads for your business, but it can also help lighten the load so you can focus on other aspects of your marketing strategy.
Marketing automation can help you turn your prospects into loyal customers. Instead of boring your entire mailing list with endless sales messages, marketing automation can help you deliver relevant information to your audience. That way, they have the chance to absorb the information about your product or service, building a mutually beneficial relationship.
One aspect of marketing automation is the use of email drip campaigns. Drip campaigns are essentially scheduled sets of marketing emails that are based on triggers. What does that mean? Drip campaigns help deliver the right messages at the right time. Depending on certain customer actions or behaviors, marketing automation allows for consistent email communication to take potential customers through the customer journey, leading to a higher lead conversion rate. It’s definitely worth looking into how to create an email drip campaign that converts and there are a number of marketing automation software that can help you get started (e.g. Hubspot, Mailchimp, etc.).
Email Marketing Through the K-Shaped COVID-19 Recovery
Aside from these general email marketing principles in 2021, we must also remember that the world and the economy have gone through irreversible changes as a result of COVID-19. A year after the pandemic began, economists are forecasting what is known as a K-shaped recovery for the global economy. A K-shaped recovery is one in which some sectors begin to grow again while others lag behind or even continue to decline. Marketing practices including email marketing techniques, have had to adapt over the past year to keep up with the drastic changes brought on by the pandemic. In 2021, COVID-19 continues to impact marketing strategies and budgets. The disease and the various actions taken to combat it have affected different industries in different ways.
Since it is no longer exactly clear and predictable how each industry will progress in the near future, there can no longer be “one size fits all” marketing solutions, if there ever were. Each business and industry will have to consider its particular set of opportunities and challenges and select tactics that are particularly well suited to them.
Email marketing trends for 2021
Considering the K-shaped recovery, it’s obvious that each industry will have its own set of trends informed by its unique recovery path. Some will foster an upward growth trend, while others will do damage control and try to reverse a downward curve. This makes it difficult to predict what the common email marketing patterns will be across all sectors. That said, there are several upward trends that will likely impact email marketing techniques across the economy.
1. Incorporating artificial intelligence into email marketing practices
Many businesses and marketers are still not exactly sure how AI will impact their email marketing. We have known for years that the secret to effective digital marketing lies in the collection and interpretation of data. However, since we live in an era of ‘big data’ (the word ‘big’ does not describe the magnitude of the amount of data being created, collected and collated every second), no marketing team has the ability to process ALL of the information available and use it to inform their strategies. However, AI has the ability to process this data and make highly accurate and effective adjustments to email marketing campaigns. AI can perform list segmentation and content analysis far better than any human. Using artificial intelligence to optimize marketing is essential in 2021 and beyond.
2. Hyper-personalization of email marketing
In their efforts to use email marketing to increase leads and sales, marketers have long been working to make their email campaigns as personalized as possible. In 2021, using AI, this personalization seems likely to be perfected. Reducing misdirected, and therefore ignored or deleted, emails is a priority for marketers. This can be achieved by creating emails that readers feel are addressed directly to them. Personalized subject lines, birthday messages, emails triggered by consumer behavior or tailored based on market segment are among the methods used to achieve this.
3. Email Marketing Automation: The Power of Drip Campaigns
A drip campaign is an email marketing strategy that uses a sequence of emails triggered by audience behavior, rather than generic one-off emails. These AI-powered campaigns deliver emails in response to audience behavior rather than sending them out of the blue like old-fashioned spam emails that often do nothing but annoy consumers. Subscribers have a greater sense of meaningful communication with the brand, as well as feeling like they have more control over their inboxes.
4. User Generated Content
More and more businesses are taking advantage of user-generated content (UGC), such as reviews and testimonials. Around 82% of consumers say that this type of content is very useful and helps them make purchasing decisions. When you use them in your campaigns, you build trust in your brand, add variety to your content, and improve your lead generation capabilities.
5. Interactive emails
Interactive emails aren’t new, but they’re something we’ll be seeing more of over the next year. They’re a great way to increase reader engagement and generate more qualified leads. Some of the most popular techniques include interactive image carousels, animated buttons and CTAs, polls, and UGC.
6. Email redesign
Aesthetics should always follow function. Email design should be designed for readability and interaction. With more and more people reading their emails on their cell phones, mobile optimization is a non-negotiable for new zealand email list design in the coming year. Uncluttered, easy-to-read layouts are important, as is the use of bright, eye-catching colors that attract and hold readers’ attention.
7. Make privacy a priority
The focus on data privacy is paramount in 2021. Consumers have a very low level of trust in brands’ ability and willingness to keep their data safe. All marketers should familiarize themselves with the latest data privacy legislation, as well as making the customer’s ability to unsubscribe as easy as possible.
8. Pay full attention to recipients’ inboxes
Along with consideration for privacy comes a willingness to be vigilant about your readers’ inboxes. There are few things less likely to turn off prospective customers than constant floods of spam. They will ultimately delete and ignore your emails if you send too many and forget about your brand. The success of your email campaign depends on you being considerate of people’s inboxes. Aim for quality over quantity, and be more strategic and targeted with your emails.
9. Renewed social awareness
Companies that demonstrate their commitment to social causes will definitely score points with their audiences. Companies should choose causes they care about and then share them with their audiences. Make your efforts known in your email campaigns and people will respond.
10. Advanced sending capabilities to maximize engagement
Email sending capabilities aren’t just about having best email newsletters in the medical field the ability to send your content to more and more people. In addition to the ability to send in bulk, advanced capabilities should also allow you to track the success of your campaigns and increase engagement. In 2021, marketers will use the email tools available to them to gain insights into their emails, which you can then use to make improvements with the next one you send. You can collect data on things like:
- Reasons why an email did not reach a recipient
- Notification when a message is delivered
- Notification if a message is opened
- Which of the links and CTAs in your email generated a response?
- Notification when recipients unsubscribe or send email to spam folder
11. Rediscovering the value of plain text email
Believe it or not, a plain old text email can be very effective. Sending simple, informative text emails and skipping images, hyperlinks, buttons, etc. allows ar numbers you to focus on content and personalization, ensure deliverability, and make your emails accessible across all technology, from desktop computers to smart watches.
Conclusion
If one of your goals is to deliver more engaging email marketing this year, I hope these tips and guidelines have given you a general idea of where to start. Don’t forget that there are also plenty of tools and resources out there that can help you achieve your email marketing goals. Marketing automation tools like Hubspot and Mailchimp are a great place to start if you’re really looking to dive headfirst into achieving those goals. You can also find a number of email templates to take the visual aspect of your email marketing to the next level. At the end of the day, make sure to stay organized and plan ahead so you can stay ahead of the curve with email marketing in 2021!
