We agree that almost everyone has an email account . Whether for personal or professional purposes, each of us has our own email address where we receive all kinds of messages.
According to Statista, the number of people using email daily will reach 4.6 billion users by 2025.
I imagine that knowing this, it will not surprise you that email marketing is one of the most used digital marketing channels today. And it will continue to be so in 2023.
Why? Because it is an effective, direct and, above all, profitable form of communication, with an impressive ROI of $36 for every $1 invested.
Who doesn’t like a good return on investment?
Email Marketing in 2023
We are now clear that we have to continue using email marketing in our strategy, the only thing left to do is take a look at what is happening right now in the sector.
Knowing how you will adapt to changes in consumer behavior and new technological advances, in order to create an email marketing strategy that will succeed in 2023.
Email marketing trends for 2023
*Artificial Intelligence is here to stay
Email marketing has evolved a lot over the years, and obviously new technologies based on artificial intelligence and machine learning have also been incorporated that seek to make life easier for marketers.
But what is the use of artificial intelligence when it comes to creating email marketing campaigns?
It can provide you with new automated segmentation options to better personalize your messages, help you write the copies for your emails, or allow you to choose the best time for your message to reach users’ inboxes.
The use of AI has been shown to help improve both subscriber engagement and ROI.
In 2023, we will see more and more email marketing tools incorporating intelligent AI-based functionalities.
*Goodbye mass emails. Hello hyper-personalization
Today’s consumers know perfectly well whether an email they’ve received is a mass message or whether an effort has been made to personalize it for them. Users need to feel that companies take their individual needs into account when contacting them. They need to feel cared for and listened to.
The more personalized your email marketing campaigns are, the easier it will be for users to interact with them.
But be careful, including the name in the text or subject of your campaign is not enough. And the worst thing is that most companies stop there.
In 2023, we will have to go one step further and seek hyper-personalization of messages. For example, sending different content depending on the page they have visited or the products they have recently purchased. This will help build trust and a relationship of loyalty with your database.
To achieve this hyper-personalization, you will need to have good segmentation criteria and automation tools to facilitate the process. You must invest time in this part if you want to be successful with your email marketing campaigns in 2023.
*User Generated Content will sneak into emails
Consumers are more likely to buy your products or services if other people recommend them. According to Qualtrics, 93% of users read reviews before making a purchase decision.
By including user-generated content in your email marketing campaigns, you show your customers that there are real people who already buy, use and enjoy your company’s products.
Getting UGC (User Generated Content if you don’t like Spanglish) isn’t easy. You can start by sending emails asking customers to leave a review with photos after their purchase or encouraging the creation of video content on social networks like Instagram or Tik Tok. Keep track of what is already being published about your brand, encourage continued talk about it, and think of original ways to include it in your email marketing strategy for the next year.
*Privacy will matter (even) more to users
We are increasingly aware of the importance of our privacy and the data we share when interacting online. In a recent Norton survey, more than 80% of users say they are taking action to protect their personal information online.
This will increase the pressure on companies and their way of handling data in the coming years. And of course, it will affect the way we do email marketing.
Apple recently launched Mail Privacy Protection, preventing the tracking of email openings in its native app. This had a huge impact on the way we measure the performance of email marketing campaigns, forcing us to focus on other KPIs: CTR, landing page visits, form registrations, etc.
In short, we are heading towards a situation where we will no longer be able to settle with saying how many people have opened our email marketing campaign.
*We won’t be gothic but dark mode will be used
More and more users are choosing to use dark mode on their mobile devices. So it is important for marketers to take this into account when creating their email marketing campaigns.
Dark mode emails will be one of the trends of 2023. If your campaign designs are not compatible with this mode, the content of the email may appear “broken” or missing information. This makes it more likely to be classified as spam, which will ultimately harm the deliverability of your campaigns.
The better your design is, the easier it will be for your subscribers to open and interact with it.
*Animated elements will give more life to emails
More than half of marketers are already including GIFs in their email campaigns. At Benchmark Email we do it too. And you will probably be doing the same in your company in 2023.
This type of visual content is much more effective at attracting user attention than plain text. Including a GIF in your newsletter or email campaign can help you increase CTR by 300%. If you need to improve engagement in your email marketing, you need to jump on this trend.
If you want to create your own GIFs you can use tools like Photoshop or Adobe Creative Cloud Express, or if on the contrary you prefer to make winks, references or memes you have at your disposal a large number of animation galleries like Giphy or Tenor.
Practical tips for success with your email marketing
I can’t end this article without giving you some super simple tips that you can apply now in your email marketing strategy to adapt to the trends of 2023. Take note.
Tip #1 – Do lots of A/B testing
Test different subject lines, sending times, CTAs, content… A/B tests are super useful for optimizing your email marketing campaigns and checking whether the changes you are incorporating are helping you improve or not.
What is an A/B test? It’s a type of test where you send a different variant of your email campaign to two samples of your contact list, then analyze and send the one with the most clicks, opens, or conversions to the rest of your list.
Tip #2 – Get creative when creating your emails
Don’t just limit yourself to sending offers or sending the same newsletter with different content from time to time. Put your creativity to work and think about what users want to receive. Here you can put hyper-personalization into practice or include User Generated Content.
Some examples of creative campaigns that you can add to your strategy:
* Make a teaser of your next promotion
* Send an email to users who abandoned their cart
* Run a special giveaway among your newsletter subscribers
* Share content that other users have posted about your brand on Instagram or TikTok
* Send a thank you email to your most loyal buyers
* Send tutorials or useful tips for your audience
Tip #3 – Stop making excuses and start automating
Many marketers or business owners don’t automate their emails because they think it’s difficult. But marketing automation tools are becoming easier to use and allow you to ride the wave of artificial intelligence or personalization.
You can start little by little by creating automatic welcome emails or small flows to follow up with your leads. In automation and in love, as Raffaela Carrà would say, it’s all about getting started.
Tip #4 – Check if you are segmenting your lists well
I don’t know if you’re already segmenting your lists (I hope you are), but even if you are, it might be time to reevaluate the criteria you’re using and the type of content you’re sending to each segment. Think about new consumer behaviors and the quest for hyper-personalization.
Tip #5 – Choose an email marketing software that suits you
No matter how good your email marketing strategy is, if you don’t have the right tool to execute it, it’s as good as it gets.
You don’t need to get into super complicated (or expensive) software, just find the email marketing tool that makes things easy for you, is in your language and has the features you need now or that you may need in the future to adapt to new trends such as:
* Drag & Drop email editor
* Easily customizable templates
* Use of AI tools
* Automations or workflows
* Perform A/B tests
In short, don’t believe those who say that ” email marketing is dead ” because it couldn’t be more alive.
It is important for small and medium-sized businesses to take into account the need to invest in creating and working with a good database of potential customers. This way, they do not have to depend on the performance and reach they achieve through third-party channels such as social networks or paid campaigns.
In short, email marketing will continue to evolve and incorporate very interesting new features in the coming years. And obviously, it must play a very important role in your digital marketing strategy for 2023.