The continued triumph of email over the past twelve months is forcing us to revisit our email marketing strategies for 2012. In this post, we highlight the top trends in email marketing and what they mean for your email program.
Email is Dead. Not!
Despite the hullabaloo last year about how Mark Zuckerberg supposedly declared the death of email (he never really did), setting up email campaigns is still one of the more mature strategies in online marketing. But as advancements in technology progress, we continue developing new ways to view email. More importantly, as online marketing trends come and go, email proves its staying power by being accessible at any time.
In a blog post called Three Mistakes To Avoid In Email Newsletters, we talked about the importance of relevancy; knowing how your subscribers are reading your emails is just as important as the content you provide. With the rise in popularity of iPads and sundry tablets, your emails must adapt to a format that didn’t exist a couple of years ago.
“How” Is Important
According to a recent Return Path Study webmail makes up 44% of the overall views, desktop comprises 33% and mobile follows closely at 23%.
Though Webmail is the current leader in email use, mobile views have increased 34% from April to September this year when compared to the previous six months. Meanwhile, both webmail and desktop mail views have declined by 9-11% and we expect to see continued growth of mobile engagement in 2012.
The Return Path study also broke down how email is read by industry. The table below presents the findings for the software and shopping industries:
| Views | Shopping | Software |
| Webmail | 48% | 35% |
| Desktop | 32% | 48% |
| Mobile | 20% | 17% |
These figures allow us to determine the type of content we should be sending. Keep in mind that many people have more than one email account. What they use that account for tends to determine the type of content they want to receive on it.
To help get the brain juices flowing, here are some tips for your 2012 email marketing campaigns:
- Survey your subscriber base to find out what devices they use for email.
- Create content adaptable to your readers’ devices.
- Code for mobile: HTML5 is replacing flash. Steve Jobs was prepared, are you?
- Don’t forget about tablets! iPad views are up 15% vs iPhone useage and has increased 12% with the launch of the iPad 2.
“When” Is Important
One question I frequently receive as an email marketer is “What day of the week is best for sending?” This year has been no different, but with the emergence of mobile popularity, it’s something we need to take a closer look at because there is no single correct answer. We prefer to read different types of emails at different times.
Webmail usage spikes over the weekend, desktop viewing takes a dip, but mobile remains consistent throughout the week with an extra pop from Friday through Sunday.
As I mentioned before, every industry has their own audience who behaves differently, so here are some things to test for what works best for your subscribers:
- Gather email campaign data that will help define your audience behavior (which devices they use for email and when they use them).
- Use a campaign that has a benchmark to test engagement for each day to minimize the variables.
- Select a percentage of your subscriber list to send the test to and monitor each day’s performance.
It’s All About The Reader
On the user-end of email, there have been a few trends that popped up to combat spam and unwanted email. My favorite tactic that I’ve seen this year is filtering the word “Unsubscribe” to go straight into your junk mail. Obviously, this tactic is extreme considering that by law marketers have to put an unsubscribe link in the email. However, if you have a list full of tech nerds you can try different phrases to avoid this trend.
Filtering is becoming a big business due to the fact that CAN-SPAM is relaxed. Gmail and Hotmail have both gotten ahead of the game with their release of inbox management tools as well as companies like Boxbe.
As you battle your way for reader attention, you’ll want to consider how these tools are affecting your subscriber’s engagement in 2012:
Gmail: Priority Inbox : Automatically identifies emails that you frequently open and reply to.
Hotmail: One-click Unsubscribe: List-unsubscribe headers within the email that don’t work will be permanently sent to the junk mail folder.
BoxBe: A free service that can be applied to the major webmail providers like AOL, Gmail and Yahoo that will organize your emails so that only specified emails will make it to your inbox.
Keystone
Mobile email is trending and your campaigns must adapt to that fact. Testing viewership times is still going to be key to successful campaigns, but so is understanding your readership’s filtering practices.
Wishing everyone a wonderfully joyous Holiday Season!
Caitlin,
Great stuff here, and any use of hullabaloo deserves some attention.
I particularly like your focus on how people read their emails. With the rise in mobile reads, it is important that email designs stay within mobile dimensions. What was once best practices for email designs on desktop or web clients, are altered on mobile emails, e.g., Have a clear CTA in the top left region because if your email is too large for a mobile device the top left is shown first.
Happy new year!
Hi Justin,
I’m glad you liked the post! You have a great point about placing the call to action prominently above the fold and not wasting real estate on over-sized logos. I think many people are still in the “one template fits all” mentality. Also, backing up the call to action in text and an alt tag instead of just an image will improve viewer-ship on a variety of mobile phone platforms. That way you don’t accidentally isolate Blackberry users from Android users by mistake. Thanks for contributing, Justin!