Sheryl-Lynn CollinsFour months into 2015 and we find ourselves coming up for air. The January admin rush has come and gone, the February goal setting sessions are now past us, and we finally have time to look up from our March deadline for strategic plans.
I find myself wondering about all the enthusiastic reading I did on email trends during the first work week of 2015? Are they still relevant and current?
Besides hyper personalization and mobile what are the other trends we need to keep an eye on?
Here are MY email marketing predictions for the remainder of 2015:
1. More Meaningful Motion
Apart from my clever use of alliteration, I really love this topic. Meaningful motion is animation with a purpose. It’s NOT a random blinking arrow shaped call to action button or falling autumn leaves.
Meaningful motion is a subtle ticking clock on a sale day email or a cinemagraph in a beauty tutorial email.
Be careful not to overdo it though, the best use of meaningful motion is when the animated image enhances the concept of the message.
2. Beyond Responsive Design – consider device transition and the human behind the device
Your customers are switching between devices all day. Now that emails are looking great on mobile, it’s time to ensure that users can pick up where they left off. Like finish reading that interesting blog in low light on their iPad or start watching the assembly demo video in the garage.
Backlighting, colour usage and utilizing the built in capabilities of the viewing device can mean the difference between a good and bad experience.
3. Device And Channel Specific Experience
Now this is exciting stuff. With increased support for HTML5 and CSS, we are starting to see some really innovative email layouts and designs. Gone are the days when the online version is an exact replica of the HTML!
It’s about design and code that serves the best experience and layout of the email, based on the viewing environment or device -supported with basic fall back.
Outlook users for example, will see a basic static layout, while mobile users will experience hover state animation and when viewing the email online, a wider animated, scrolling version of the email is served.
My favorite example is the B&Q email – check it out.
4. Simple, Single Focused Email Marketing
This trend is driven by trend two and three.
In order to ensure that email designs transition well and respond adequately, we will see designers replacing the 12 ‘buy now’ buttons with a single ‘Browse the latest’ ghost button.
I think we will also start to see much more white space. This will allow for tap targets and simple card design that effectively wraps up and groups content for responsive design.
5. Gmail Will Increase Support For CSS And @media Queries
At least I seriously hope so.
Gmail is doing some really innovative stuff with email and inbox management. I predict that by the end of this year, we will see far less stressed out email developers staring blankly at the email rendering test in the Gmail App.
6. Data Integration
Data integration and actionable insights will become even more important this year – graphs are pretty, but actionable insight is BETTER!
Email marketing is highly measurable, but the real time 3D graphs and fancy animated trend lines on an online dashboard are not enough anymore. It is best to gain actionable data with real insights, integrate the results with your CRM instead.
Take advantage of the rich interaction and delivery data that email marketing offers. Speak to your ESP about integration with your CRM system.
7. Micro UX
This last trend is more of a web trend, but I thought I would include it anyway since email and lead generation go hand in hand.
I love micro UX and I look forward to seeing it being used more and more with email marketing campaigns.
Micro UX adds that all important human touch to web based tech or functionality and can significantly enhance the customer experience. An example of Micro UX is an online lead form with clever validation like ‘Cool Name’ after completing the name field.
Speak to us about implementing these trends with your email marketing campaigns. Let’s try them out together.
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