Posts Tagged 'communication'

With the New Year slightly closer than it was when we brought you part 1 of our email marketing trends for 2012, now seems the perfect time to hit you with part 2.

The demand for relevance in messaging, the prominence of social platforms and their messaging capability and inbox competition increases will all have bearing on email performance in 2012. Read on for our final 4 thoughts on email trends for 2012.

Engagement based deliverability

Inboxes are beginning to serve emails to the inbox owner based on their behaviour, which has potentially very damaging affects for regular broadcasters with poor open rates. In 2012 we expect to see ESP’s provide an inbox that archives emails based on whether the user opens and click from a sender on a regular basis.

The Facebook messaging centre

Borrowing from the principles behind Google+ Facebook is providing users with a new way to communicate through its message centre allowing people to stay abreast of conversations between groups of people via email, text message or instant message all within Facebook’s walls. So what’s the impact for businesses broadcasting emails to consumers? It’s likely that less time will be dedicated to the traditional inbox, meaning messages will be read less frequently and open rate tails will get longer.

Email will become more valuable

Despite threats to email’s online communication dominance, an opted in email list is now more valuable than ever. With recent studies showing that an opted in email list is 23% more likely to convert to sale than other online communication channels the importance of keeping that list up to date, keeping communications relevant and timely and not losing the interest of the recipient are as important as they’ve ever been.

Open rates are set to fall. CTR’s are set to rise.

More email senders, more sophisticated inboxes, more options for online communication means less emails will be opened by recipients, whilst the volume of emails sent by brands will just keep going up. In 2012 we expect to see the open rate decline continue. On the flip side click thru rates are on the increase. With better targeting & timing, stronger calls to action and better content consumers are taking action on more emails than ever before. We’re predicting continued increases in CTR’s throughout 2012.

So the New Year is still more than 70 odd days away, but that’s no reason for us not to share with you our thoughts on the top trends that will affect your email marketing performance in 2012.

With the explosion of smartphones, social media and inbox competition over the last few years, we’ve looked at how these channels will continue to impact performance into next year. Below is Part 1 of our 2 Part series.

Inbox Overload
Email addresses have become a standard information requirement for pretty much every business when capturing a customer or prospects details. This has led to an enormous increase in inbox competition. As businesses knowledge of email marketing practices increase, so does their appetite to communicate. Making inbox standout, timeliness and targeting more important than ever.

Communication Complications
Social media has begun to threaten the effectiveness of the inbox. Faster, more up to date, easier to interact with and share, this up to the minute communication poses a series threat to email’s relevance. Compare social to email and unless you’re sitting in front of your computer with your inbox open or surgically connected to your blackberry, email reaches you when you get round to  accessing your inbox.  Being aware of the roles of both channels and their relative merits for your communication goals is essential for continued inbox success.

Portable Inboxes
Smartphone handsets now represent 30% of the entire UK mobile market and this figure is expected to grow rapidly in 2012. Optimising emails for mobile handsets, indeed creating dedicated templates for mobile handsets is becoming increasingly important. Ensuring there is a mobile optimised site at the end of a click thru is key to success with email marketing in 2012.

Smarter Inboxes
Email inboxes are smarter than ever. Providing users with automated filing, and ‘sweep’ options for mass inbox clean up. Making sure you are listed as a preferred sender or ‘starred’ as a sender they want to hear from is essential for consistently high open rates and preventing your message being deleted en mass with every other sender.

Part 2 of our ‘Email Marketing Trends for 2012′ coming soon.

Top 10 tips for your e-Newsletter….. wait, don’t go anywhere. I’m only joking.

With the rise of social media, SEM and mobile, and an increasing need to reach customers with “Engaging content, in their space”, email has almost become a forgotten art.  I say almost….

For all of the established and emerging digital communication channels the sophistication they bring and the flexibility they allow for, as a retention tool, for some brands there is nothing better than a well-structured and well executed email marketing programme for driving customer loyalty, repeat site visits and yes, increasing sales.

We could spend the next half an hour debating the merit of send times analysis, segmentation, and deliverability, which are all critical success factors in your email marketing programme, but what has always been the most important factor in any email communication programme is timeliness and relevance. It’s what we strive for with all of our digital marketing activities, regardless of channel. And when you get it right the impact can be significant.

A recent campaign for a client of ours looked to re-awaken a database that had been largely ignored over the last few months. Communications until recently had been sporadic with an extremely broad focus. By exploring the profile of the data, understanding the products they’d purchased and when they’d purchased them we we’re able to develop a timely and altogether more relevant communication programme. The result in month one, a whopping 1900% increase in sales directly from the email communication from the previous months send.

Now, search requires your customers to be looking, Social requires them to be logged in but if you get that timing right, and get the message spot on, nothing say’s ‘I really should buy that’ like a well-timed, well targeted, personalised email communication.