Engage with Email Marketing

2020 is shaping up to be a big year for email marketing

Hyper-personalised email

Hyper-personalisation is set to make email marketing far more relevant to consumers in 2020. The application of AI and machine learning to data obtained from end-to-end customer journey mapping will deliver actionable insights into a far broader spectrum of behaviours, enabling perceptively relevant and time-optimised emails to be triggered in response. These hyper-personalised, triggered emails, which match the unique needs of the consumer at the right time are expected to generate the bulk of marketers’ email revenue in the coming years.

What’s more, AI and machine learning can also be applied to the campaign data. At Paragon, for example, we use tools like Campaign Anomaly Detection to monitor the effectiveness of a campaign and Automated Optimisation to optimise performance throughout its duration. In this way, we ensure that email marketing is made significantly more effective.  

More engaging, interactive content

While sending the right message at the right time is crucial, not all emails inspire the user to take action. 2020 will see marketers using more dynamic and stimulating content in order to generate higher levels of engagement and enhance the customer experience. The email features expected to trend over the coming year include menu bars, image animations and in-email digital booklets.

The spoken email

Going in completely the opposite direction to interactive visual content are emails which have no visual content at all. With the growing popularity of smart speakers, like Amazon Echo and Google Home, and the availability of voice assistants, like Siri and Cortana, on traditional screened devices, there is an increasing number of people who now have their emails read aloud to them. 

For omnichannel marketers, this will become an area to focus on in 2020 as emails which require reading out aloud will obviously need content specifically created for the audio medium. Standard emails with clickable links and textual references to images aren’t appropriate when there’s no image to see and no means of clicking.

User-generated content

User-generated content has proved to be highly popular and engaging on social media; its migration to email, therefore, comes as no surprise. Of specific importance are customer reviews, the reading of which has now become a staple part of the purchasing process and which 70% of all consumers will look at before making a purchasing decision[1].

With another 70% of consumers likely to leave a review when asked to do so[2], 2020 will see more marketers using email to motivate customers to contribute and in doing so, provide the authentic content that improves conversion rates and drives brand ambassadors to share on social media.

The trend this year will see companies using data to send targeted feedback emails, embedded with easy to use feedback modules capable of gathering the most valuable user-generated content.

Looking ahead

Email is set to strengthen its position as a core element of omnichannel marketing during 2020. The application of advanced technologies will open the door to more effective hyper-personalisation, its content will become more dynamic and engaging, it will find innovative ways to adapt to the rise of spoken interfaces and it will become a useful source and distributor of prime, user-generated content.