3 Email Marketing Revolutions You Can’t Ignore in 2019

Posted by Mr. Kirk Bentley, Jan 29, 2019


Mr. Kirk Bentley

2018 was another remarkable year for email marketing, and 2019 will bring even more growth and change to the channel. Email adoption continued to climb in 2018, with the number of email users worldwide eclipsing 3.8 billion and still rising. While customers say email is still their favorite channel, as marketers, we’re in the midst of a radical change in how we interact with our customers. For email marketing success in 2019, you need to do two things: Be real and be really great.

Here’s how to bring some humanity back to the inbox.

Personal Experience

Surely many of you are already using at least a little personalization. But over time, subscribers get accustomed to these so called “personal” elements. It doesn’t take long for readers to figure out it’s not very personal at all. This year, you’ll need to find a way to create a much more personal email experience. A first name here, a VIP status there, just won’t cut it. Meet up with your technology team to understand what kind of data is available in your CRM and your ESP (sometimes they’re different). Remember, digital marketing works best when approached as an ongoing experiment. Try creating new segments and putting smaller, more distinct audiences into the spotlight. Practice surprising your subscribers with personalization they don’t anticipate. For example, put their first name in the body copy. Send an incredible birthday email. Find the weirdest personal data point you can and capitalize on it without being creepy.

Design Forward

Great design is great for business, I always say. This year, outstanding creative is an absolute must for inbox success. Need proof? Open up your inbox. See all those amazing brands with their big budget creative? I hate to break it to you, but that’s your competition. Subscribers are savvy and outstanding design is everywhere these days. Each time we use our iPhone, watch TV, or drive a car with Apple Play, we’re dazzled with thoughtful, action-oriented design. Poorly designed emails actively damage your brand, your sales, and your career. Check out Really Good Emails to get some email inspiration. Better yet, create a new email account and subscribe to all your favorite nonprofit and for-profit brands. Short on design staff? No problem. It’s easy to hire an email designer to create something elegant and effective for you. Once you have a template, save a few bucks and make alternate versions yourself.

Source: Litmus poll of 241 visitors to its blog between Nov. 20, 2018 and Jan. 2, 2019.

Brand Humanity

Transparency. Trust. Authenticity. These are the touchstones for marketing in 2019. Subscribers are demanding real human experiences from brands. As a nonprofit, you have an incredible opportunity to capitalize on this because you ARE real. You ARE authentic. You’re already providing the type of real experiences Fortune 500 brands are dying to fabricate. This year, give your subscribers more of what they want. Take them behind the scenes. Show them the “why” of your organization. Show them the beauty and meaning of your art instead of offering just another “LAST CHANCE FOR TICKETS!” It’s time we treated our loyal patrons like real people. Try sending more emails with a softer touch, but increase the cadence and make the segments smaller. Write from a real place. Think about sending your emails from a real person at your organization. Create a “curated email” from the executive director or creative director. Toss out that old “everything that’s happening at our organization” newsletter and say something real.

Buckle Up!

Put on your seatbelts, folks. 2019 is going to be a wild ride for marketing and email marketing specifically. With the rise of automation, AI, machine learning, and voice command, we’re going to see major brands take risks to get more from the email channel than ever before — all while making the experience feel authentic, real, and human. Looking for success in the inbox? You’ll have to do the same and do it on a nimble budget. Don’t worry. The odds are in your favor. So far, automation hasn’t been able to deliver true humanity to the inbox. Can you?

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