Want to know what’s hot in email marketing this year? From automation to personalization, here are the top email marketing trends to watch out for in 2023.
Email remains one of the most effective channels for marketers and the overall success of businesses. In fact, 41% of marketers say that email is “very critical” to their brand’s overall success.
The marketing world evolves quickly, and keeping up can be challenging. So if you’re here, you’re probably looking for some marketing trends that will shape the email marketing industry in 2023 and help you tip the scales in your favor.
Want to know what’s hot for email marketing this year? Whether you’re just getting started with email marketing or it’s a proven ROI channel for your brand, here are the top email marketing trends to watch out for in 2023.
1. Email Marketing Will Become Increasingly Automated
Email automation has helped marketers deliver personalized emails and timely content to recipients across multiple touchpoints and marketing channels, which will continue in 2023.
Email automation allows you to set up drip campaigns for each recipient depending on where they are on the customer journey. You can also send automated emails to customers that trigger certain conditions, such as abandoning a cart or signing up for your newsletters.
Here’s an example of a sequence you can create with email automation:
The best way to maximize email automation is to choose a tool with features that’ll ensure you succeed, including:
2. Emails Will Be Hyper-Personalized
One of the best ways to generate more revenue through email marketing is by personalizing the user experience. According to Zendesk, over 90% of customers will spend more money with brands that provide the personalized experiences they seek.
Your target audience receives a lot of email blasts (e-blasts) from various businesses daily, so they’ll always ignore irrelevant and generic emails. That means you should use every opportunity to show your customers you understand and care about them.
Address the customer by name and use other personalization details like recent purchases or location to make your emails more relevant and targeted. Also, addressing the customers’ needs in the body copy and sending your automated emails based on their behavior is a top-notch strategy for building trust and connection, hence, higher revenue.
This example from Netflix is brilliant because it’s simple and hyper-personalized to the individual. It also provides a light reminder for the customer to find something new to watch.
3. User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is original content that customers create that brands publish on social media or other marketing channels. UGC can act as social proof and comes in many forms, including testimonials, videos, images, and reviews.
Since customers trust other customers, adding UGC to your emails allows you to highlight the customer experience. In fact, according to TINT, most consumers feel that UGC is the most trustworthy content.
The best way to generate UGC is to be creative and open to new ideas. That way, you’ll be able to have a more dynamic and engaging online presence – like in this example from Film Supply.
Here are some ways to generate UGC:
- Create branded hashtags and encourage customers to use them when sharing content relevant to your brand.
- Run a giveaway or contest, then leverage the fun experiences to create UGC and share it in your emails.
- Collaborate with content creators and influencers to produce UGC that promotes your brand to add authenticity and credibility to your campaigns and reach a wider audience.
- Repurpose UGC across marketing channels. For example, you can have a gallery of user-generated content on your website or feature customer testimonials or photos in ads.
4. Artificial Intelligence Becomes Increasingly Valuable
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help you analyze customer patterns to extract meaningful insights and understand how customers interact with your emails and what they expect from you, improving your email marketing campaigns.
For example, Cosabella, an Italian Lingerie Brand, implemented an AI platform called Albert to autonomously execute Cosabella’s digital marketing and advertising efforts and drive online sales. This move produced a 155% increase in revenue and a 336% return on ad spend.
AI can help you optimize your workload and scale your email marketing efforts by enabling you to:
- Access detailed information about subscribers to segment them into new and unique groups.
- Craft excellent subject lines that resonate with recipients and maximize email open rates.
- Leverage email verification tools to ensure that your email list is up-to-date and free from invalid or inactive addresses, maximizing the deliverability of your personalized content and messages.
- Generate deep insights about the market and customers.
- Clean your email list by removing inactive contacts and automatically updating new subscriber details.
As a result, AI-powered tools will help you send better emails, increase your open and click-through rates, and make more money from your email marketing campaigns.
5. Open Rates are No Longer a Key Performance Metric
Apple released iOS 15, macOS Monterey, watchOS 8, and iPad 15 updates in 2021 with new privacy settings that prevent businesses from tracking details from Apple users, such as:
- When recipients open emails
- Where they open the emails
- What device they use to open an email
- And the activity on the gadget used to open the email.
These changes will make the open rate a much less reliable email marketing metric in 2023. That means metrics like click-through rate will become even more critical, highlighting the significance of creating email content that people want to engage with.
6. Interactivity Becomes a Priority
Interactive emails have functional elements in the email body that let users engage with the content. As a result, they boost customer engagement and increase email interaction significantly.
Examples of how interactive emails enable recipients include:
- Adding items to the shopping cart and proceeding to checkout,
- Rating services,
- Playing a game right in the inbox,
- Completing a survey,
- Participating in a quiz.
The central concept of email interactivity is to interact with the content by tapping or clicking. If the user just watches the content – countdown timer, GIFs, or dark mode – that won’t count as an interactive element.
With that in mind, here are some interactive email elements expected to be hot in 2023:
- Animated CTAs and buttons
- Rollover effects to showcase products
- Product carousels and interactive images that users control
- Polls, surveys, and user-generated content.
7. Focus on Data Privacy and Protection
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has outlined new rules for email list building and cold emailing. And the rules will continue to take effect in 2023.
Therefore, it’s crucial to be open and transparent about how you use the data you gather from customers in your marketing emails. Doing so helps you respect your subscribers’ privacy concerns and build trust.
Here are more ways to improve data privacy:
- Allow users to change their email preferences or unsubscribe options.
- Be open and honest with your customers about the data you collect and how you intend to use it.
- Get explicit consent from customers before including them in your email list and sending them marketing messages.
Key Takeaways for Email Marketing in 2023
Keeping up with email trends and innovations can be challenging, so you don’t have to implement them all at once. Take advantage of the trends that resonate with your audience, then execute the others gradually to make the most of your email marketing.
