As email marketing continues to grow and expand, new trends begin to emerge. With advances in technology, some trends have now become common practice. Other trends no longer apply. For marketers and small business owners, understanding and embracing some trends takes time and money. In some cases, however, by the time business owners get used to the trend, it disappears or morphs into something totally new.
Below are three email marketing trends that will probably stick around long enough for business owners to grasp and use in their every day campaigns.
Social Media Integration
With the popularity of Facebook and other online communication websites, more and more businesses have created accounts as a way to interact with customers. One major trend in email marketing is the inclusion of social media buttons in email messages.
Even though this may seem like an easy way to integrate social media into your campaign, remember that once you create an account and advertise it by placing buttons in email messages, that you must tend to the account on a regular basis - this means posting comments/announcements and responding to comments/questions/criticism from subscribers.
Mobile Campaigns
There's no way around this one - more and more people now check their email using a mobile device. This means you need to alter messages so people on these devices can still read them. Smaller images, shorter paragraphs, larger buttons, and single-column layouts can make it easier for people to see the content and respond to it on a portable device.
Text Message Marketing
Expand existing marketing campaigns by sending text messages to subscribers. You can use email marketing to generate interest and encourage people to sign up. Don't assume that just because a person signs up for your mailing list that they want to be on your text message list as well. Invite subscribers and give them the option of signing up.
Invite people on social media pages or those that follow your blog to sign up to receive text messages from you.
You can use text messages to increase readership of your email content as well. Provide links to email list sign-up forms via text to encourage people to learn even more about your goods and services.