The new year is a great time to reevaluate your marketing strategy and see what’s working for you, and maybe even what isn’t. It’s also a good time to look ahead to what changes you may need to make to set your business up for success, as well as trends to watch out for.
The good news is, email marketing remains one of the biggest and best digital marketing strategies in 2023. The even better news is, we’ve compiled a list of email marketing trends to look out for in the new year. Stay on your email marketing A-game with these top five email marketing trends in 2023.
Personalization
More than ever, your customers want to feel that you know who they are. Because email marketing is still king of the digital marketing game, your customers have emails from probably every brand they’ve ever interacted with, which means you need to stand out from the crowd. A simple way to do this that will resonate with your customer is personalization.
Most email marketing services allow you to segment your audience in order to offer more targeted emails. You want your customers to see offers in their inbox that they’ll actually appreciate and use, and often those come from offers based on their activity.
However, you need to balance personalization with respect for your customers’ privacy. People don’t like feeling like they’re being watched, and they’re very wary of their information or internet habits being marketed or used to manipulate them. So, how do you offer your customers ads they will actually care about without making them feel watched or stalked? The answer: zero-party data.
Zero-party data is the information customers have opted into giving you. Using this data won’t feel creepy to customers because they chose to give it to you. Making good use of zero-party data often means making sure you have some well-worded and authentically useful boxes for your customers to check when they sign up for emails. If they only want to know about sales or new products, let them choose that. If they would like to hear about exclusive offers based on their activity, let them choose that. Using only the data customers have volunteered about themselves to create personalized offers is a sure way to make them feel seen and represented instead of manipulated. Respect your customers, and they will respect you.
Authenticity
As we enter 2023, it’s important to acknowledge the recession we’re in and the buying practices that come with it. Your customers will be holding onto their money more than usual and planning out what they buy. This trend makes brand loyalty more important than ever, and why it is important that you ramin authentic as a business.
While flash sales and FOMO in email marketing are still reliable practices, impulse buying will not see the same amount of success in a recession as it normally would. Customers won’t be working with extra money to spend. Instead, they’ll be planning out their purchases and often waiting till the last minute to buy necessities. Because you don’t know when your customers will be ready to make a purchase, you want to make sure your brand is top of mind for them anytime they consider buying the type of product or service you’re selling.
In other words, you’ll want to play the long game in email marketing in 2023. Make sure your customers know who you are, what you stand for and what you sell. Sharing these three things will help develop a relationship with customers so they remember you when it comes time for them to make a purchase. They’ll be putting a lot more thought into what they’re buying, so give them something to think about your brand specifically. And remember, people fear what they don’t know or understand. If they feel they don’t know you, they won’t trust you with their hard-earned money.
An easy way to keep customers in the know about your brand is with newsletters. Once a thing of the past, newsletters are making a comeback in 2023 with some updated practices, namely, personalization. A great way to blend authenticity with personalization is to craft newsletters based on your customers activities or volunteered interests. Get to know your customers and let them get to know you right back by putting relevant information about your company in their inboxes.
Drip campaigns
Because email marketing is still so popular, your customers’ inboxes will be full of emails from almost every brand they’ve ever interacted with. This influx of information can make your customer feel overwhelmed and even frustrated. Drip campaigns are designed to combat those feelings by giving customers only the information they need exactly when they need it.
In a drip campaign, emails are sent when triggered by the actions of the customer. This strategy has the benefit of keeping customers from being overinformed and as well as keeping your email sends cohesive among every customer that visits your website. Imagine how refreshing it can be for your customers to receive an email giving them only information that is useful to them. For example, if your customer put one of your products in their cart on your website last week but didn’t purchase it, sending them a reminder may be the push they needed to make the purchase. Drip campaigns can help your customers associate your brand with positive feelings instead of the frustration that comes with overwhelming information.
Artificial Intelligence
By now, you’ve probably heard the buzz about new AI capabilities and what that could mean for your business in 2023. AI can be intimidating, but it’s quickly becoming a convenient and effective tool to enhance digital marketing for small businesses and corporations alike. In other words, you need to understand AI, its uses and effects if you’re going to keep up with marketing trends.
While some are worried that AI is here to replace our jobs, artificial intelligence is designed to be a tool used alongside human creativity. AI won’t replace your marketing team, but your marketing team will have to learn how to use it to keep up with your competitors.
One of AI’s most powerful benefits is automation. Personalization is a necessary component of a good email campaign, but no marketing team is equipped to hand write emails to each person on your subscription list. That’s where AI steps in. Artificial intelligence for email marketing services often involves helping you personalize your email sends, letting you know when to send your emails and even generating effective subject lines. As you grow your subscriber base, your brand reach and your business, AI can help you save time without compromising the quality of your email marketing strategy.
Security
Phishing scams are always on the rise, and 2023 is no exception. Your customers need to know your emails are authentic and safe. If a reader becomes even slightly suspicious, your email is likely to go straight into the trash–and might even be blocked or marked as spam.
The new year is the perfect time to update your security practices. You can’t afford compromised customer information. A hacked email would be bad for your business not just today, but six months from now. In fact, you may find yourself having to court a whole new subscriber list after your current customers lose trust in your brand.
There are plenty of services out there that offer secure ways to use customer information and send emails to your subscribers. Most importantly, make sure that you have a plan, stick to your plan and keep your plan updated to account for the latest in email security. Lastly, tell your customers you have a plan. Your subscribers will trust your brand more knowing you’re looking out for their safety.
Keeping up with these five email marketing trends in 2023 will help ensure your digital marketing is the best it can be. If you’re unsure where to start or would like help making the most of your digital marketing plan, contact Hyport Digital. Our email marketing services are constantly updating to ensure you and your customers have the best experience possible.
