Believe it or not, email marketing is the mainstay of a company’s marketing efforts. Agree, people assertively claim that email marketing is dead. Little do they know that email generates the greatest ROI among all marketing channels; particularly, when the email is in line with the recipients’ interest. We have listed here top 9 Email Marketing Trends for 2020 to help you leverage your email marketing efforts.
As an ecommerce marketer, you probably know that the difference between high and low email click-through rates is measured in dollars. In other words, failing to engage your subscribers is too costly of a slip up.
So what can you do to avoid that?
You can send your emails at optimal times.
Striving to find out what the best time to send emails is, we’ve gathered unique data on 9,500 different brands that collectively sent more than 92,000 email campaigns (that’s nearly 800 million emails).
And we emerged with a list of best practices that lead to high conversions.
Our findings shed light on the three frequently asked (and searched for) email marketing questions:
What is the best hour to send emails?
What is the best day of the week to send emails?
What is the best day of the month to send emails?
But before we take a dive into our data, let me say this – these best practices will have little effect on your bottom line if you don’t have a strong email list.
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Do You Align with Current Email Marketing Trends in 2020?
Whichever list-building tactic you’re using (we’re big fans of exit-intent popups), ensure you’re actively collecting emails from your visitors to increase your exposure and eventually boost your conversions.
Now, let’s dig into the data.
The best hour to send emails
We determine the timing success by looking at email open and click-through rates. Typically, there are three main factors that can influence an email’s performance:
User availability: are they eating, sleeping or checking their emails?
Competition: how many other brands might be emailing them?
Relevance: is there anything specific about your niche that you need to consider?
In terms of our study, we’ve had to restrict our data to one time zone (we went with the UK) to ensure the data is not distorted. Also, because the spectrum of niches within this data set is quite varied, it’s difficult to make any meaningful conclusions on relevance.
In our study, we analyze data to find answers about the other two aspects – user availability and competition.
We can see a clear trend line when open rates and click rates are plotted based on hours. To provide more context and ensure it’s not affecting the significance of the data, we also include the total campaigns sent.
Looking at this chart, it’s obvious that 5pm (17h00) is the optimal time to send emails. With at least 450 campaigns sent, it has the best combination of open rate (19.7%) and click rate (3.98%).
Although there are other times that stand out, they are likely skewed due to a small sample size.
The best day of the week to send emails
There are many variables that come into play when trying to determine which day of the week is best for sending out email campaigns, including a stand-out subject line, compelling snippets, relevant messaging and even weather.
We have zeroed in on five different markets to see which days of the week are getting the best open and click rates – US, Canada, Australia, UK and India.
The highest open and click-through rates suggest that Wednesday (averaging a 19.6% open rate) and Sunday (with a 4.4% click-through rate) are the best-performing days. However, before jumping to conclusions, we should also take into consideration the total number of campaigns sent.
It is obvious then that, averaging an open rate of 19.61% and a click rate of 4.3%, Wednesday is the best day of the week to send out emails. Thursday comes in second.
The best day of the month to send emails
Knowing which day of the month offers the best engagement and conversions comes in handy if you’re sending out bi-weekly or monthly newsletters, or tend to run once-in-a-while email campaigns.
Having analyzed nearly 800 million emails, we have identified two key dates – the 1st of the month (19.87% open rate) and the 4th of the month (19.68% open rate).
When should you be sending emails?
Here’s what we’ve learned from the data:
The best time to send regular email campaigns is 5pm on a Wednesday
The best day for monthly emails is the 4th of the month (or at least a day near the beginning of the month)
This makes sense because people are typically paid either at the beginning or very end of the month. This short period is also a unique opportunity for ecommerce marketers to engage prospects when they’re most likely to make a purchase.
Our simple chart wraps it up nicely.
Looking at the click-through rates, we see that the 4th comes at the top of the list (4.53%) and the 21st is a very close second (4.52%). Once we compare the open and click rates with the number of total campaigns sent, the 4th of the month stands out with the best overall rates.
Top Email Marketing Trends to Look At
Whether this data will help you improve your open and click-through rates will depend on how well you can adapt it to your own brand.
As always, we strongly advise you to put these best practices to test and see what results it produces. And with that being said, I’m sure you’ll see steady improvements in your open and click rates, and ultimately – your conversions.
To help you leverage your email marketing efforts, we have discussed some email marketing key trends you need to consider in 2017 and beyond.
1. Interactive Emails are Here to Stay:
Landing pages are important, but what if you can integrate some of your landing page’s functionality into an email that can redirect to desired page in just a single click or tap. Let’s take it this way, as soon as your recipient tapped on a food menu button in the email, a food menu listing appears right there, in that very email.
In 2019, we had seen interactive emails, engaging recipients, and driving positive results. Some features that can up the level of interaction includes:
- Product tour hot spots
- Offer reveals
- Live menus and navigation
- Quizzes
- Reviews
- Carousels, image galleries, and sliders
- Search bar
- Shopping carts and add to wish list
Fabricating an interactive medium, other than landing page, can decrease the number of clicks-to-action. This can bring down the barrier to engagement. Besides, such emails can also affect the behavioral intent. When using interactive elements, make sure your message is clear, concise, and action-provoking.
Try to avoid using interactive elements just to support poor content. I would recommend using it in an email where you just want to attract attention to events like a product launch or sale announcements.
2. Transactional Emails are Worth Trying
Did you know that 40% of marketers are using transactional emails? The transactional emails comprise only 5% of overall email volume, yet generate a big portion of email marketing revenue. One reason why transactional emails are so epic is that such emails are inbound-friendly.
Unlike the broadcast emails that are strictly outbound in nature, these emails are typically demanded the user permission and when used effectively, they can also make greater up-sells too.
Preventing the pain points can also assist you to improve your overall ROI. The transactional emails are a new, easy, and effective way to add feedback loops across the user experience process. Some great times to start taking feedback from clients are just after a free, purchase trial, or customer service inquiry.
3. Embedded HTML 5 Video
As momentum rapidly builds behind HTML5, marketers have had a keen eye on its effect on HTML email in the future to come. One certain area of interest that has been in the talking for quite some time is HTML5 <video> tag.
The tag is intended to provide native video support with the help of a single codec throughout all browsers without using third party plugins such as Flash.
The super benefit to avail from embedded HTML5 videos is to improve Google search ranking. The popularity and effectiveness of a video are no secrets; they own the power to draw more attention and get viral. Such emails can result in a greater open and click-through rates and, therefore, more of a boosted exposure to the brand.
4. Conversational Emails
People like stories and conversations. Nobody has time to read a sales-centric email that drives no sign of value to the recipient.
Conversational emails don’t necessarily mean that your content should be extremely informal—exactly how you speak. You should write in a way that does not sound like you’re writing. Make your recipients feel that you’re talking to them, rather than at them.
Try to know about them, what are their preferences and pain points. With all the accumulated information, you can get enough of conversational ammo in your arsenal to make the interaction more interesting.
Giveaway: keep your subject line simple, conversational and pertinent.
5. Personalization
Personalization has its own appeal; we are breathing in an era where personalization in the preference. Thanks to big data, we have plenty of data readily available, yet businesses are not capitalizing on the opportunity it offers. 94% of companies say that customized emails are essential for present and future success.
When it is about personalizing your emails, you do not need to struggle much. There are fairly simple, yet sophisticated means of using personalization in your emails that is much more than using just a name.
6. Ask the Right Questions
It is a simple, straightforward, and effective practice to section out your audience for personalization. Asking customers their purpose for landing on your website, subscribing to your email, or signing up as a user can be outstandingly easy, but valuable. It can provide you with an insight that can help your business send incredibly targeted emails that can be opened frequently.
7. Build Customer Personas
Big data again! Marketers can create customer personas considering a multitude of data available. Rather than asking a single question, you can make groups of your customers together on the basis of certain attributes and actions they take.
8. Consider Time and Location
Working with your sales and marketing departments, you can adjust the emails at a personalized time to create the most impact. You can also increase the email enjoyment by making your content more relevant to the subscribers. Leverage customer data, analyze subscribers’ past open histories while sending emails at the most suitable timings to increase the chance of getting them opened for that particular subscriber.
9. Schedule Automated Behavioral Trigger Emails
The behavior-triggered emails can be sent in response to the instant reactions to how your customers use the product. You might have received an email from Facebook, as you have not logged in for many days, this is called a behavior-triggered email. It is quite effective in sparking quick responses, and if still, you haven’t got your feet wet with the email, your competitors have a lead over you.
Top Email Marketing Trends 2020: Conclusion
These are the 9 upcoming email trends that different digital agencies should focus on at present in 2020 and afterwards as well—so should you, at least until new trends concerning email marketing come about.
- 9 Top Email Marketing Trends to Look At in 2020 - January 20, 2020
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