Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that has stood the test of time and still proves to be one of the most successful ways to connect with your customers on a personal level in 2020.
But to continue to build engagement with your audience, you must continually thrill them and deliver email marketing content with a that stands out from the crowd and will drive interaction with your brand.
To remain bang on trend and breathe excitement into your email strategy, here are two of my favourite emerging email marketing trends to watch out for in 2020 and beyond.
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Email Marketing Trend #1 – AMP For Email
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is not a new term in the world of digital marketing. It is a technology that enables the fast loading of web pages on mobile devices by loading a scaled down, lightweight version of the full web page. It’s often used by news websites who need to get key information out to users in a fast and efficient way and whilst it didn’t take off in the way Google anticipated it would, it’s still a feature used on many websites where it makes sense for the user experience.
However, AMP for email is whole different (and very exciting) ballgame…
What is AMP for email?
It’s an emerging technology that we recommend you keep a close eye on, which allows digital email marketers to create an engaging and, crucially, interactive email experience for their subscribers.
Until very recently, email content has been essentially static. The main engagement triggers have always been simply reading the email or clicking through to a website or landing page for more information. And that’s dull. Users are demanding more from their email experience, and the big brands are starting to notice and adapt to the desire for a more versatile way to deliver engaging content.
What can AMP for email do?
AMP for email throws open the doors and invites cool new elements into your email template. It brings website-style functionality to emails, such as carousels to scroll more images and cool accordion features which allow users to expand and hide dynamic content without leaving the email frame.
Larger brands, especially those involved with e-commerce, are utilising AMP for email to revitalise their email marketing strategies. Look out for email communications that provide the experience of a webpage by offering embedded forms that link directly back to the sender’s database, event invitations, short feedback forms and the ability to respond and reply directly from your inbox.
My prediction is that it will certainly take some time for these new AMP for email features to be fully implemented across all the major SMB platforms. The ones that we currently specialise in working with such as Ontraport, MailChimp and Active Campaign, have not made any announcement regarding these features yet, but I expect MailChimp to be the first to adopt this technology due to the sheer size of their company.
That being said, there are some smaller email design tools on the market like Stripo that are running at this full force. Check out the live stream below where I cover the topics in this blog post and share some examples in more detail.
Get a head start on your competitors and start thinking about how this emerging technology can improve your interaction and collaboration with your subscribers.
Email Marketing Trend #2 – Dark Mode
Dark Mode in email is a very welcome feature for anyone who spends a lot of time on their devices. Staring at screens for a prolonged period of time is something we are all guilty of and responsible email marketers are recognising this and are implementing Dark Mode themes into their email templates to reduce eye strain.
In essence, Dark Mode inverts a white background and black text on your phone to decrease the amount of glare, especially at night or in low-light conditions, like the beautiful example from Unsplash below.
The smart thinking behind using Dark Mode in emails is that if a subscriber is suddenly faced with a bright white glare as they open your email when their eyes have been adjusted to dark mode screens, they are likely to close it right away. This isn’t the outcome that marketers want, so many are starting to explore Dark Mode technology to keep pace with what their subscribers demand from their email experience.
If you’d like to see more examples of dark mode email marketing trends, reallygoodemails.com have a collection of beautiful designs from big brands that you can feast your eyes on.
We predict these two trends will push email marketing forward in 2020 and beyond. The creation of valuable content delivered in unique and novel ways will keep your audience eagerly anticipating your next communication and can provide a valuable way to turn subscribers into active customers.
If you are looking to learn how to get more from your email marketing strategy, reach out today and we can discuss how to help you reach your goals and increase your return on investment from email.
Join us on YouTube to get the latest tips and tricks to maximise your email marketing efforts and learn about the latest emerging trends in email and marketing automation.