04 Nov 2020: An E-Marketing Odyssey
Here at United Landmark Associates, 2020 represents more than just the start of a new decade. It’s also the year when our team expects to see email marketing play an even bigger role on the marketing stage, as campaigns and platforms evolve and advance to reach and engage savvy 21st century consumers.
Email marketing, aka “e-marketing,” is widely considered one of the most effective ways for companies to communicate with new prospects or their existing subscriber database and accurately measure results in just a few quick clicks. It’s also a relatively low-cost endeavor, with HubSpot reporting that an email generates $38 for every $1 spent (an astounding 3,800% ROI). However, we know there’s more than one way to send a message…
Read on for examples of how email marketing campaigns can tap into 2020 marketing trends to successfully connect with and engage users.
(Mobile) Content is King
According to the latest statistics, billions of people are already logged in to email platforms and more than half of them access their inboxes via a mobile device. As the day of the desktop declines and the percentage of people turning to mobile increases, one of the key trends in modern e-marketing is the optimization of content for mobile use.
The quickest way to improve mobile eblasts is to revisit eblast copy, images and overall design. Considering that the average user’s email attention span is approximately 13.4 seconds and a typical adult reads 250-300 words per minute, an effective eblast needs to hook a reader within 50 words or risk losing them forever (or at least until the next eblast hits their inbox)!
Mobile eblast copy should be concise and meaningful, with a clear call to action button that appears early in the scroll and encourages recipients to click through to a website or landing page.
Designs should also be collapsible and have embedded images condensed to render clearly on mobile viewports – expanded designs and large-format images are slower to load in mobile andwill result in a less impactful user experience.
When developing eblast campaigns for our portfolio of clients, ULA’s digital team takes a multi-device approach to ensure that content is fully optimized and intuitive across desktop, mobile, tablet and whatever technology comes down the pipeline.
When it comes to ULA’s client portfolio, some of the most effective mobile-optimized emails focus on promoting floorplans. Copy is short and sweet, with a fully optimized design that emphasizes strong product visuals and clickable buttons and graphics that allow recipients to open a floorplan PDF or access a landing page where they can register interest in the floorplans. This type of content captures subscriber interest and provides them with info geared toward moving them along in the sales funnel, essentially killing two birds with one email.
By the People, for the People
User-generated content (UGC) is generated by the product’s end-user and can range from Instagram-friendly product images to Facebook or Amazon-style product reviews. According to research from e-commerce company 3dcart, 70% of all consumers refer to these user-generated reviews and ratings before making any purchasing decisions.
This statistic is particularly relevant when it comes to e-marketing, as user-generated content can not only be drawn from eblasts – for example, by providing links to surveys and encouraging recipients to provide feedback on the product as well as sourcing input on what they’d like to see more of – but incorporated into eblast creative to emphasize a product’s value proposition.
When our Marina Pointe client received outstanding feedback on their luxury waterfront condominiums, we incorporated those quotes into their “Maritimes” e-newsletter as a “future resident spotlight.” The spotlight not only provided real, positive firsthand commentary on the project, but encouraged recipients to explore the lifestyle and residences that inspired the input.
Are You Not Entertained?
In the past, eblast interactivity was designed to entertain recipients and keep them from immediately clicking out or deleting a message. Moving forward, marketing campaigns will take a more functional, fully interactive approach to encourage user engagement and click-throughs.
Some of the interactive email components we expect to see in 2020 include:
- Animated buttons and calls to action
- Rollover effects to showcase product offerings
- Interactive image and product carousels
- Content inspired by social media
ULA’s digital experts manage the eblast strategy for The Laurel, a luxury condominium tower located in Philadelphia’s prestigious Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. We recognized that posts about neighborhood news and events performed very well on social media channels, so we transformed the content into an engaging “Laurel on the Square” email series providing subscribers with news and events.
This integrated approach not only brings the neighborhood to life right in their inbox but gives our marketing team an opportunity to leverage existing content in a new and meaningful way.
Let’s Get Personal
This may seem a little old-fashioned for a 2020 trends review, but you’d be surprised how often something as simple as personalization gets overlooked in e-marketing! Personalizing email campaigns consistently increases customer engagement and retention and ensures that messages don’t come off as “spammy.” As more companies turn to low cost email marketing, consumers are bound to receive an ever-increasing volume of messages that will either be ignored or labeled as “spam,” so a successful eblast absolutely has to stand out from the crowd.
From the beginning of the subscriber relationship, email flow should be personalized based on individual behavior. For example, if a new subscriber enters the email database by completing a form to download a lifestyle guide or access a floorplan, their follow-up sequence will convey slightly different messaging than the follow-up sequence for someone who completes a generic contact form. Eblasts should also be tailored to speak to subscribers depending on where they are in the sales funnel.
When ULA created the e-marketing campaign for Texas-based client The Hideout Resort & Golf Club, we used different eblasts to convey similar messages depending on whether the recipients fell under the “owners and members” category or the “prospective buyer” category.
United Landmark Associates is a Tampa-based digital marketing agency with more than 30 years of digital and traditional marketing expertise, offering a full array of campaign services including email marketing. With a tenacious commitment to ensuring client success and a proven track record of delivering results that have transformed city skylines and surpassed every client expectation, ULA is ready to embrace the coming year and the ever-evolving trends.
Contact us today to learn more about what we do and how we do it.