Categories
Thoughts

AI and its future role in email marketing

The future of AI and Email

The future of email marketing with AI is expected to be more intelligent, efficient, and personalized. Here are some potential scenarios that could shape the future of email with the integration of AI:

Advanced Email Filtering:

AI-powered email filters can automatically categorize and prioritise emails based on relevance, sender’s importance, and past interaction history. This can help users to declutter their inbox and focus on important messages, reducing email overload.

Smart Email Composition:

AI can assist users in composing emails by providing real-time suggestions, corrections, and recommendations on grammar, tone, and content. This can improve the quality of emails and enhance communication effectiveness.

Automated Email Reponses:

AI can generate automatic email responses based on the context of the received email. For example, for routine inquiries or scheduling requests, AI can draft pre-defined responses, saving time for users and ensuring prompt replies.

Personalised Email Recommendations:

AI can analyse a user’s email history and preferences to provide personalized recommendations for emails, such as relevant newsletters, offers, or events. This can help users discover relevant content and improve their overall email experience.

Enhanced email Security:

AI can play a significant role in identifying and preventing email-based threats, such as phishing attacks, spam, and malware. AI algorithms can analyze email patterns, attachments, and URLs to detect suspicious activities and provide enhanced security features.

Intelligent Email Scheduling:

AI can analyse users’ calendars, availability, and email patterns to suggest optimal meeting times and schedule emails accordingly. This can help users manage their time more effectively and avoid scheduling conflicts.

Overall, the integration of AI in email is expected to streamline email management, enhance communication, and provide personalized experiences to users, making email more efficient, effective, and convenient in the future.

From the points above I bet in some of your own ESPs you can see how they are using AI to improve your email marketing.

P.S I didn’t write the majority of the above, AI did.  No matter what you may think AI will be here to stay.  Or at least until the rise of the robots and T2 actually happens.

Categories
Thoughts

Email Marketing Trends to Look Out For In 2023

Email Marketing Trends - Let's get out the crystal ball

At the beginning of the year, I was asked again to take part in  “23 Experts Share Email Marketing Trends To Keep An Eye Out For In 2023” by email uplers. 

Once again, I jumped at the chance to be included.  Here are my thoughts;

Blowing the dust off my crystal ball I can see next year is going to be another great year for Email Marketing. There are a few trends I would like to see become more prevalent:

1. Firstly, Once Again Personalization Will Be Imperative

Personalization will help in getting those lovely subscribers to engage with any brand be it big or small. How they do that will be up to them, but please I beg of you create a strategy so you are not going into blindly or all guns blazing, document your findings.

2. Secondly, AI is Going To Be A Big One This Year, I Feel

3. And Lastly, The One I Am Looking Forward To The Most Is More Interactivity.

I have a few brands dropping into my inbox and doing it well like Disney and BBC, but not many have had a go yet. Obviously, not every email needs to be interactive and I would imagine the resources that it would take might not be for everyone. That being said I do believe we will see more and more interactivity making it into our inboxes, and why not, emails are supposed to be engaging aren’t they?

Email Marketing Trends - Update

Looking back now number 2 on my look into the future seems to have really picked up pace.  AI is everywhere in marketing and email marketing is no different.

For the full article click here.

For more information about how TSM can help checkout my services.

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News & Tips

Automation, the backbone of your email marketing.

Automation

Automation or flows are awesome! As you know email marketing is one of the best ways to reach your audience and maintain relationships, but it can be a lot of work. Automating some parts of your email marketing will save you time while also improving the impact of your emails.

Automation is all about personalisation

Personalisation is the key to successful email marketing. So what exactly is personalisation? It’s more than just a name or a salutation. Personalisation involves building a relationship with your customers, understanding their needs and behaviour, and being able to effectively communicate with them.    Make them feel like they’ve received an actual communication from you as an individual rather than just another faceless company.

Your automated emails can be triggered by several actions

You can set up automated emails to go out no matter what.

They can be triggered by a user action, like when someone signs up for your newsletter, interacts with an email or buys something from you.

They can also be triggered by time—like if it’s been a week since a user last visited your site, it may be time for them to receive another email about recent blog posts or sales.

It’s not all or nothing, you can combine an automated email flow with one-off emails

With an automated email flow, you can send out one-off emails that drive more conversions and help your business grow. This can include new product launches or sales, follow-up emails to users who didn’t convert on their first visit, and more. In addition to being helpful for conversion rates and retention, this is a great practice for keeping your subscribers engaged with your content throughout the year.

If you have a regular newsletter or list of other content that you want to regularly share with subscribers but don’t have time (or bandwidth) to send them all at once, set up an automated email flow so they get sent out automatically when they’re ready!

It takes time but the results are worth it

It’s true that it takes time to build your automated email flows and get them working the way you want them to. It also takes time to learn how to use automation effectively, but once you do, it’ll give you results that are truly worth your while. As part of any good automation set up, this should be planned in your email marketing strategy. 

Things you’ll need to think about:

  • What is the purpose of the automation?
  • What do you want the outcome to be?
  • What will the content be? 
  • What are the triggers?
  • What testing will you be running, and what do you want out of it?

Automating your emails is going to make your campaigns much more effective

Automating your emails is going to make your campaigns much more effective and powerful. You can get so many benefits from automation, it’s amazing!

  • Save time: Automation will save you lots of time that would otherwise be spent manually sending out emails. Instead, you can just set up a workflow for each campaign and let the system do all the work for you. You’ll be able to focus on creating new content instead of spending hours sending out emails every day.
  • Save money: Once again, automation helps save money because it makes things easier and cheaper in general (you don’t need a human being behind the scenes). With the right tools and software, automating doesn’t have to cost much at all; this means that any business owner has access to this tool without breaking their budget!
  • Increase revenue: Customers who use automated emails are often more loyal than those who don’t—and there are several reasons why this happens! If a customer isn’t getting enough value from an email campaign but still gets an automated one anyway (e.g., if they receive coupons), then they may feel obligated not only because it’s less work than searching through other options but also because they’ve already invested money into their relationship with your brand before receiving these offers.”
  • Increase engagement: Subscribers expect welcome emails, abandoned carts etc, it’s part of the “norm”. But it also helps with keeping those subscribers engaged with the company, educating them about you, and finding out what their needs are and how to solve them, the list is endless.

To conclude

I would like to say that automation is not the be-all and end-all of email marketing. It’s just another tool in your arsenal that can help you reach more people, provide them with a better experience, and keep them engaged with your brand. You’ll still need to send one-off emails as well as contact customers directly if they have questions or concerns. But if you’re looking for a way to boost engagement with your audience on an ongoing basis, then it’s worth setting up some flows today!

Keep an eye out for my next blog post where I will be breaking down my top 5 automations that every eCommerce business should have.

Categories
Thoughts

Email Marketing Trends
to Look Out For In 2022

Email marketing trend

Back at the beginning of the year I got asked by email uplers if I would like to take part in their “41 Email Experts on Email Marketing Trends to Look Out For In 2022“. 

I, of course, jumped at the chance.  So for your reading pleasure, here was my two pennies worth:

This could be the year more businesses finally take the personalised approach.

With IOS15 now in full swing and open rates now being a thing of the past, surely it’s time that everyone took personalisation as seriously as they should. Let’s get the most out of email marketing and give subscribers the experience they deserve.

It’s time to utilise all that data that most ESPs contain and harness it for the greater good. For example the amount of generic emails that were sent on Black Friday offering the subscriber everything but a kitchen sink, why not tailor those offers specifically to the subscriber using what they have browsed, bought etc. Make it more personal.

And finally, I hope a major trend this year will be that email marketing won’t be all about the ROI but more about customer journey, long gone are the days of spammy sales messages and offers. Subscribers and customers want real life interaction and that’s where personalisation will be the absolute key.

As Kevin Costner said in The Field of Dreams, “If you build it they will come”. In the case of email though, “if you build with your subscriber in mind , they will stay”.

Updates

Reflecting back to the article I would change the “open rates now being a thing of the past”, to “open rates now being a bit more problematic”.

Now nearly 9 months down the line, I am seeing an uptake in personalisation at least with the emails I receive, and an increase in the zero-party data collection which is a great thing to see.  

Doing both with the right strategy helps not only send the right message at the right time but helps defeat the old spray and pray approach that so many companies adopt.

For the full article have a read.

For more information about how TSM can help checkout my services.