We’ll look at the future of email marketing in this piece, with case studies, interviews, and in-depth insights into cutting-edge innovations in the sector.

We’ve compiled a comprehensive list for you below, with summaries of each case study thoroughly explained.

 

The Future of Email Marketing

Case Study 1

 

How Lonely Planet utilised email to launch its new homepage by Seb Neylan

 

Email marketing has long been recognized as a method of informing customers about new products or service updates. Lonely Planet, on the other hand, takes it a step farther. Lonely Planet’s Director of Online Marketing, Seb Neylan, used email as a channel to promote the relaunch of it website’s homepage.

 

In the lonely planet’s case, they wanted to introduced  to its email subscribers their new mission with a subject line that read: ‘Explore every day.’ The company used this email messaging to position its homepage as the ‘front door’ to its multi-channel ecosystem.  This is evident in the launch email, which emphasizes that they not only make it possible for people to travel, but also encourage them to start planning their adventure even before they book.

 

The email drove a lot of traffic to the new homepage, although it was intended to be educational. The open rate was extremely high in this case; the result for only the US  (the largest list within their whole database) was over 100K opens, with unsubscribes remaining below the 0.5 percent target anticipated.

 

In the past, they’ve only concentrated on travel content in their emails, rather than the brand or  specific digital assets. But with this launch email,  they’ve taken ‘brand education’ a step further. This has helped kick-start traffic for their other channels, providing them with an boost and allowing them to get more eyes on their content in that network.

 

 

Case Study 2

 

How artificial intelligence is changing email marketing by Al Roberts

 

 

Artificial intelligence seems to be the subject of discussion amongst most marketers these days, and email marketers are not left out. Given the significance of email to a lot of companies’ businesses, it’s hardly a surprise that a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning are being used to innovate in email.

 

Al Roberts carefully examines the different ways in which AI is being applied to email marketing. From multivariate and A/B Testing to predictive personalization.

 

How rich media can bring your emails to life by Clark Boyd

 

Email as a marketing channel subsists and succeeds based on new and more creative ways of attracting and sustaining a customer’s attention. Otherwise, the audience disengages leading to a drop in open rates. Innovations such as artificial intelligence and automation provide us with ways of enhancing the way we send emails. However, rich media, allows us to enhance what’s in them.

Clark Boyd goes further to explore the various ways in which rich media can bring emails to life, in the form of GIFs and cinemagraphs to embedded social media, and investigates the brands that are utilizing the best.

 

Case Study 3

How fashion brand Thread is delivering hyper-personalized emails at scale by Chris Camps

Perhaps you haven’t heard of Thread, they are a men’s fashion start-up doing some seriously amazing things with style, and of course emails. Tom Banham, Content Editor at Thread, disclosed how email powers Thread’s “hyper-personalized” fashion recommendations, delivered directly to users’ inboxes.

Recommendations from stylists to fashion tips, Tom disclosed how personalized emails go together with Thread’s tailored approach to clothing. Also, how the business manages to scale up its offerings to its consumers with a minimal human resource i.e. workforce.

Do brands still need bulk email software? by Al Roberts

There was a time not to long ago when companies wanting to effectively make utilize email as a marketing channel needed to buy bulk email software to send emails across to their customers and mailing list subscribers.

But with the passing of time, innovation has presented the rise of cloud-based email delivery platforms. This typically offers the same benefits that bulk email software has. This has prompted the question of whether we even need bulk email software anymore. Al Roberts explores the advantages of cloud-based email delivery platforms and considers if there is still a place in email marketing for bulk software.

Case Study 4

4 ways to make sure your email technology is mobile optimized by Rebecca Sentance

Just like with search and web browsing, consumer habits around email are trending tremendously towards mobile. Gmail reported more than 1 billion monthly active users in 2016, with 75% of them on mobile devices.

If you want to stay up to date with the steady trend towards mobile email, your email tech, i.e. the tools and service provider used to send your email must be optimized for mobile.

But how do you find out if yours is? We share four ways to ensure your email technology is mobile-optimized. Nonetheless, with recommendations for tools to help make your emails great on mobile.

Inbox innovation: The tools and technology powering the future of email by Chris Camps

A most marketers know, the high-volume, low-cost nature of email makes it pungent for innovation. But when you really get down to the crux of it, what would you say are the most promising innovations currently being established in email marketing?

Chris Camps explores the picks for the technology that will make up the future of email.

Case Study 5

How these 11 brands are nailing cart abandonment emails by Tereza Litsa

Cart abandonment as those who are familiar with eCommerce will know, is a persistent problem, with a global average of 76.9%. One thing can help to turn the tide: the modest cart abandonment email.

Tereza Litsa looks at 11 brands who have been able to brilliantly make cart abandonment emails works for them, and examines what email marketers can adopt from their techniques.

Case Study 6

What does the future have in store for email? We asked our readers by Rebecca Sentance

To conclude in this article, we take a close examination at the results of a short survey by ClickZ, to find out what the future holds for email.

How critical is email to marketers’ strategy as a whole? How firm do they deem their ‘grip’ on the martech universe to be? Where an exactly do marketers envisage email in five years, and the question lingers as if it stands at risk of being replaced by instant messaging? This article will help you discover the answers to all of these questions.