Email marketing is widespread in both B2B and B2C marketing today. Despite the development of new channels and the dynamic preferences of customers and prospects, email remains the best tactic for staying in touch with consumers.
However, email marketing is not without its challenges. Today's consumer receives a large amount of e-mails on his account, both personal and business e-mails. It comes from companies looking to build relationships, grow relationships, and keep their brands front and center in the minds of their audiences.
The proliferation of marketing emails poses three particular challenges for today's marketers.
- It's getting worse. Generative AI allows organizations to easily create large volumes of emails in a short amount of time. MarTech contributor Kath Pay shared a poor example of an AI-generated cold email, but now most everyone has their own examples.
- There are new bulk limits from major email platforms. Experienced marketers who understand email marketing strategies are likely to be unaffected, but the restrictions apply to the entire business.
- Email is one channel, not the only one. While email remains the dominant online messaging channel, many marketers also have access to SMS messages and in-app notifications, and these channels are (for now) less noisy.
Understand the role of email automation in marketing
Broadly speaking, automation allows you to do more with less. However, as mentioned above, “more” is not always the best option when it comes to email marketing.
The role of email automation is not to help marketers send more emails, but to send the right emails to the right people.
Email tactics like lead nurturing and personalized offers based on customer data are too complex for marketers to create and deliver at scale without some form of automation.
When you consider all the email applications used in your organization, you can see why you need a robust email automation platform. Email marketing tactics used in many industries include:
- Welcome email.
- Intravenous drip campaign.
- Abandoned Cart Email.
- Product Recommendations.
- Reactivation campaign.
Marketing teams need tools to help them. Also, there is no shortage of tools available on the market. So what do you look for when evaluating an email automation platform?
Learn more: MarTech's Enterprise Email Marketing Platform: Download the Marketer's Guide
Features required in an email automation platform
Today, even the most cost-effective email marketing platforms have automation built-in. Here are some other features that can help you create targeted, relevant messages that consumers crave.
As with other martech applications, AI is rapidly changing the landscape of email marketing and automation tools. Where appropriate, we have included information about AI possibilities in the features described below.
segmentation and targeting. Look for the ability to segment your audience based on criteria such as demographics, behavior, and preferences. The continued proliferation of AI and machine learning will likely make segmentation more complex in the future, which will also open the door to predictive analytics capabilities.
Workflow automation. Save time and reduce errors by automating repetitive tasks and workflows. This is another area likely to be influenced by AI, which will eventually enable more intelligent automation and workflows.
Personalization and dynamic content. Personalized content increases audience engagement, so the ability to quickly and dynamically change content based on user behavior is essential to a successful email marketing program. Deep personalization, potentially leveraging not only AI but also virtual and augmented reality, could be the trend of the future.
Multichannel integration. Consumers use a variety of communication channels, so integration with multiple platforms (email, SMS, social media) is essential for a consistent marketing strategy. Some messages, such as shipping notifications and reservation reminders, are often best received by SMS. User guides and user surveys can work better in conjunction with in-app messaging.
Compliance and security. In addition to the mass email limitations mentioned above, data privacy and security remains an evolving area for marketers, especially in highly regulated industries.
A/B testing. Marketers learn by experimenting with different elements of a campaign and optimizing based on the results. A/B testing enables this type of data-driven decision-making. This is another area that is expected to evolve to include more complex multivariate testing thanks to AI and machine learning.
Of course, there are many factors to consider when choosing an email automation platform, including licensing costs, the experience of your team, and the number and types of email programs you run.
Do your due diligence, ask vendors about their future plans and product roadmaps, and make decisions that consider not only your needs as a marketer, but also the customer experience of the people on the receiving end of your message.
Get Martech! every day. free. It's in your inbox.
