Email: The most trusted channel for marketers in all fields. Marketers have long looked to email as the channel with the highest ROI (an average of $36 per dollar spent). The future of email looks bright, with the global marketing email market expected to reach $17.9 billion by 2027.
But it's a mistake to confuse email authenticity with awkwardness. As marketers encounter changes in technology and customer expectations evolve, email marketing can also adapt and become more personalized, timely, and reflective of consumer desires.
Throughout 2023, no technology development has gained more attention as quickly as artificial intelligence (AI). When the public-facing generative AI platform was rolled out last year, marketers and customers alike expressed interest in the technology's ability to improve the buying experience.
Buyers are particularly interested in AI's ability to navigate the purchase and return experience, gain product insights, and benefit from personalized recommendations and promotions. What better channel to showcase the benefits of AI while building on the consistency and accessibility that email already provides?
The power of AI to optimize your messages
The transformative power of AI in email marketing is undeniable. In this digital age, you need emails that resonate to grab attention and drive engagement. That's where AI steps in and revolutionizes the way you connect with your customers.
Today's consumers demand personalization and richer experiences. In fact, more than 70% of global consumers believe that AI can improve the customer journey, and Millennials and Gen Z are even more enthusiastic (80% and 83%). Generative AI is the answer, allowing marketers to create targeted emails for every individual. And the results speak for themselves. Almost all (95%) marketers who have implemented Gen AI find it “effective,” with more than half declaring it “very effective.”
{loadposition GIAA}The appeal of AI is its high degree of personalization and relevance. Imagine an email that whispers directly to each subscriber and speaks to their unique needs and interests. This laser focus increases open and click-through rates.
Gen AI helps marketing teams in the following ways:
- Create a first draft of the headline and email copy for marketers to edit and refine.
- Drive improved engagement testing with rapidly generated subject line variations.
- We offer alternative copy in a variety of tones to match your brand voice and campaign goals.
- Provide suggestions for improving marketers' copy to increase its effectiveness with customers.and
- Translate your copy into multiple languages to make your message more inclusive.
Gen AI is gaining traction for its free and easily accessible consumer model, but its potential to transform the email experience for marketers and consumers goes far beyond content generation. Predictive models go beyond simply processing marketing data to generate insights and proactively suggest ways to improve email marketing strategies and tactics. Near-term applications of AI include:
- Email templates customized for specific audiences and campaigns. It has the ability to suggest images, layouts, and CTAs for the best possible performance.
- Activity and attribute-based subscriber clusters. Facilitate dynamic subscriber segmentation to improve the effectiveness of your email campaigns.
- Customer feedback analysis identifies pain points and reveals subscriber sentiment to make your messages more relevant.and
- Predictive insights based on past email performance and subscription rates help marketers pinpoint send times and frequency.
Other emerging technologies
There’s no doubt that AI is making waves in improving marketing emails, but it’s not the only player. For example, email clients evolve all the time, often with little warning. These updates can wreak havoc on your carefully crafted emails and templates, making for a frustrating user experience.
please think about it. With the volume of email increasing threefold in recent years, marketers are increasingly testing their emails to identify problems and manage (often costly) fixes. spending time. However, email remains an important channel for delivering a positive brand experience, and customer expectations are higher than ever.
A whopping 85% of customers say that just two negative experiences can lead them to abandon a brand, even one they love. The potential for lost subscribers (and lost revenue) due to broken emails and ineffective personalization is no small matter.
The right technology will automatically monitor emails and notify marketers of any unexpected changes. By reviewing frequently used templated automatic sends, marketers can mitigate issues, retest emails quickly and efficiently, and maintain a high-quality user experience.
Brands are changing their approach to email marketing, recognizing email as an omnichannel force to deliver a unified brand experience powered by continued improvements in personalization and interactivity. must be activated. Brands that ignore these technological advancements and the important customer experience improvements they provide are doing so at their peril.
Cynthia Price is the Vice President of Marketing at the email marketing platform Litmus. Her team grows and she supports Litmus and the email community through content marketing, demand generation, and events. She has been in the email marketing industry for over 10 years and previously served as Vice President of Marketing at Emma, an email service provider. She is passionate about creating authentic communications and leveraging the power of email, which is central to her marketing mix.
