2016 E-mail Winners: Mobile, Interactive, Automated

Digital marketers betting on e-mail ROI need to make sure they are playing a hand with winning strategy cards in 2016. A recent MarketingProfs post by Cynthia Price, marketing director at Emma e-mail marketing services, cited five high-scoring trends to include. With mobile exceeding desktop traffic for the first time last year, a dedicated mobile strategy of responsive design for small screens is a must--because 71% of e-mail recipients will delete immediately if an e-mail doesn't display properly. Next, invest in interactive content, Price urges. It's hard to argue against interactivity when adding video to an email can boost click rates by 300% and including dynamic content can increase click-to-open rates by 73%. And then be sure to make that content personalized, relevant and appealing; time to go beyond a first name greeting and generic pitch as consumers' e-mail screening options rise. One way to boost appeal is to leverage user-generated content, such as testimonials and product photos. Remember Nielsen found 84% of consumers trust recommendations from their peers, and just 15% trust brands' recommendations, Price points out. And finally, get automated. You can't argue with the 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click rates delivered by automation, Price asserts. Just look at her cited stats for basic automated e-mails: Welcome e-mails have 50% better open rates; birthday e-mails lift conversion rates by 60%; and thank-you e-mails, with an offer, drive 13 times more revenue. Read the whole post: http://www.marketingprofs.com/opinions/2016/29443/five-superhot-email-marketing-trends

Mobile's Often Untapped Power: Call Generation

As mobile users soar to 73% of the world population, almost double Internet users, marketers are busy creating mobile-responsive websites and landing pages, mobile-friendly e-mail, mobile-optimized online ads and direct mail with mobile interaction, but their focus can miss mobile's real power. Remember that a mobile device is a phone, and it can generate valuable inbound phone calls, urges a recent MarketingProfs article by Eric Holmen. A 2014 Invoca analysis found that mobile marketing drives about 54% of calls to business, for example. So Holmen advises harnessing inbound call power with the following six steps: 1) Put phone numbers and "call us" CTA on websites and landing pages; 2) optimize your search ads with phone numbers; 3) make dialing easy with click-to-call and dynamic with individually assigned numbers; 4) track and analyze inbound calls by keywords, ad groups, campaigns, landing pages, regions and demographics; 5) track call outcomes, such as lead qualification, quote, sale, or lifetime value, to assess true ROI; 6) and, of course, test, adjust, repeat and optimize. See http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/29012/marketers-youre-doing-mobile-wrong-six-steps-for-doing-it-right

Use These E-Mail Tactics to Breach Inbox Barriers

E-mail deliverability will remain a key marketing hurdle in 2016. So here are three basic tactics to drive up open and click rates and help overcome inbox filtering, courtesy of a BrandViews blog post by CRM software firm Marketo. First, use html buttons instead of image buttons for your e-mail call-to-action (CTA), advises the article. That way, when the e-mail is opened, the recipient won't have to wait for images to download; the html-coded button appears upon open and looks the same as an image-based button. Marketo reports that switching from image to html buttons delivered a 5% lift in open rate, a 15% lift in click-to-open rate and a 20% lift in click-through rate in its tests. Next, with 50% of e-mails opened on mobile phones and 65% of consumers starting the purchasing cycle on a mobile device, mobile-responsive e-mail design is clearly a must. A successful mobile e-mail version needs to include these components, per the post: the right breakpoints via media queries in the tag; larger text for readability on a small screen; and a CTA "above the fold" of the mobile screen. Marketo reports a 28% increase in click-through and a 31% boost in click-to-open rates thanks to improved mobile templates. Finally, with over 20% of e-mails landing in junk/spam folders, bouncing or blocked per Return Path, deliverability measures are clearly required. Marketo highlights these deliverability tips: retiring e-mail addresses after one hard bounce; lowering the soft-bounce threshold for retiring e-mail; and list hygiene to cull inactive and bad e-mail addresses. The goal is to only send e-mails to subscribers who want them. For design examples and resource links, read the full article at http://www.business2community.com/brandviews/marketo/3-email-marketing-must-haves-tackle-evolving-inbox-01409706#vt1T9WKppDor0isK.97