Email has been around for quite some time. Business people have been using email long before the rise of video marketing and paid advertising. They were even using it before social media went mainstream.
And yet, despite the popularity of all those other avenues, email has stood strong, refusing steadfastly to give way to advancing technology and modern marketing strategies.
In fact, recent developments have only served to empower email even more.
Email is going nowhere. But know this:
It is changing.
6 Projections for the Future of Email
Traditionally, email offers businesses and customers an easy way to converse online where they could send a single message out to all customers.
However, as email marketing transforms for the future, new automation is allowing better personalization and smart messaging.
In the years ahead, we can expect to see more of all of these:
1: Email Will Even Get More Personal
Everyone in a customer facing role like marketing, sales or recruiting knows how valuable personalization is nowadays. As data analytics and machine learning-based software continue to intertwine, emails will become increasingly personal.
With greater means of gathering and analyzing data on your customers and site visitors, you can draw deep insights about your audience. This makes it a lot easier to create and send targeted content that will resonate with clients on a personal level.
For example, if you sell a service to different industries, they may use your services differently. Using personalized email, you can create content that speaks to each industry and uniquely explain the benefits. Once a prospective client shares their industry, you can automatically send the correct email flow and showcase your expertise in their industry.
2: Greater Focus on Automation
Internal email can suck time as you go back and forth on something as simple as scheduling an email. Creating templates and automated sequences lightens the workload on your team, and allows your business to communicate with customers or prospects in various stages of the buyer’s journey.
Projections from Campaign Monitor suggest that the majority of email marketing revenue will continue to be generated by high-value automated emails. However, there is still some drudgery work with email. Using Mixmax you can create automatic emails for low value work like appointment scheduling, internal notifications and even billing.
As this trend continues, focus will be on building automatic email sequences that return an ROI and free teams to focus on higher value tasks.
Related Post: 9 Sales Email Sequence Software Tools for Sales Engagement and Automation
3: Interactive Emails Will Become More Common
Smartphones already boast genuinely awesome apps and features that would have seemed impossible a few years ago.
The email inbox of the future will give users more control. Soon enough, emails will become more interactive, quite possibly in a 3D space.
4: Emails Will Be More Visual
Inc. surmises that we will soon be able to preview all attachments and links in emails, and there will be more prominent profile photos to discern humans from robots.
The rise of visual platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and Snap over the past five years has been unprecedented. Now that they are here, the world’s obsession with visuals has taken center stage in sales and marketing.
Video content is now king, while infographics and photos get much higher engagement on social channels than a normal text post.
As much as 91% of online consumers prefer visual content over text or static media. With the move to mobile already underway, businesses across all industries must revise their content strategy to deliver emails that people want to engage with.
5: There Will Be More Workflow Integrations
Have you heard of Slack? Unless you’ve completely ignored tech for the past few years it’s likely that you know it and probably even use it.
Slack has revolutionized workplace communications by offering businesses an instant message service that is fully integrated with many services such as Google Docs and DropBox.
However, rather than spelling the end for email, instant communication software like this only seems to galvanize the trusted old medium for the future.
People want to make their communications quick and easy and moving forward, they expect communications to automatically kick off processes. Employees will expect low value tasks like calendar scheduling or forwarding information to be completed with automation.
Historically, emails were limited to just announcements with static text and a few links. But, with MixMax integration, you can create emails that actually get work done. Schedule a meeting, send out a poll, share code, or update other applications like Slack, Salesforce, Pipedrive, all triggered by content in an email, or actions of the email recipient.
6: Voice Technology Will Rise
Smart home technology can already do a lot more than people realize. Google Home is compatible with thousands of devices and different brands, which allows homeowners to control their home appliances, thermostats, curtains, and entertainment devices with simple voice commands.
So, how long before we see smart emails?
With all the data that voice-activated technology is gathering, companies will soon be in a position to respond with voice-activated emails.
This will lead to more personable brands, as smart emails and voice technology combine to offer incredibly personalized, refined content depending on the voice data it has gathered.
People can look forward to receiving audio emails, delivered by a recognizable brand voice in a familiar tone that helps build trust with customers.
As this technology changes email communications, the brands who adapt will succeed.
As for the brands who linger behind with transactional, text-based messaging, they will eventually lose ground on their “more human” competitors.
Email is Not Dead
With more companies creating engaging content, and advanced AI and data analytics leading the charge for modern marketing and sales, it’s easy to assume that email may soon be phased out in favor of innovative, interactive apps.
But instead, email is evolving and doing the work of several applications.
The lines between traditional email marketing, automation, and CRM strategies are blurring together as the technology industry grows.
This will lead to more interactive, engaging emails that speak to people on a personal level – possibly even with a voice, as well as visual content.
Email is not dead. It’s a shapeshifter.
Give Mixmax a Try
If your sales, customer success or recruiting team needs a better approach to outbound communication perhaps it’s time to give Mixmax a try. You’ll see improved productivity, more conversions and business growth. Affordable, user-based pricing makes Mixmax a low-risk, high-reward option for scaling your sales, success and recruiting teams and ensuring standardized customer processes.
Start your risk-free trial of Mixmax today.
