Email is always changing. The change might not be obvious year-on-year, but think about email five years ago. Now think about it 10 years ago.

What will email look like in 10 years? Who knows. But based off tests, trends, and technology from 2016, we can predict what’s going to explode in the email world in 2017.

The next level of segmentation:

You can no longer be satisfied segmenting based off basic activity and profile detail.

Automation and journeys means the amount of oversight will be less than ever before. The number of segmentation options are limitless, and so are the number of lists you can have.

Indeed, the future of segmentation lies in true 1-to-1 personalization via unique user profiles, which leads us to…

Personalization 2.0

Maropost’s Marketing Cloud can track user actions, habits, and behavior across all channels and aggregate that into a unique user profile. Maropost’s machine learning algorithm will then leverage the unique user profile to determine the most relevant recommendations for that individual.

Advanced algorithms will not simply record past actions and behavior, but it can also predict the future. Profiles will also consider wider parameters such as psychographic and firmographic data.

You can even extend this to real life actions: with the help of geo-tagged content, you will be able to understand more about the location of a customer and plan your marketing communications accordingly.

Mobile: The most-used screen

Everyone knows about the importance of mobile. But more than half of your customer base is now opening your emails on their mobile devices.

More importantly, almost half of these users are also deleting your emails if they do not open correctly. 2017 will be the year when marketers start thinking mobile first and foremost.

This will result in the creation of mobile-responsive emails, and alteration in designs to ensure that they look good on smaller screens too. Similarly, text fonts and sizes will also evolve as content need to be legible on smaller screens.

Email goes Social

Your marketing team probably puts a lot of effort in running campaigns on social media. It is only fair that the people interested in your products know about these campaigns too.

If you aren’t sold on the idea of social media integration in your email communication, think again. Because emails that house social sharing buttons happens to see more than a 100% increase in their click-through-rates.

Another great way of social media integration in emails is to integrate live feed from your social media channels as part of your emails. It is often appreciated by the audiences as a great new addition to your communication efforts.

Interactive emails

Interactive emails have already been greatly received in 2016. The evolving technology and a better understanding of the canvas will only take the interactive email game to the next level in 2017.

Interactive emails increases engagement by leaps and bounds. And it also has the effect of positioning your company as dynamic and forward-thinking – and a place that recipients will want to receive more content from.

Here are some of the most effective interactive contents:

GIFs and Videos: The past year was the biggest when it came to consuming GIFs and videos on social media. This year, the trend will come to email marketing too. The return of video support in mail in Apple’s IOS 10 is bound to be a game changer.

Email shopping: In 2017, customers won’t have to click on a link that takes them to a website to finish their shopping. 2017 will be the year when customers can not only enjoy live shopping carts in their emails, but also get reminders if they have something lying around in their cart.

Countdowns: Countdowns are a great way to invoke urgency when it comes to limited time offers. With emails now being capable of housing one in the main body, marketers can think of new and creative ways of using this functionality to entice their customers.

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