Sometime back the COO of Facebook had blurted out some unfortunate things about email marketing \u2013 that emails are going away and that marketers will have to focus on teenagers of today to finalize the marketing strategies of tomorrow, and so on and so forth.<\/strong><\/p>\n Emails are timeless, dependable, unsung moneymakers that have invariably found continued success and more customers for almost 50 years now. And still, there\u2019s no stopping it.<\/p>\n In fact, researches by\u00a0Radicati Group<\/a>\u00a0found out that there were 3.9 million email users in 2019, and the market is expected to grow over to 4.3 million by the end of 2023.<\/p>\n This means, over half of the world population has been using emails in 2019 and the medium happens to generate more ROI than what meets the eye \u2013 $44 per dollar spent<\/p>\n Underlining the strength of emails, yet another research by\u00a0Drift and Survey Monkey<\/a>\u00a0revealed that 65% of respondents in the past 12 months have communicated with organizations via emails, ranking it way above the rest.<\/p>\n Being around for so long, this phenomenon in economics is known as the Lindy effect.<\/p>\n Author Nassim Taleb in his popular book \u2018Antifragile\u2019 speaks about the Lindy Effect. According to him, the life expectancy of a business or an idea is in proportion to its current age.<\/p>\n Taleb states, \u201cIf a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. And, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, emails have already been around for 50 years, and so we could expect to see it around in 2070 as well. But then no, you can\u2019t just get out there and shoot emails.<\/p>\n As email marketers, first and foremost, you will have to think about re-inventing the existing email marketing strategies in a big bang way if you wish to sustain your business\u2019 email ROI in 2020 and beyond.<\/p>\n Simply put, email marketing will have to embrace videos, personalization<\/a>, data, mobile, among many other strategies to retain their respective audience base.<\/p>\n This post is an attempt to highlight the key strategies that businesses need to adopt in 2020 to grease their email campaigns in 2020.<\/p>\n If anything, the mobile-mindset is sweeping across the digital marketing spectrum. According to\u00a0email usage stats<\/a>\u00a0by emailmonday, email opens are happening more on mobile than desktop.<\/p>\n This means, if you still haven\u2019t got your emails mobile-responsive, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.<\/p>\n Now, the question is how to optimize your emails for mobile?<\/p>\n Simple, you need to cut down the size of your copy, images and the overall design to suit the mobile format. A concise copy gives a clear view of the CTA button, which, in turn, leads to more visitors to your landing pages, blogs or product pages. More importantly, shorter copies make the emails much more scannable.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example by\u00a0campaignmonitor<\/a>\u00a0on how short copies offer clean, easy-on-your-eyes email experience to subscribers while checking their messages on mobile.<\/p>\n Unlike the first image, the second image is perfectly tailor-made for mobile screening.<\/p>\n The benefits of such copies can be seen clearly when you open such an email on mobile:<\/p>\n In case any additional copy or data needs to be added, you could accommodate that on the landing page to which your email CTA directs.<\/p>\n Further, make sure to test your emails from a user perspective. You cannot leave this to chance because users might spare only some time to check your emails on their phones. If they don\u2019t like what they see, they are sure to delete your emails at once, let alone read the message.<\/p>\n Being mobile-centric is just one thing. By and by, you will have to make it voice-technology-friendly as well as the use of voice technology is growing worldwide.<\/p>\n In 2019, almost\u00a0112 million people<\/a>, in the US alone, used a voice assistant, at least monthly, on different devices.<\/p>\n If you look at it, that\u2019s quite a huge pool of users who\u2019d love using voice-enabled emails as the technology progresses in the future. Some of the popular voice-assistant technologies currently in use include Amazon Alexa, Apple\u2019s Siri, Google Assistant, Samsung\u2019s Bixby, and Microsoft Cortana.<\/p>\n Presently, if you are using Amazon Alexa it will help you do five basic things with your email.<\/p>\n This could prove to one of the most effective and ingenious email marketing strategies of this century as it makes your message heard despite the busy schedule of subscribers. So, even if your email recipient is busy pursuing some other activity, a voice-enabled email would help you to quickly figure out the content of your email.<\/p>\n Even Apple\u2019s Siri is programmed to offer you similar functionalities. You can check out\u00a0How Alexa Reads Your Emails & Impacts Email Marketing<\/a>\u00a0blog to get further ideas on how to use Alexa for your emails.<\/p>\n Not long ago, email marketing was purely driven by human instinct, be it the subject line or the send time. It was spray and pray strategy, more or less.<\/p>\n No more. AI has taken the hassle out of email marketing as marketers can now make accurate predictions, that too, not just with the subject lines but the send time as well. Plus, it also offers amazing recommendations.<\/p>\n How does AI do that?<\/p>\n AI, powered by machine learning, makes use of massive data to arrive at decisions that keep evolving as it learns. Though humans are involved in AI training initially, but then, by and by, they evolve themselves to find their own solutions and pathways.<\/p>\n Here are a few top use cases of AI in email marketing:<\/p>\n AI-powered by NLG, which runs on large and structured data sets, is quite good at churning out outstanding subject lines that could even beat copywriters\u2019 hands down. In addition to subject lines, AI is quite capable of generating content for social shares, press releases and more. From word choice to emojis and sentiments, the copies are spot on and delivered quickly. \u00a0And, more than anything generates more opens for your emails.<\/p>\n In 2020, marketers will have to optimize email send times based on historical open patterns of the audience. Say, for example, if Jonny opens his inbox between 10.00 am and 1.00 pm then you need to make sure that your emails reach his inbox during that period of time and not later.<\/p>\n But then, his sister Joanna opens her inbox around 5.00 pm. Manually it\u2019s almost impossible for marketers to shoot so many emails, at different points in time, especially when tens of thousands of customers are involved.<\/p>\n This is where AI could chip in with its expertise. AI is programmed to handle problems of scale easily. The technology dissects mountains of data to come up with a predictive model for every contact on your list. This way, every individual, on your list, is sent an email at a time when they are most likely to open it.<\/p>\n Segmentation of the email list enables marketers to develop a relevant buyer persona, which, in turn, helps them shoot tailor-made emails. \u00a0Such segmented email campaigns are known to increase revenues by a whopping 760%. However, such segmentation, though it yields good results, isn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n Combined with AI, smarter segmentation, on the other hand, helps you generate a list that significantly accelerates open and click rates. This is because it thoroughly analyzes the behavior of the current customers and finds patterns that help you segment the audience in new ways. And, the brilliance of it is, that it gets the job done faster than what any humans could do.<\/p>\n Customization is central to capturing today\u2019s audiences. And with smarter segmentation, you get optimized email lists that help your emails perform better.<\/p>\n Yet another way to bolster your email marketing efforts is to add videos to your email campaign. It\u2019s one of the proven ways to increase leads, educate customers and, in the process, enhance brand awareness.<\/p>\n And being a clear differentiator in terms of content, it manages to stand out from the mass of emails that you receive every day. They offer several advantages:<\/p>\n Also, don\u2019t forget, if your client\u2019s emails are not HTML5-compatible, they won\u2019t be able to view your videos. In such cases, you could do two things: One, you could create an image that looks like a video image. Once the user clicks on it, it would direct the user to YouTube. Just ensure that your video is on an autoplay mode. Two: Embed GIFs or cinemagraphs.\u00a0According to\u00a0Experian Research<\/a>, 72% percent of brands using animated GIF or a cinemagraph experience higher transaction rates.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n As it turns out, AMP or accelerated mobile pages was introduced by Google to speed up the mobile web, specifically the landing pages, blog posts, and even full websites. \u00a0Now, with millions of domains already under the \u201cAMP\u201ded umbrella, the open-source technology is expanding its reach to emails as well.<\/p>\n AMP for emails will allow email marketers to create more interactive and actionable emails with the help of AMP elements. Broadly put, when you add interactive features such as accordions, confirmation, carousels, and purchase buttons in your email, AMP will allow you to take actions inside their emails without opening a new tab or visiting the website.<\/p>\n Additionally, emails can be updated in terms of news articles, weather, stock prices, and so on.<\/p>\n Of course, each of these things is possible when you run a third party script Javascript inside these emails. However, according to Google experts, running a third party script inside an email may cause loads of security issues, which is not the case with AMP for emails. \u00a0In this case, the documents are analyzed for spam, phishing, among many other things, which, in turn, ensures the safety of the user.<\/p>\n The technology will swap static content with a more dynamic web-page like the content. So users will be able to receive highly personalized content on-demand in the form of current product prices, weather updates, news, and so forth.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a red hot technology. Only a few marketers are experimenting with this technology. This means you have the edge over your rivals if you have a clear cut idea on how to use AMP elements inside your emails while interacting with the users.<\/p>\n Known email service providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook support AMP technology. This means you can add AMP elements into the emails for most of your subscribers.<\/p>\n Pinterest:\u00a0<\/strong>AMP allows you to enlarge each of the images, inside the email, and see more detailed information, instead of visiting the Pinterest webpage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Source: sendpulse<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Doodle:\u00a0<\/strong>With the help of the Doodle website, AMP for emails can help you create, manage, and respond to polls. Plus, you can set dates for meetings without opening a new tab.<\/p>\n Source: sendpulse<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Integrating all the latest technology and all is fine, but then don\u2019t forget it\u2019s the rudimentary aspects that make your emails click-worthy, that is content and design. So, by all accounts, take into consideration the following points while designing your email.<\/p>\n An email shouldn\u2019t have more than 50 words because a reader won\u2019t be putting in more than 13.4 seconds to read it.<\/p>\n So, how do you write a compelling copy in 50 words? \u00a0Litmus recommends the following tips:<\/p>\n Some simple ways to make email designs accessible and effective to a broader audience:<\/p>\n To make sure that your emails can be read as soon as they are opened you need to slightly tweak your code. A solid code-base assures accessibility.<\/p>\n So how do you ensure a solid code-base?<\/p>\n Going by the Lindy Effect, email marketing, at the very least, is going to around for the next 50 years. So, no matter what, make it a point to update your current email marketing tactics with the latest technologies, be it AI, voice, video or AMP for emails.<\/p>\n \n Dig into four areas that often uncover digital growth blockers and explain how to assess the opportunities that overcoming them would present. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n Wondering if you should invest hard-earned cash in SEO, if it’s still a viable marketing strategy for 2020, or whether to spend more wisely elsewhere? Read on. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n Ad tech vendors get comprehensive actionable views of ad distribution and transactions. More on the blockchain impact on the digital advertising supply chain. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\nFood for thought<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"email](\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/clearvoice-media\/asg_e0j0GzUTH5PznoR9%2Fart_oYxpkDr3dXdJwgEl%2F1583297029707-Worldwide-email-users.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"email](\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/clearvoice-media\/asg_e0j0GzUTH5PznoR9%2Fart_oYxpkDr3dXdJwgEl%2F1583297835279-Mobile+and+Phone+-+the+big+2+customer+communication+channels.png\")
<\/div>\nThe Lindy effect<\/strong><\/h2>\n
1. Mobile-centric emails<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"email](\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/clearvoice-media\/asg_e0j0GzUTH5PznoR9%2Fart_oYxpkDr3dXdJwgEl%2F1583298987474-devices-used-regularly-check-email.png\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/clearvoice-media\/asg_e0j0GzUTH5PznoR9%2Fart_oYxpkDr3dXdJwgEl%2F1583299142857-mobile-centric+email+campaign.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n\n
2. Voice-friendly emails<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/clearvoice-media\/asg_e0j0GzUTH5PznoR9%2Fart_oYxpkDr3dXdJwgEl%2F1583299617307-US+voice+assistant+penetration.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n\n
3. AI-driven emails<\/h2>\n
A. Craft outstanding subject lines<\/strong><\/h3>\n
B. Optimization of \u00a0send times<\/strong><\/h3>\n
C. Smarter segmentation of email marketing lists<\/strong><\/h3>\n
4. Video centered emails<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
5. AMP for emails<\/h2>\n
Other benefits of AMP for Emails<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Examples of AMP emails<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/clearvoice-media\/asg_e0j0GzUTH5PznoR9%2Fart_oYxpkDr3dXdJwgEl%2F1583381412661-amp-email-pinterest2.gif\"\/)
<\/strong><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/clearvoice-media\/asg_e0j0GzUTH5PznoR9%2Fart_oYxpkDr3dXdJwgEl%2F1583381501905-amp-email-doodle.gif\"\/)
<\/p>\nBonus point<\/h2>\n
Overall quality should be the goal<\/h2>\n
A. Content<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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B. Design<\/h3>\n
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C. Code<\/h3>\n
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Related reading<\/h4>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/23i69d6p0gw1zwz4y3smspc1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/how-to-identify-and-address-the-four-biggest-digital-growth-challenges-120x90.png\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n![\"Is](\"https:\/\/23i69d6p0gw1zwz4y3smspc1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/is-seo-dead-in-2020-120x90.png\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n![\"How](\"https:\/\/23i69d6p0gw1zwz4y3smspc1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/how-blockchain-will-dominate-the-digital-advertising-industry-in-2020-120x90.png\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/23i69d6p0gw1zwz4y3smspc1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/a-look-at-performance-post-googles-average-position-sunset-top-vs-side-120x90.png\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n