Email marketing trends in 2022

Email marketing is an integral part of any marketing strategy and is one of the most effective ways to engage with your audience. From promotional-focused, to help you drive revenue, to a newsletter that help foster connections. Taking the time to sharpen your email marketing strategy with the latest trends can take your marketing efforts to new heights.

Every day in 2022, 333.2 billion emails are expected to be sent to users. As that number continues to increase, it’s time to revise and restructure your current strategy. The question you should be asking yourself is what you can do to stand out from the rest of the emails in the inbox.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the email marketing trends that are going to take the digital marketing world by storm in 2022.

1. Optimizing For Mobile

Did you know emails are now more commonly opened on a mobile device than a desktop? Studies show that 41.6% of email opens are opened on a mobile device. As this number is sure to increase throughout 2022, it’s time to start envisioning your email content on mobile rather than desktop.

Companies everywhere are choosing to take a mobile-first approach to their email marketing strategy. You may think that your emails are optimized to fit the needs of both platforms, but that’s hardly ever the case. Content can sometimes have a completely different look and feel on a mobile device. The text can come up too big, prices on products are hard to reach, and the images may seem squished.

Here are a few things you can start to consider today:

• Make the first 30 characters of your subject line count
• Switch your CTAs to buttons instead of links
• Utilize line breaks
• Play with emojis or gifs
• Choose easy to read fonts

Example: Optimize for mobile like Levi’s.

Let’s take a look at this Levi’s email. All of the components are optimized to fit a mobile device without disrupting the overall look. The text, images, and titles all work together in harmony. It’s simple and has a clean, put-together finish.

It’s not hard to optimize for mobile-first. Sometimes, we unintentionally forget to consider what the emails look like on a mobile device. We’re living in a mobile-first world, where email is the first thing people check when they wake up in the morning.

It’s time to prioritize optimizing mobile-friendly emails and adjust them to fit your subscriber’s needs.

2. Utilizing UGC (user generated content) to Create Authentic Content

UGC is your new best friend.

Not only is it a great component that adds authenticity to your marketing initiatives, but it also helps you connect with users on a deeper level. Stock or professional imagery lacks the organic feel needed to derive a connection with your following. That’s why user-generated content does wonders for a social strategy or an influencer marketing campaign.

Now, it’s time to move it over to your email marketing strategy.

Example: Let’s take a look at an Adidas email.

This email highlights customers and focuses on the hours spent on the online training app. This email creates a sense of community with their subscribers and highlights the individual rather than the brand. Plus, it lets consumers know that they have a Running app they can use and join in with others.

These emails are powerful and help you gain trust with your subscriber’s list while building a long-lasting relationship. We’re sure to see a lot more emails like this and a lot more companies utilizing the power of organic imagery throughout 2022.

3. Adding Personality to Transactional Emails

Transactional emails are traditionally robotic and arrive in the consumer’s email after they place an order. You may not have thought too much about the look and feel of these emails before. However, did you know those emails statistically receive the highest open rate?

These emails on average have an 40-50% open rate.

With that in mind, it’s time to start envisioning what you can do as a company to add personality into your transactional emails and add more value to your customer’s experience with your brand.

Think about your use of language and how you can enhance the experience with a few minor word changes. Maybe, you want to throw in a discount on a future order. Whatever you want to test, we recommend giving it a go in 2022. With an open rate that high, transactional emails open the doors for new opportunities of all kinds that can enhance your email marketing strategy and bring your content up a notch.

Example: Here’s a sample of a Audible’s transactional email.

It’s simple, to the point, utilizes related products, and adds some design personality back into every day “order confirmed emails.” Consider how this email compares to other transactional emails you receive.

• What emotions does it evoke?
• How does it stand out from the rest?

What this company does well is building an emotional connection with its product and its subscribers. They are showing how fun it can be to order from them.

Sometimes, it’s that easy to elevate your transactional emails and make them stand out from the rest.

So, what’s this mean? It’s time to A/B test, think outside of the box, and make substantial changes to your automated transactional emails.

Keep a lookout in your inbox at e-commerce companies you purchase from. We’re sure to see these email marketing trends for 2022 change the transactional email landscape.

4. Prioritizing Personalization and Customer Segmentation

No two customers are the same. So, why should they receive the same email?

Personalization and granular customer segmentation will change the way we think of our email marketing strategy. We’re seeing more and more companies build out workflows with more thought and personalization behind them. Personalization has shown to have a 22.62% higher open rate than emails without the personalized component.

It’s time to rethink the customer journey and spend more time personalizing workflows to fit the needs of your customers. If you want to increase ROI and bring in more business, this is the way you’ll need to approach email marketing.

To get you started or to drive some inspiration, here’s how you can start segmenting:

• Location, Age, or Gender
• Abandoned Cart
• Reengagement
• Birthdays
• Favorite Products or Buying Habits
• Win Back or Past Customers

Once you have general workflows set up, it’s time to look at where you can start to stem off and build a much larger workflow full of unique customer segmentation.

5. A Shift Towards Plain Text

With the increase in customer segmentation and personalization, we’re sure to see a shift to plain text emails. Keep in mind: just because they are plain text doesn’t mean they’re boring. Most of the time, these emails are more personable and feel like they’re coming from a CEO who took the time to write and send the email.

This approach appeals to the individual and takes little to no effort to build and create. This means marketers can create content like this at a quicker pace. We strongly believe a shift to plain text email will not only help you streamline productivity but become one of the go-to emails you add to your marketing strategy in 2022.

Example: A plain text email from Skimm.

It’s digestible, easy to read, and gets the point across without overdoing it.

The best part is: you can use this style, no matter the industry. E-commerce can use it to send out exclusive discounts to their customers, coming from the CEO. Service-based companies that market to businesses can use it to give clients a quick update on a new product feature or incentives for working with them.

These plain-style emails are breaking up the monotony of the marketing emails in the inbox. We’re predicting that there are going to be a lot more of these types of emails in 2022.

6. Finding New Ways To Track Success

The IOS changes may have impacted our click-through rates in 2021, but in 2022 we’re looking for new ways to track insights and success anyways.

Email marketers are going to need to focus on sharpening their subject lines and preview texts to catch their subscriber’s interests. From there, the best thing you can do is restructure your goals, segment your lists, and start looking at other insights. Consider discount codes, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and website traffic.

The IOS changes may affect deliverability, but that’s not the only aspect of a successful email. All of these factors play an integral role in your email marketing campaigns and will start to play a bigger role in your strategy throughout 2022. We’re sure to see a lot more conversations around IOS in the coming months and throughout the year as marketers continue to pivot and make adjustments.

7. Crisp, High-Quality Emails

We’re seeing a lot more emails that are minimal, inviting, and straight to the point. Instead of putting all of your content into an email, consider creating a landing page that subscribers can land on if they’re interested and limiting the number of words you have in the email. This will help enhance the design of your email for mobile-first optimization and give you a way to track success.

Let’s take a look at a recent Nike email. The email starts with a high-quality image of the shoes and includes a short blurb about Air Force 1. After that, there are three more images similar to the first one. This sneak peek encourages users to visit the website and shop the look. These emails are growing in popularity because they allow the imagery to speak for the products, not the words. As more of our content outside of email continues to move to visual and video, we’re sure to see that same shift in emails.

Email Marketing is Growing in New Directions

As an overarching email marketing trend, we see this platform as an integral marketing channel that can help other channels thrive. Studies show that emails have a high return on investment, with every $1 you spend leading to $42 in revenue. That means email marketing is sure to outperform other marketing channels when it comes to ROI in 2022. Not only that, but it also means it has the power to outrank social media when it comes to its ability to persuade subscribers to make a purchase.

Marketers everywhere are looking for new ways to leverage their subscriber list and utilize email to its fullest ability. Regardless of IOS changes or new developments in the digital marketing space, email marketing is still proving to outrank other channels and provide an impressive ROI.

Not only that but marketers are using its persuasiveness to set other channels up for success. Whether it’s linking to a landing page or adding social media accounts at the bottom, we’re going to start seeing more and more companies utilize email as a vessel for their other channels.

With all this in mind, 2022 is the time to start looking for ways to take your email marketing strategy to the next level and look for new ways to compete in the inbox.

At the end of the day, if an email campaign works for your brand, stick with it. However, it never hurts to a/b test different styles and techniques and always stay in the know on the latest email marketing trends. As email marketing continues to grow in popularity, now is the time to be at the forefront of innovation and creativity.

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