Email marketing is a tool that companies have used for almst as long as emails have existed. But only a handful have mastered the medium. Most marketing emails are at best, ignored and at worst, marked as spam. I’m sure all of us tech-addict, urban creatures have too many of those boring, irrelevant and outright ugly emails falling into our mail boxes every day. The last thing we want is for our company emails to be treated just the same.

Email marketing has evolved and so has email design. Advancement in HTML and other scripts has added many new features to simple emails - videos, interactive content, animation and a lot more. Read on to learn more about some new email features that will determine how successful your next email marketing campaign will be.

Responsiveness

As mobile devices have grown to become the medium of choice for checking emails (UAE has a 78 per cent smartphone penetration), it is only natural that emails are designed to adapt to their new home. A lot has been spoken about making websites responsive, but brands are yet to get their act together when it comes to emails. There are some like Emirates that do it really well.

So the next time you brief your digital agency for an emailer, make sure you ask for it to be fully responsive. Here's a little more on the subject.

Video

It is now possible to embed videos in emails - videos that play in the inbox of the recipient. According to a Forrester research, including a video in an email increases the click-through rate by 200% – 300%. That’s not hard to understand why. People are more likely to watch videos online than read lengthy texts. Furthermore, ComScore says 64% of consumers are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it.

Of course, like everything else, it needs to be done right. If the video is too long and too heavy, it can slow down the email loading and you might lose your impatient audience. Make sure you have the most interesting parts of the video playing first and optimise the size of the video so it can load quickly on smart devices.

Interactivity

Consumers like to have control over what they see and do. Now you can make that possible even on your email messages. Include sliding photo galleries, let them start, stop and pause video as they like, expand and collapse sections and do a lot more. Interactivity makes your brand talk with and engage your audience. Once engaged they are more likely to be interested in what you have to offer. With that done, you’re already on the road to success.

Animation

If it’s not moving, it’s dead. Bring graphics to life, lend your images some body language, let headlines and sub-heads actually talk to the audience - all this is possible and not hard to achieve in an email. Using animated GIFs and banners catches the viewers attention and makes them want to read your message.

Again, it needs to be done right. You don’t want to have such complicated animations in your email that the loading time frustrates your viewer. Keep it brief, sharp and crisp.

Count down tickers, background images and more…

Countdown timers are especially relevant for product launches, to announce upcoming events and so on. You can embed a ticking counter that counts down the time to a future event. You can add beautiful images as backgrounds rather than leaving it a boring flat color. There’s a lot more that can be done to create those “wow” emails.

Personalisation

This is not really a new feature, but it is still very relevant. Personalising email content to the recipient increases the chances of them reading your email. Use their names or locations; you can even tailor your message to specific target audiences.

These are just a few ways you can give an edge to your email marketing campaigns. As dynamic as technology is, new developments are making more and more possible every day. Stay tuned to our blog for a lot more on this in the coming days.

A Note of Caution!!!

Not all email clients were created equal. While most popular email programs are catching up with the times, some are yet to get up to speed. Therefore all the above features might not work on all email programs, especially slightly older versions. Make sure you check with your developers what functionality works where.