Will email marketing ever die?

Probably not anytime soon. In terms of internal communication, email still reigns supreme. Email marketing also remains an affordable, effective arrow in the quiver of external communicators. It’s a messaging must for 2018.

The misconception is that people hate email. People don’t hate email. People hate sh**ty, boring email.

2017 is in the books.

But, as you know, a business owner’s work is never done.

Now it’s time to step into the year ahead and look for your next great opportunity with email marketing.

Where should you focus your energy with email marketing?

First, consider how your customer has continued to evolve.

Today’s consumers expect your business to provide experiences tailored to their needs, interests, and habits.

52% of consumers say they’re likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize communications to them.

It’s now more critical than ever to get the right message to the right person at the right time.

With that in mind, how can you expect email marketing to help you reach your goals in 2018?

Here are three areas you can expect to come to the forefront for small businesses and their use of email marketing.

1. Real insight from data to make better decisions

There’s no shortage of data available these days. Access isn’t the problem; it’s making sense of all that data in a way that’s beneficial to your business that’s important.

It also goes beyond opens and clicks to actions and interests. It allows you to understand who your best customers are and get carefully crafted messages to them based on what you know and what they do.

2. Personalization makes for better results

We don’t just mean adding a name. What we’re talking about is timely and relevant messages. It’s about using the data to get more relevant information and offers to your customers.

3. Simple automation to save you time

Automation is where the two previous trends come together to allow you to do more business in your sleep.

For example, if someone expresses interest in a product or service by clicking a link in your email marketing campaign, you can automatically send a follow-up email or series of messages knowing that these emails will be relevant and lead you closer to a sale.

Most companies fail when it comes to follow-up. Automation prevents this.

Click segmentation combined with an autoresponder series creates a potent one-two punch that works on autopilot so you can tend to other areas of your business.

Expect to see small businesses embracing this trend as email service providers make it even easier to do so.

Will automated messages make email marketing feel impersonal?

Relationships are still the backbone of your business. That will never be disputed. You may be thinking that the methods above may feel impersonal, be too complicated to start or be too costly. The truth is just the opposite.

Even if you’re down on email marketing, it’s still a necessary evil. We all should plan accordingly until another channel captures the internal communication. Check out the rest of the infographic below to strategize for 2018.