Time flies. 2011 is in our rearview mirrors, and it's time to look back at the last 12 months and make plans for 2012. The email marketing environment shifts especially swiftly, so let's take a look at some of the key trends that dominated the game in 2011 and that will surely continue to reign this year.

1. The R Word

Some email marketers hate the term, but hey, relevancy is here to stay. Email service providers, such as Gmail or Hotmail, continue to develop new ways to prioritize messages with a very individual approach. Newsletters no longer have to be marked as spam to disappear from one's inbox.

Considering the ongoing emphasis on features such as Gmail's Priority Inbox or Hotmail's Sweep functionality, senders need to ensure the relevancy of their offers. Gone are the days of "batch and blast." 2012 is all about tailor-made offers matching the recipients' preferences. If you miss that, you will lose conversions, decrease your sending reputation, and wind up in the junk folder.

2. Personalization 2.0

Is anyone still impressed by the plain "Hello, (first name)" type of personalization? The answer is no, and it's high time to take email personalization to the next level.

This year will be all about using customer data for newsletter content. Purchase history, website activity, and customer relationship management (CRM) data will be used widely among top retailers to ensure that their emails are as personal as possible.

If you hadn't started collecting the "finer" data yet, this past holiday season would have served as a great opportunity to learn more about your customers so you could send them more personalized emails this year.

3. Click "Send" Less Often

Clicking the "send" button less often is something you should definitely do over the next 12 months. Don't get me wrong; that doesn't mean that you should send fewer emails. Communication is becoming more and more event based, so the subscriber should actually prompt your sending of an email in most cases.

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The Email Marketer's Success Kit: Five Trends for 2012

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maciej Ossowski is director of education at GetResponse, an email marketing provider that serves more than 210,000 SMB customers around the world.