Trends for 2015: Views from 10 Email Marketing Experts

To understand the latest best practices and the newest email marketing opportunities, Smart Insights asked me and 9 other email marketing specialists from around the world to share our recommendations.

Published in Smart Insights – Email Trends 2015, the trends include:

1. Responsive Email Design
2. Animated Gifs
3. Video in Email
4. Dynamic Customization
5. Predictive Intelligence
6. Pop-up Sign-up Forms
7. Email Acquisition through Social
8. Blank Email Double Opt-in
9. Real-Time Email Marketing
10. Location-Specific
11. Integrating Card Updates into Broadcast Emails

My recommendations focused on predictive intelligence and blank email double opt-in. Predictive intelligence is a great way of harnessing Big Data to inject personalized recommendations into your emails—particularly, your transactional, cart abandonment, and browse abandonment emails. Powered by analytical insights into individual and group behavioral patterns, predictive intelligence enables dynamic content offers to be the most relevant to maximize response—and can really move the needle on email marketing revenue.

Blank email double opt-in is a new opt-in method that allows a person to opt into a brand’s email program by sending a blank email to a particular email address. When someone does that, it triggers an opt-in confirmation request email that asks the person to activate their subscription by clicking on a link in the email. This method is exciting because it’s easier than SMS email opt-ins, eliminates malicious signups and typo spamtrap risks, and increases opt-in confirmations by keeping the opt-in process entirely within the inbox.

>> Check out all the recommendations in “Smart Insights – Email Trends 2015”