Email has proven to be one of the best ways people stay informed and connected with the organizations they care about. However, like social media and similar donor outreach methods, the field is constantly evolving. Organizations that experience the most success are those that adapt to the times. With this in mind, here are 7 email marketing tips to try in 2022.
Email Marketing for 2022
1. Consider closing the door on open rates
When it comes to email marketing for 2022, one of the biggest challenges is Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), which went into effect in September, 2021. This essentially put a halt to senders being able to use invisible pixels to track location, IP addresses, and—most importantly—open rates for their iOS 15 email recipients.
This will mean that open rates will likely appear lower this year than last. It might be advantageous to use this change to adjust your goals, or compare month-over-month open rates instead of those from previous years.
Or, consider shifting your metrics to include click-through rates or other forms of email engagement. 2022 is a good time to reframe email marketing as not just one-way communication, but a platform for interactivity. Encourage replies and always, ALWAYS, be sure to respond to any messages.
2. Personalize, personalize, personalize
When it comes to the best in email marketing, personalization is a tried and true tactic that is just as important in 2022. Segmentation is an advantageous strategy when it comes to email marketing. Quite often this will mean segmenting by location, sex, and age.
However, surveys and quizzes can help you determine interests to segment your audience further. Similarly, an individual’s behavior on your website or app can also be utilized to send them emails that are more in line with their interests and needs. Personalizing emails for each email list category can help you reach more readers, and personalization tokens, like those from HubSpot, make it easy to do so.
And the more detailed you can get with your email list, the better. In fact, detailed segmenting and the personalization that follows can increase the open rate by an impressive 203%!
3. Include visuals
It’s been found that 49% of marketers consider visual marketing as “very important” in their email marketing — and for good reason! Humans have brains that are capable of consuming visual information at a rate 60,000 times faster than text alone.
Visuals like GIFs, illustrations, cinemagraphs, APNGs (Animated Portable Network Graphics), static images, and even videos are some of the best email marketing tools we’ve got. While embedded videos might not be possible with some email service providers (ESPs), GIFs provide a good alternative.
By using fun visuals or fonts in your email marketing campaigns, you may benefit from a 7x increase in conversion rates.
4. Try responsive emails
2022 may also be the year to join the 76% of brands who make use of templates for their email campaigns. Perhaps more importantly, many of these brands are making use of responsive emails — those that have a perfect display, regardless of what device it’s being opened on (mobile phone, tablet, or desktop).
There’s nothing more annoying than cut off text or images that take up the entire screen. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution. One of the easiest email marketing ideas to implement is the use of templates or responsive emails. Not only do these ensure multi-device readability, but your click-through rate might be up to 15% higher as a result.
As mobile-friendly email has become a basic necessity in today’s society, most (if not all) ESPs should include easy-to-use templates.
If you’re wanting to take your responsive email to the next level, consider incorporating “live” email features. There are many free services that provide email countdown plugins that will continue to update until the designated time has been reached. While Outlook users may be familiar with voting buttons, a similar functionality can also be found with ESPs like MailChimp, giving subscribers an opportunity to engage with polling questions and see the updated results.
5. Don’t be afraid to show some personality and empathy
People don’t like receiving emails from a robot — and they certainly won’t feel inclined to respond. Don’t be afraid to let the personality of your organization, founder, or YOU come through in all emails.
Similarly, recognize that 2022 follows more than two years of job losses, health concerns, deaths, and increases in violence. While it’s easy to consider the recipients of your emails as nothing more than numbers in your lengthy email lists, they’re humans, and likely have been through a lot in recent years.
That said, consider taking an empathetic tone in your emails. Just as personality can highlight that you are in fact a human, a warm and compassionate tone can do the same.
6. Email accessibility is important
Similarly, recent years have highlighted that not everyone accesses and digests information in the same manner. Around 15% of the global population experiences some form of disability.
That said, you can consider accessibility in your email marketing campaigns by:
- keeping the flashing rate of animations between 2 Hz and 55 Hz (to avoid seizures)
- keeping the font size above 14px
- using a color contrast ratio of 4.5:1 to support those with visual impairments
- avoiding center-aligned text that might be difficult to read for those with dyslexia.
7. Spell check (then do it again, and again)
Improper grammar and spelling had no place in emails before 2022, and that is one thing that (thankfully) hasn’t changed! Use your system’s spell check, then use a pair of eyes (or two) to ensure that your organization’s credibility won’t be impacted by typos.
Pro Tip: read your email out loud and then in reverse to catch any missing or duplicated words that your brain may correct for you.
Email Marketing Tips to Try in 2022 — and Then Revisit Again in 2023
If you’re reading this then you’re already equipped with one of the most important email marketing tools: a willingness and openness to evolve as the trends do. When it comes to executing email marketing campaigns, it’s important to recognize that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and what may work now in 2022 might not be the same next year.
While some of these email marketing strategies (personalized emails, responsive and visually-engaging designs, and a human voice) will be important in years to come, being reflexive and staying on top of new trends is one of the best strategies for 2022 and beyond.