Five trends for strengthening the customer bond

Companies in almost every industry are looking for ways to enhance the value and effectiveness of their digital communications. From SMS to social media, digital messaging has become the basis for critical customer and stakeholder communications.

It is email, more than any digital channel, which has cemented itself at the centre of the digital customer relationship. According to industry analysts, 73 percent of consumers name email as their preferred communication channel. Even with this level of adoption and years spent building email marketing programmes, marketers are still only scratching the surface of email’s customer relationship management potential.

Email is a common thread that connects every touchpoint in the customer’s lifecycle, but to build effective customer relationships companies must first understand how it affects channels like social networks and mobile, and how it can be used creatively to turn one-time customers into keen advocates of your brand.

StrongMail recently assembled a team of email industry veterans to scour the internet and their respective inboxes for programmes that truly demonstrate the power of the email channel. Each team member is responsible for reviewing more than a hundred email programmes from specific industries. These programmes are then narrowed down to identify exceptional campaigns from which top industry trends can be drawn.

The campaigns identified as exemplary shared the following characteristics: outstanding content and creative execution, application of sophisticated email technology, use of innovative digital marketing techniques, and a commitment to an exceptional user experience.

From this research, we found that the following trends emerged across all industries and warrant noting. Particularly, the stand-out campaigns showcased the value of creating an exceptional customer experience through innovative design, compelling copy and social media integration.

The five trends are as follows:

1 Clean, well-organised design
Ample white space, effective imagery and an intuitive, well-structured layout can be found in all campaigns deemed to be making a successful bond between marketer and customer. The focus on creating eye-catching and eye-pleasing templates that make it easy to review and consume information will only increase as marketers compete for inbox attention.

2 Concise, brand-centric copy
Instead of long-winded paragraphs or blatant promotional copy, emails that were found to resonate most take a friendly, brand-centric tone that conveys the pertinent information quickly but in a conversational way that reinforces brand affinity. Some campaigns even go a step further by adding a CEO note at the bottom, which helps galvanise the exclusive, insider nature of the company’s business model.

3 Time-sensitive content
There’s no guarantee that a recipient will return to an email after he’s opened it, so providing time-sensitive content and offers is an effective way to get consumers to act on the spot. This is made even more critical by the rise of the limited-time-only sales approach of many popular retail sites, particularly within the fashion industry. Other sites can take a slightly different approach for instilling urgency by offering content closely tied to upcoming events, as well as weekend activities in general.

4 Social media integration
The promotion of a company’s Facebook and Twitter pages remains a popular trend, as marketers try to encourage their customers to engage with their brand on social networks. Today, nearly every standout email marketing campaign makes good use of this strategy by featuring prominent links. Companies can also take an extra-smart approach by also describing the type of content that can be found there.

5 Leverage the preheader
The preheader has long been the home to the “view-in-browser” link, but companies are increasingly using the space for communicating other critical information. The add-to-address-book is certainly the next popular inclusion, but many campaigns also use it to promote their social media presence, set language preference or establish email authenticity.

In order to foster and retain a lifetime email subscriber, companies need to set expectations at the onset of the relationship. It is vital to enable easy preference management and then follow through with relevant and rewarding information based on every interaction the customer has with the brand.

The top campaigns identified by our team reflected these principles with well-crafted welcome campaigns that provided the information necessary to maximise brand interaction, as well as newsletters and promotional campaigns that first draw attention through compelling design, and then keep it through engaging copy, relevant offers and social media integration.

Instead of damaging the effectiveness of email, the rise of social media has actually increased its use. Consumers still look for emails from the favorite brands alongside notifications of activity on their favorite social networks. Instead of competing, the two channels work together to drive customer engagement. Investing in your email marketing efforts, therefore, is more important than ever, especially as the user-generated content on social networks increases expectations for relevancy and interaction.

Consumers are receiving more marketing messages than ever before, which ups the ante for email marketers to get their attention with the right combination of eye-catching design and data-driven relevance. Investing in these five standout trends doesn't just increase your clicks and conversions; it deepens the customer connection, which ultimately improves interactions across all channels.

Kara Trivunovic is senior director of strategic services at ThreadMarketing, a StrongMail Company

See also:

• Seven tips for improving your email design