Sharon Mukwevho
Communication trends keep changing as technology advances. One thing that remains constant is that bulk communication via SMS and email campaigns is consistently effective. In this post, we’ll go through some trends and bulk communication tips that will help you reach your SMS and email marketing goals.
Email marketing still unbeatable
To stay on top of your game as a marketer, you need to constantly monitor the latest email marketing trends and projections. From user-generated content to interactive emails, here are some top trends that have been taking over inboxes this year.
1 – Include UGC (User-Generated Content)
User-generated content is free (that’s the best part) and can be used in your emails. Think about including customer testimonials, poll results, or even photos of your customers enjoying your products or services in your emails to boost trust and showcase social proof.
Also, remember to include a solid call to action (CTA). A study found that emails with a single call-to-action increased clicks by 371%! Use a CTA in your emails or on social media to direct users to a survey or poll to gather data or motivate them to submit testimonials and reviews.
2 – Hyper-personalise your email campaigns
Personalisation starts with the basics, like the recipient’s first name and can progress to more detailed personal data, like location, or product/service acquired.
Hyper-personalisation, on the other hand, is more than just personalisation of certain elements of a campaign. It uses a combination of behavioural and real-time data from several channels for more customised marketing. This makes it possible for tailored products, services, and ads to be sent to specific audiences. Here’s how you can make hyper-personalisation work for you:
- Recommend content or products by audience segments.
- Tailor promotions and messages by audience segments.
- Trigger emails based on shopper/visitor behaviours.
3 – Create and send more interactive emails
As technology advances, interactive content is growing more and more popular. It increases engagement and isn’t hard to incorporate into your email campaigns. There are many ways you can add interactiveness into your emails, including:
- GIFs and hover-over imagery;
- Interactive product carousels and images;
- Scrolling images to showcase services or offerings;
- Design-mode options (light or dark mode);
- Gamification elements, like rewards, quizzes, and prize draws.
Interactive emails can also be used as part of personalisation to show products based on gender, age, or to send people messages that are unique to them.
4 – Make privacy a focal point in your emails
In today’s world, you’re probably more concerned about your data privacy than ever before. To get and increase the trust and loyalty of your email recipients, you must guarantee POPIA compliance.
For example, use email notifications to let customers know of any upcoming privacy changes and focus on how you’re protecting their information. This works in your favour because it will help improve your company’s ethics.
Give subscribers the option to unsubscribe from your emailing lists too. This is a standard rule across data privacy laws and complying to it will not only reduce your chances of being reported to the authorities, but it’ll help you focus on people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer.
The power of SMS marketing
The use of SMS (aka text messaging) has increased across industries and continues to grow thanks to its efficiency. It’s a personal marketing channel and results in about 90% of messages being read within the first three minutes of delivery.
5 – A successful direct marketing tool
With the high rate of mobile use internationally, SMS marketing is a very effective form of direct marketing. As a result, many banks, ecommerce stores, news outlets, and local communities are using SMS as part of their transactional strategies.
You can use transactional SMS messages in response to customer actions to support them through the customer journey. Common transactional SMSs include opt-in welcome messages, shipping updates, order confirmations, and one-time pins.
6 – Send emails via SMS functionality
Text messaging and email can work hand in hand, strengthening both marketing efforts. Some email marketing services even have SMS-to-Email functionality that combines the power of email with the reach of SMS.
This functionality allows you to send a shortened link to an online version of an email via SMS, tracking which contacts read them. For example, if you send out an email, you can trigger an SMS two days later to people who didn’t open the initial email.
SMS and email integration ideas
Consumers aren’t one-dimensional. Using both email and SMS in your marketing will improve your customer engagement, boost retention, and increase touchpoints for data collection. Here are three examples of how the two can be integrated successfully:
Bottom line? Bulk communication works efficiently and effectively when the right marketing techniques are used. Keep up with SMS and email trends and best practices to help you reach your marketing goals.
