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Campaign Monitor, a provider of intelligent email marketing and automation software, asked 6 email marketing and automation experts what trends they expect for email marketing in 2018. Here are excerpts from what each had to say. For more details, click here.
“For decades, marketers have subscribed to the notion of a marketing and sales funnel where leads enter into the top and customers emerge, like magic, from the bottom. … But guess what? Somewhere along the way, as more and more new digital marketing channels and tactics emerged, this neat little linear funnel quit working like it was supposed to. The marketing funnel as we know it is over. But marketers need not despair. A new marketing funnel has emerged and merges pre-purchase and post-purchase stages to present a complete view of the entire customer lifecycle. Multi-channel, multi-touch, multi-path customer journeys are the new marketing funnel.”
Samantha Anderl, Senior Director, Acquisition Channels, Campaign Monitor
“In 2018, email marketers will increase their use of automated emails, which are central to creating more email experiences. For example, successful programs are 108.5% more likely than less successful programs to generate at least half of their email marketing revenue from automated and transactional emails (17.1% vs. 8.2%), according to Litmus’ State of Email Survey of more than 3,500 global marketers. … Rather than viewing these emails unwisely as ‘set it and forget it’ programs, we’ll treat them as ‘review and improve’ programs, maximize their efficiency, and supercharge our impact.”
Chad S. White, Research Director at Litmus and author of Email Marketing Rules
“In 2018, I predict email personalization will start shifting heavily toward ‘what’s next’ instead of ‘what was.’ New machine learning and data science-based features and platforms will give email marketers the ability to harness their content and data to prophesize relevant information to mass audiences in a personal way.”
Alex Williams, Creative Director, Trendline Interactive
“It’s a new age of lifecycle marketing and it’s going to be lit. … Instead of focusing solely on acquisition, marketers will be more accountable than ever for each customer touchpoint. From the first time marketers meet prospects, to purchase and pre-delivery, to loyalty and advocacy, even retention and win-back; all of these touchpoints will require the marketer to be present in order to deliver value to prospects every step of the way.”
Philip Storey, Founder and CEO, Enchant
“Right now, marketers are campaign-oriented. They focus on measuring the success of campaigns above measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV). This happens for various reasons, one being that campaign metrics are easier to measure than individual customer lifetime value. … But not for long. Predictive marketing metrics, such as CLV calculation, will be vastly improved upon. Machine learning and AI will predict individual and group customer lifetime value — this is called Predictive CLV. So goodbye historical CLV and hello predictive CLV.”
Kath Pay, CEO, Holistic Email Marketing
“Expect the line between marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM to blur as email and automation companies continue to expand their features. A new midfield of marketing technology players will emerge. That is great for marketers. It lowers the barrier to get more advanced functionality and start with smarter marketing.”
Jordie van Rijn, Founder, emailvendorselection.com