The world of marketing continues to move at a high speed and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. Last year, digital transformation was the main theme for many marketers as they took on the COVID-19 pandemic with new virtual and hybrid business models.
Many brands changed the way they approached marketing as they found that digitally connecting with their market has become far more important with the social and physical distancing going on. It, therefore, came as no surprise when email marketing was found to be one of the best methods for companies to increase their ROI.
With a new year hopping in we’ve prepared a guide that will help you navigate email marketing trends in 2022.
Optimize for Dark Mode in Your Emails
Many marketers have started adapting their email design to provide their recipients with an experience called “dark mode.” It caters to the growing population of individuals who want to have darker themes and interfaces.
With more and more users choosing this type of color scheme, email marketers who fail to optimize for dark mode will start seeing reduced results in their campaigns. Dark mode is here to stay and it’s transforming the way we all experience our email content.
The primary reason why most people love these dark mode-themed designs is that they give off a lower amount of light from screens while still maintaining sufficient color contrast ratios. This allows such preferences to provide users with optimal legibility while meeting accessibility requirements.
With email marketing still one of the most effective forms of reaching audiences, it’s imperative for marketers to start adapting their marketing strategies in 2022 to incorporate dark mode optimization. Platforms like Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail are already allowing their users to use dark mode with more mailbox providers to follow.
When you don’t design your emails to adapt to this new preference, you run the risk of recipients being turned off from your campaigns. To help you keep up with one of the hottest email marketing trends, here are some tips to consider for dark display preferences:
- Optimize your email graphics: Besides a light mode option, your brand logo and icons should also have a dark mode version that can be reversible depending on what your recipients prefer. If you don’t want to change the way your standard graphics appear throughout emails, you can incorporate an outline to prevent them from disappearing when placed against a dark backdrop.
- Leverage transparency as much as possible: Using imagery that is transparent, particularly in .png format, can help you avoid having background colors that aren’t suitable for dark mode themes. Focus on icons or images that have darker shades and configure them so they can work even with a dark background. If you can’t use transparency, ensure that the designs have sufficient padding to avoid awkward spacing.
- Check the overall contrast: Make sure that you carefully choose darker backgrounds that match the lighter foreground colors of your emails. Doing so should allow you to achieve a balance in contrast while meeting accessibility requirements. You also get to avoid using over-saturated coloring that could make your campaigns difficult for your readers to consume.
- Constantly test your dark mode optimizations: It’s important to test your emails before you send them out to your recipients. This is especially true when you make changes to how you optimize them, such as with implementing new dark mode designs. Perform tests and tweak your campaigns accordingly to ensure you have the most effective email designs.
Design Attractive Email Marketing Landing Pages
On their own, email marketing and landing pages provide marketers with two of the most powerful tools they can implement to reach and convert leads. That’s why the right combination of these two can give you an unstoppable force in the marketing world.
This is because when you implement well-designed landing pages for your email marketing campaigns, you get to increase conversions significantly. The great thing about landing pages is that they funnel visitors and present them with just a single goal in mind – sign up for your email campaign.
Compared to leading people to your website where they can easily be distracted, you make their experience more seamless by directing them to where you want them to be. However, you need to make sure that the landing page for your email campaign can effectively drive users to sign up.
So, how can you design an ideal email landing page? These are the main elements you should have:
- An eye-catching headline
- Incorporate solid email content
- Offer something of value to your visitors
- A clear and compelling call-to-action (CTA)
Keep in mind that compared to standard landing pages, your email landing pages need to have just a single CTA present. This will allow your visitors to focus on completing just one task instead of considering several choices, which can significantly reduce your probability of getting them to follow through with the desired action.
As you combine your email marketing campaign and email landing page, you need to follow the best practices to make them as effective as possible.
Provide More Personalized Email Marketing Experiences
Personalized experiences continue to become a trend in the coming year and will be one of the most considered marketing strategies in 2022.
With users being smarter and more demanding, general offers that speak to a general crowd will no longer be as effective as they once were. People nowadays love feeling valued and privileged, which is why more personalized experiences have become the norm.
For the year to come, it’s imperative that you start designing your emails to be exclusively for your subscribers only. Your email content needs to be more personalized than addressing people by their names or offering discounts to a specific segment.
Since hyper-personalized experiences are becoming more important, other mediums outside of your main email marketing campaign, such as the landing pages and checkout forms need to be highly individualized as well. Applying this tactic properly will make your existing subscribers more loyal since they will feel more valued.
So, for your email templates moving forward, this means that you need to start deciding which would be the best option for each of these important elements:
- Subject line
- Content
- Time
- Offer
- Signature
- Segment
Furthermore, you should create email triggers that are based on the preferences and actions of your subscribers. You should also implement ways to show appreciation to them by using strategies like sending them birthday discounts, early access invitations, email gift cards, and other customer appreciation content.
Companies that could apply more personalized experiences especially in their email marketing campaigns can generate higher ROI while keeping their loyal customers on board.
Incorporate a Minimalist Design in Your Emails
The saying, “Less is more” holds true in email marketing and it will be more prominent for marketers this coming 2022. With the average user receiving countless emails each day, it’s only reasonable to assume that information overload is a daily issue with most people.
Applying chaotic and disharmonious designs in your email will cause most recipients to back out because of this. Users today want to receive emails that deliver a straightforward message that comes in an easy-to-consume format. This is the reason why minimalist designs in email are more important than ever.
If you want people to open your emails and connect with your brand, you need to start making the most of white space and design your messaging to be crisp and direct. Having too many colors and elements in your email campaigns isn’t recommended as it can distract readers from what you want them to accomplish.
As much as possible, use soft gradients and subtle colors. You can still incorporate emotional designs that your recipients will love seeing but you don’t want to go overboard.
Using more visual content and less text will go a long way in your campaigns. Adding alternating texts and visuals that are designed to keep readers engaged will enhance this approach. Rather than use lengthy texts, you should incorporate your images and illustrations to deliver your brand’s message instead.
Make sure that you communicate your message clearly and provide a compelling call-to-action at the end to increase interest while encouraging readers to take action. Although you don’t want to overwhelm your recipients, you can still employ bold typography to draw attention.
Although the email marketing space may seem crowded as it is, pleasing and impressing recipients isn’t improbable. You just need to make your content simple and highly personalized while using illustrations and animations to emphasize your unique proposition.
Begin Optimizing for Mobile Devices
Mobile devices may have been severely limited 15 years ago but we now have smartphones that are capable of providing us the features we need to do more.
With their screens growing bigger in the last few years, it’s no surprise that these devices have become something to consider even in email marketing. This is especially true with more and more mobile device users nowadays using their gadgets to access their inboxes and browse the web.
Yet despite the popularity, not many marketers have adapted to this emerging trend. Newsletters are still not fully optimized for catering to smartphones and tablets, which can result in mobile users being left out.
By optimizing your emails for mobile devices, you get to put out content that is both accessible to all users and convenient for them to consume.
See If You Can Include Animation in Your Emails
Moving email campaigns is another one of those email marketing trends that might continue to grow in popularity in 2022.
Creating animated email campaigns is now easier to do with the vast data available on the internet. Animated backgrounds, GIFs, moving icons, and animation using CSS are just a few examples that can be used in emails.
It’s important to remember that animations still take up space even when used in messages. That’s why you don’t want to go overboard when you add them to your campaigns. A few minor animated elements every now and then would be ideal and shouldn’t slow down the loading time for your recipients.
When you use animations correctly, you can bring life to your messages and improve the engagement rate of your campaigns. Make sure that you test your animated emails before sending them out so you can make some last-minute optimization tweaks if necessary.
Consider Using These Email Design Techniques
As you can already tell, sending emails can result in more than just prompting people to go forward into a sales funnel – it is capable of pursuing several marketing goals simultaneously. Digital newsletters can be used to tell relevant brand stories, create a specific atmosphere, and bring about the right emotions to nurture and retain subscribers.
To make the most of email campaigns, many marketers have started improving their email designs. They believe that design together with more personalized experiences is the key to email marketing success in the future.
Here are some trends to consider when designing your emails:
- Iconography that emphasizes visual prominence: For the coming year, you can expect bright color palettes, illustrated processes, and complex themes in email designs. Test and see how you can use intricate methods that explain the features or benefits of your product.
- Standard news magazine layout: This multilayered email design uses quality images and easy typography despite a muted palette. Consider applying a more vibrant ambiance in your emails in the coming months.
- Neon coloring: Besides the dark mode trend mentioned earlier, the neon color scheme will start to grow in popularity once again. You may have noticed this design option is already being used in email campaigns from major companies.
Just like anything that involves email campaigns, you want to perform tests on your email design, specifically A/B testing. This type of testing will let you see which version will be the most effective choice for your needs.
Tips To Keep Up With the Changing Email Marketing Trends
These trends in email marketing may be well-loved right now but the world in which marketers are involved is constantly evolving. Dark mode optimization may be one of the hottest topics right now but it could easily be a different story a year or two from today.
To help you keep up with changing trends, we’ve prepared for you some tips that will assist in future-proofing your marketing strategies in 2022 and beyond.
Tip #1: Take Advantage of Time-Based Email Triggers
Apple has already begun making changes to its privacy policy, which has made huge impacts in terms of monitoring email open rates. People who rely on tracking open rates will need to change their approach in the coming months.
One way they can continue to stay relevant is by implementing time-based triggers in their email automation strategy. These triggers can be set up like the following:
- Send follow-up email X hours after the first email was sent
- Greet subscribers via automated emails during their birthdays
- Send a follow-up message after a user interacts with your site
- Send follow-up emails to users who have abandoned their shopping carts
The power of time-based triggers is that they will reach people at the right time, allowing you to set up automated messages whenever the desired action has been completed.
Tip #2: Always Put Your Subscribers First
Always put your subscribers first no matter what the experts have to say about the future email marketing trends. The main goal of your emails is to get people to interact with your brand and providing them the best experiences at all times is what will make them do so.
Although animation is quite a popular approach in email design, it might not fit the styling of your brand and could hinder your marketing strategy. Think about how a trend will impact your campaigns and only go with the ones that will outright benefit your audience.
When you keep subscribers top of mind, your email marketing campaigns will have a higher probability of succeeding than those that don’t.
Tip #3: Constantly Test Your Emails
One thing that we’ve always repeated throughout this guide is that you should always test your email campaigns. Not only is it a great way to keep up with the dynamic email marketing landscape but it also ensures your messages are still relevant to your audience.
There are many elements you can test in your emails such as the images, subject lines, main content, links, and calls-to-action. Knowing what your readers like and dislike can help you improve your email campaign moving forward.
The Takeaway
These are the top email marketing trends that you should consider in the coming year. When you incorporate the right trends in your email campaigns, you have a good chance of remaining competitive in the future.
If you want to know more about the hot email marketing trends coming this year, you can download our Free eBook: Email Deliverability Trends for 2022.
