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As an Email Developer at Response Labs, I had the pleasure of attending Litmus Live 2019 in Boston a few weeks ago, and below are my four takeaways from the two-day conference.
1. Email is Still #1
While email was considered to be on the decline just a few years ago, it is still as powerful as ever and has a newly-calculated average ROI of 44:11. So for every dollar spent on an email program, the average return on investment is $44! This far eclipses the Google Paid Search average of 2:12. Also, email generated over $2 billion in sales revenue over just $1 million generated by social media for Cyber Monday in 20183. In short, email is here to stay, and when done properly, can elevate your business better than any other digital channel.
2. Email is Getting Better
Personalization used to mean adding a subscriber’s name to the salutation line in an email. Now, personalization means not only a subscriber’s name, but also relevant, targeted content based on the subscriber’s preferences and delivering the email at a time when the subscriber is most likely to open it. In summary, email is getting smarter, with better demographics, allowing for deeper connections with each subscriber.
3. Inclusiveness is No Longer Optional
As voice assistants make accessing digital media easier for those with physical impediments, making an email beautiful also means making it usable by those assistants. So, adding specific accessibility attributes to the markup of an email is becoming standard practice, and not just a “good idea.” And doing so means you can reach more subscribers, which is never a bad thing!
4. Email Still Needs Support
One trend that continues in the email industry is the lack of support for the departments and email professionals. A few presentations and conversations I had demonstrated the need for there to be continued education up the corporate ladder about how email has changed from a mass communication tool into a tool for communicating with your entire audience on a more personal level. And in order to do that properly, email teams (even teams of one) deserve just as much resources as other marketing channels. Because when email is done right, companies can see an average ROI of 44:1, and that’s an ROI worth the investment!
3. Litmus Live Handout
