More valuable marketing tools are on there way, but you need to understand what’s already out there if you are to reap the full benefits.

There are around 3.7 billion email users in the world daily, with that figure likely to reach 4.3 billion by 2022. For this reason, email marketing is a viable strategy to focus your efforts.

The non-linear funnel

Advancements in technology have provided a number of new marketing tools, changing the buyer journey forever. Initially it was believed that prospects go through a cone - they start at the top where they are filtered down and loaded with information prior to making a purchase.

Technology has created multiple touchpoints, allowing us to gather leads at any point in the journey. Email will continue to be an excellent tool for nurturing leads at any stage of the journey.

Nurturing over selling

It’s a long proven fact that aggressive email marketing does not sell - being a nuisance will mean your emails will likely be ignored.

It’s also true that leads can quickly grow cold if you leave them in the dark. Find a balance between being informative and moving them to the purchasing stage. Instead of hard-selling, focus on sending informative content so customers have more reasons to trust you.

Targeted automation

Automation just mean making tasks easier to handle. Automated email campaigns are helping marketers create personalised messages for specific audiences.

By creating targeted workflows that are triggered by user engagement or behaviour, your prospects and clients only get messages that are relevant or of interest to them, at the right time.

Hyper-personalisation

The pitfall of automation is that your message may come across as robotic. If it does, people won’t read it, no matter how informative you think it is.

Personalisation is not just about knowing your audience by name: it’s about providing solutions before they even know about it. It’s about making your customers feel like you know them personally.

When reaching out to your audience, use location information, purchase history or any other data that can clue you in on their next actions. Take advantage of predictive analysis, as well.

Integrating with other marketing channels

As discussed in our other blogs, multi-channel marketing is the way forward. Create a message and imagery that can be used across your social networks and give your brand its best chance of being recognised.

A focus on privacy and data security

With controversies surrounding hacking and misuse of personal data, governments around the world are placing more aggressive measures for data privacy, most notably the European Union passing the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law. GPDR also affects the "gathering and sharing of third-party info for anyone whose email content reaches a member of the EU."

In light of this, marketers should be more careful with their new campaigns, especially if they want to continue gaining leads from all around the world.