emailmarketingandappApps are considered to be the core of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and are one of the most important marketing channels for getting in touch with mobile users.

Email marketing will retain its leading position as an established channel within the marketing mix. Although the company artegic AG is mainly observing the German market, it is interesting to take a closer look into their study’s findings.

According to the artegic’s study “Online Dialogue Marketing in Retail 2016”, approximately 83.1% of retailers will be using email marketing by 2016. In fact, email marketing, social media, mobile, Big Data, content marketing and marketing automation are trending topics.

The highest growth will take place in email marketing (61.1%), which matches the top position within the tools used. At least for Germany, where nevertheless the double-op in method reigns, the most important email marketing measures are currently segmented mass emails (67.7% use them), transaction emails (81.5%) and trigger emails (55%). While, the biggest growth can be seen in the use of mobile optimized emails (50.3% are planning its use), customer intelligence emails (48.7%) and completely individualized emails (46.6%). Apps are used by 57.7% of the mobile marketer, whereby the most important mobile marketing tools are, as said, mobile-optimized emails (68%).

Both email marketing and apps aren’t autonomous channels, but must be part of an integrated marketing mix, since both tools offer several starting points to be associated with each other.

Responsive design will be the method of choice in the mobile web

Artegic AG expects emails in particular to face the challenge of different display sizes with recipients, explaining: “Through a fluid or responsive design, emails can be adapted on smartphones and tablets and displayed accordingly, while on a desktop PC, they can be displayed to their full width”, the company explains, adding: “Unfortunately, not all devices support HTML 5, which is necessary for responsive design. Omitting or scaling graphics is often not enough to fulfil the requirements of marketers or recipients for the mobile context of use. Location-based services or direct response to customer behavior at POS, require other communication tools for mobile target groups.” The online CRM technology and consulting provider therefore introduces a new format for effective dialogue marketing with mobile target groups – the new “ultra responsive email”.

Introduction of the new “ultra responsive email”

Artegic’s solution combines elements from fluid and responsive design on the client side with end device identification, based on the server side’s response media technology Ultra responsive email therefore enables the adjustment of the format - plus the adaptation of contents - to different, even older end devices.

Devices or provider-specific services, time of opening, weather or lifecycle information, etc. can be used for real-time changes in emails and to respond to the particular context of use of the recipient. For example, a customer email triggered after a purchase at the POS can show a different content when opened on a mobile device within the first 90 minutes, than the same email opened later on a PC.

“With the ultra responsive email, we are reinventing mobile email communication”, says Stefan von Lieven, CEO at artegic AG. “Only by taking into consideration and individualizing the mobile context of use, mobile email really exploits its potential. Until now, this was only about weirdly displayed emails on smartphones.”

“Responsiveness” for the first time in the recipient’s context of use

Summarily, the promise of responsive design is optimal user experience on every device. When a user opens an email on a smartphone, modern HTML code automatically retrieves the specifications of the end device and the client adjusts the display for mobile use. With classic responsive design, emails are usually only scaled in size or hidden. artegic’s new ultra responsive email technology expands these abilities and allows individual contents, e.g. entirely different images for different devices and resolutions up to HD quality for users of retina displays. In the same way, control elements, such as links and buttons or touchscreen operation, are adapted and individually integrated.

However, the term “responsiveness” in ultra responsive email does not only refer to an adjustment of the display, but also to a response to the context of use. This allows a contextual allocation of contents in real-time when the email is opened, e.g. according to the end device or usage. When a user opens an email with an iPhone or iPad, a direct reference and link to the iTunes App can be provided. The same email on an Android Smartphone may take the reader to the Google Play Store. On a PC in a browser view, the same email would not include the App ad but offer a directly playable video instead.

Conclusion

According to artegic AG, the integration of email marketing and apps is one of the most important trends in communications - in fact one of the four relevant fields of marketing engineering.

Obviously, email marketing can not only be used to guide users to an app, the app itself can integrate email marketing technology. The applications spectrum is diverse and offers plenty of scope to experiment with innovative ideas.

A relatively simple way is to use Apps for generating email marketing opt-ins. In addition, for example, mobile trigger-mails would be possible that are linked to specific actions in the app, email-based payment methods in app stores, or geo-location based communication via email.

It is also possible to show emails not only in the email client, but even directly in the app, which means that there is no media discontinuity between email and app usage. In this case, the technical presentation skills of the popular email clients do not have to be taken into account and there is more freedom in the design of emails, for example, in the form of interactive elements.

By MediaBUZZ