1emailDo you know which marketing strategies you should consider next year? In what direction email marketing trends are heading? Well, start to get informed, not only because 2017 is coming to an end and heralding the time of the year when marketing departments are working harder than ever to boost the year-end business.

Email marketing is without doubt still one of the most effective and, above all, the most accepted advertising measures, in fact one that constantly evolves and adapts to market changes and therefore never loses its acceptance. But what does email marketing have in store for 2018? Here are some hints:

1. Those who do not automate, cannot keep up with the times

The evergreen 'automation' will remain one of the hottest topics in 2018. Especially since in email marketing, automated campaigns are slowly starting to reach the SMEs that managed to gain first experiences. Automating marketing processes simply helps them save time and resources.

And what’s not to despise is the fact that with automated campaigns, they can accompany their various target groups perfectly through the purchase decision process and position themselves as a loyal attendant. Marketing automation makes it possible to send relevant, event-related content in real-time. And best of all that's not even difficult to do!

2. Personalization and customization continues

If you want to bring your prospects closer to your company and products, then you should continue to align your content to the individual interests of your potential customers and address them in a personalized way. This means providing relevant content, optimized delivery times, prioritized article sequences, personalized texts and targeted offers etc. Hence, personalization and customization will remain on the 2018 agenda, too.

3. Lead Management needs to be further developed

Lead management was a big topic this year and will continue to be since much work still has to be done to address the changed purchasing decision process of prospects properly. Email marketing in 2018 therefore means primarily continuing to generate and enrich new contacts: Lead generation through landing pages and application forms, simple processes and automated marketing in the form of content-related campaigns that are geared to the lifecycle, the habits, behaviors, locations and click behavior.

Lead Management will apparently remain individual, personalized and automated. And most of all, the marketing process continues to be focused on the potential customers who are researching solutions to problems and need to find the right company and product/service. That’s why companies must hoist their sails next year at the latest and pick up prospects at the touchpoint they were heading for. For instance, consider Facebook Lead Ads in 2018, since email marketing and Facebook can now be connected directly. It is a simple, uncomplicated and fast way to legitimate lead generation.

4. Benefit from the clever system

Already last year we spoke of "programmatic and automation" as a trend with user data being collected everywhere, since it is hardly possible to act anonymously on the internet. Of course, this is a great advantage for companies, because the more we know about our website visitors or newsletter subscribers, the better. It is an obvious fact that the more we know, the more targeted we can address our readers and score points with the right offers. Systems that do this job are abundant on the market, but in most cases, it requires the combination of several systems to get the holistic view.

All collected data must be designed for marketers in an evaluable form so that email marketing can score again with its strength - as individual, accurate and interesting as possible. Do not be put off by complicated technologies, but have the guts to collect and evaluate data to benefit from it.

What’s for sure is the journey of digitization, automation and clever interplay of various systems and platforms will continue in 2018, so do not hesitate to use your potential to the fullest.

By Daniela La Marca