Tips for Summer Email Marketing Campaigns

4 minute read

Upland Admin

…that you can actually use year-round

We are right in the middle of the dog days of summer, and your email campaigns should be just as hot as the temperatures. Sure, more out-of-office replies are turned on, but it doesn’t mean you can’t use email to connect and engage with your audience. Use these tips to make your summer email campaigns stand out.

1. Use responsive, mobile email designs

Unless you’re brand-new to marketing, this is probably a tip you’re heard time and time again. Most marketers know that research shows that the majority of email opens occur on mobile devices. According to Litmus, mobile email open rates teeter between 46% and 47% while desktop open rates remain much lower around 20%. Even with these open rates as common knowledge among the email marketing crowd, we still see emails delivered to inboxes that are not optimized for mobile from big brand names and small companies alike.

When people are enjoying vacation time out by the pool or spending time with their kids while they’re out of class, do they really want to stop what they’re doing to go sit on their computers to read marketing emails? No, they want to quickly and easily scan emails from their phones without stopping their lives to check email at a desk. If customers can’t read emails conveniently from their phones, there’s a strong chance they won’t read them at all.

If you aren’t sending mobile-optimized emails, you should start doing so ASAP. It’s also a best practice to build emails for mobile first to ensure optimization. Technology today can make mobile optimization even easier though mobile-responsive modular templates. With the right features, email marketers can automatically optimize for mobile and use different modules for desktop viewers that won’t appear to mobile viewers. Research what’s available to you and take your mobile optimization to the next level.

2. Expand your reach with cross-channel email campaigns

We love email (obviously), but we know it’s not the only awesome tool available to marketers. Implementing a cross-channel strategy can extend your reach and engage your audience more effectively. Evaluate your technology stack and see what other tools are out there to compliment your email campaigns and best connect with your customers.

Read more about cross-channel success in this case study: Cross-channel campaign with localized video content drives 1,110% ROI for The Taxi Shop

Marketers can use a cross-channel strategy for more effective results with just about any type of campaign, but we’ve seen the most success when our customers implement email with social media and/or mobile messaging. However, we don’t recommend using a specific type of cross-channel strategy just because it works for our customers. We recommend using a cross-channel campaign that works for your specific audience. You know your customers best, so look at your own customer data and reporting to determine what channels would work best and how to engage them.

3. Get nerdy and incorporate AI into email marketing

There are many ways to implement AI (or artificial intelligence) into your marketing strategy these days, but we’ll cover how you can use AI specifically for email. Smart technology can enhance anything in email from subject lines to hyper-personalized content to cross-channel strategy. In fact, AI tools can optimize facetime with customers and prospects by knowing which channel they are on at what time. For example, after someone clicks on a product in an email campaign and adds it to their shopping cart without purchasing, AI tools can then show them that product next time they are on social media as a reminder to purchase.

More advanced AI tools might not be in every marketer’s budget. If you can’t expand your budget to include new tools, try evaluating your email service provider (ESP) to make sure its platform comes with features that can create that AI experience. Many ESPs come with out-of-the-box features such as hyper-personalization and targeting for that smart technology connection. Check around and make sure there isn’t a better email solution there to fit your needs.

4. Get your email strategy ready for fall

The seasons will change before we know it, and it is never too early to start hashing out your email planning for fall. Before it gets ahead of you, take some time to consider the steps you need to take for email success after temperatures cool off. What seasonal campaigns will you need? Are you spending your budget on the right marketing technology stack for your business? There is always so much planning for a marketer to do so evaluate your data, strategies, campaigns, and tools to make sure you are on the right track.

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