By Tom Wozniak, Head of Marketing – published on Forbes on 2/22/22
The year is off to a fast start, but before 2022 gets away from me, I wanted to pop in with my annual look at what will and won’t happen in email marketing this year. You can check out my article from 2021 to see how my predictions held up (pretty well, if I say so myself). But, let’s take out the crystal ball and see what email marketing can expect to see in 2022, along with some things I believe won’t come to pass.
What Will Happen
Email Marketing Will Continue To Grow
Email experienced a bit of a renaissance over the past two years, as marketers turned to the time-tested channel when their entire marketing strategies were disrupted by the pandemic. We saw it at my company, as opt-out activity through our platform rose 20% year over year in 2021.
While digital marketing overall took on a larger role for many companies as offline marketing channels were dramatically impacted, not every channel could easily absorb a higher budget allocation and maintain performance and a positive return on investment. It’s not always as simple as adding more budget to a search engine marketing campaign, social media, display or digital video advertising. Increasing budgets in these channels typically involves expanding keyword lists and social target audiences or placing display/video ads that didn’t make the cut in your original strategy. However, email marketing can increase campaign volume while continuing to deliver results with either increased email frequency or by expanding to use third parties in your email program.
As 2022 continues, there is no reason to expect this trend to change. Email has once again proven its value and, even with a brighter spotlight on it in recent years, it did not fail to step up. While we all hope the world gets back to a new normal that resembles pre-pandemic times, marketers have now shifted their focus heavily toward digital options, accelerating a trend that was already established since the inception of the internet. So, while marketing budgets will certainly be allocated toward traditional channels as they become viable again, we can expect digital channels like email to maintain the growth it was already experiencing. Successful marketers put their efforts and budgets toward what works, and email continues to justify its place as an ROI champion.
Marketers Will Focus On Better Metrics
Read the rest at Forbes.
Tom Wozniak heads up Marketing and Communications for OPTIZMO Technologies.