Welcome to Vol.15 of Email Advice in Your Inbox!

Happy New Year, friend!

We've missed sharing our knowledge about all things email with our friends and fans.

After a good dose of rest, reflection and sea air, we're pretty excited about what's to come in 2024, and it's good to be back!

We've got some awesome content lined up for our upcoming Volumes, but to kick off the year, we're going to channel our inner Nostradamus and share a few emerging trends we think are going to shape the 2024 email scene.

We're also going to be introducing a few new resources, tools, tips and tricks to help you win at email this year.

We hope you're as excited as we are!

 

Here's what you'll learn this week
 

• 5 Email Marketing Trends to Look Out for in 2024
   

• This week's (free) resources to help you become a better email marketer
   

• *New Feature* Email expert practical tip of the week
   

• *New Feature* Smart email senders we're learning from this week
   

• The fun stuff: How to catch a bad email marketer
   

Let's take off on our 2024 email journey together 🚀

It's the time of the year when a ton of speculation floats around about various topics. Email marketing is no exception.

And there's already so much happening in the email space already:

• Google and Yahoo's changes announced last year are taking effect soon
• Gmail is launching a quick unsubscribe button for Android
• 3rd-Party cookies are being phased out on Chrome

Plus, there's a whole lot more going on behind the scenes.

This may be cause for concern if you're not following a sound (and ethical) email strategy, but these are all fantastic developments for the world of email!

With this in mind, let's dive into our predictions around what we suspect is going to become even more prevalent in email this year 🔮
 

With Yahoo and Google's updated requirements for bulk email senders being implemented on the 1st of February, it should be IMMEDIATELY if this isn't already on your radar.

You've probably heard about these changes, but in case you haven't, here's a quick summary:

• You'll need SPF and DKIM email authentication for your domain.
• You'll also need DMARC email authentication for your sending domain.
• A one-click unsubscribe process and clear unsubscribe link.
• A spam-complaint rate of less than 0.3% (which is quite high anyway)

There are a few more technical requirements, and most senders already have DKIM & SPF set up, but DMARC is a new one for many. 

DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (in case you were wondering). This technical standard in the email world helps protect email senders from being impersonated or "spoofed".

Spoofing is essentially a type of attack in which the from address of an email message is forged. 

You can see the impact of this happening, right? The last thing you need is money being taken from your subscribers or having their details stolen due to phishing.

This is where having DMARC and improving your policy level over time can help you in a big way.

To help our readers get this right, our friends at TouchBasePro have put together a few resources and suggestions you can use to comply with these standards and you can check those out here.

Remember, you have until February 2024 to get this right or you might start seeing some bounced emails to Gmail and Yahoo email addresses.

With stricter requirements being put in place and more senders accommodating for broader reach, email accessibility will become a priority for many email senders into 2024.

While marketers create beautiful campaigns, not many sit back and think about the visual and cognitive impairments many of their readers may be living with.

In pursuit of creating beautiful & engaging emails, we can't overlook the importance of email accessibility. Designing emails with accessibility in mind is not just a nice-to-have, it's a MUST-HAVE.

A survey by WebAIM, an NPO dedicated to web accessibility, found that 86.3% of respondents with disabilities use screenreaders to access digital content.

That's massive! This emphasizes the importance of creating emails that enable screen readers to convey information to those who rely on them accurately.

 
Last year, we put together 8 simple yet effective best practices you can implement to ensure you can access and engage with your campaigns right now. Give those a read here to give yourself a head start in this area.

Your audience will thank you for it.

AI technology is advancing rapidly! Email senders and ESPs that embrace AI will stay ahead of the rest in the coming months.

Now, we aren't merely talking about generative AI, but also AI technology that many email systems and senders are going to begin using to bolster the efficacy of their email strategy.

These include AI tools, uses and features such as:

• AI content clustering: By installing scripts on websites that feed data into the email realm, data about audience interests and preferences is being clustered in AI engines to create dynamic client segments that feed relevant content based on audience interests.

• Optimised email serving: To drive higher engagement with email audiences, predictive algorithms are being used to send emails based on the behaviours exhibited by readers.
  
  This includes optimising sending times to match when readers are in their email inboxes and serving emails based on engagement behaviour to win back disengaged or already disengaging subscribers.

• Dynamic and personalised email content serving: There’s also a growing trend in the email space to use dynamic and personalised content serving, which equates to email templates adapting content sections and personalisation fields to the various segments within an email audience.
  
  More and more marketers rely on AI algorithms to identify patterns and trends to help them segment their audiences in a far more customised way.

We are still, however, in the infancy of generative AI. To help you use AI prompts to their fullest potential, our dear friend, technical writer and all-around go-to for all things writing, Matt Thomas, runs a brilliant newsletter called The Rythm of Writing.

Matt shares some insane knowledge on creating AI prompts that will take your AI content generation to new heights.

Don't take my word for it, sign up for Matt's newsletter here to check out his Writing for Robots here.🤖

With Google and other browsers doing away with cookies, many marketers will find ways to bolster the collection of 1st-party data. This means a focus on owned-audience growth, especially in email.
 

Cookies, especially 3rd-party cookies (which are essentially tracking codes placed on websites and adverts) have been on the radar for many data privacy and protection laws for a while now. As of this year, Google has started doing away with cookies and is already testing this on 1% of their Chrome users.

Along with introducing Tracking Protection choices for browser users, a lot of the data that many marketers have relied on to get to know their audiences will fall away in the coming months.

This is where email is going to shine! 💎
 

Not only do you "own" the data that folks have consented to you keeping in your email lists, but there's also a unique opportunity to use email to learn more about audience preferences, behaviour and other useful data.

Many smart marketers already know that email is one of the leading channels for zero and 1st-party data acquisition, so look out for clever tactics that are being used to grow email lists and enrich customer data.

We wrote a piece last year on growing your audience that can help get you going. Learn 12 practical ways to grow your email audience here.

With the constantly changing technical requirements around email, and the necessity to stand out in the inbox, many email senders are going to begin outsourcing their email strategy to stay ahead in the inbox.

Though this may not be practical for every email sender, depending on the complexity of your email strategy and the capacity constraints that many marketers face, outsourcing will become more commonplace.

One of the biggest advantages we see in this is expertise.

Marketers especially have so many channels to cover. From socials to paid ads and website maintenance in their digital channels to all the other marketing channels, there's a lot!

Outsourcing your email marketing gives you somewhat of an edge over other senders, especially if you choose the right email partner.

We've heard some amazing things about the team at TouchBasePro and the email services they offer. If you're looking for a high-value, low-cost option, they're definitely a partner to begin with.

There are a ton of other great email service agencies, and we'll cover more on these in upcoming Volumes to help you choose the right partner in the coming months if you consider outsourcing your emails.

Now that you know what's on the email horizon, what do you think your top 5 email marketing trends to look out for in 2024 will be?

We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Reply to this email and let us know here. We'd love to feature your insights in future editions.

Again, we're glad you're here and we're excited to learn alongside you into 2024 💌

Email resources of the week

Some cool tools and tips to help you become a better email marketer

*New Feature*

Email Expert Practical Tip of the Week

This year, we're launching something new to help share advice from fellow email experts that you can apply to your emails today!

Our first is a brilliant tip by Jason Resnick, an email marketing and automation expert.

Does your email automation answer these questions? 👇

*New Feature*

Smart email senders we're learning from

We believe that learning from some of the greatest in the industry is one of the best ways to improve.

Our new feature will include three emails we found that followed sound email principles or used innovative strategies to nail their email goals.

Take a look at this week's best 👌

Some more (email) fun to make your day better

It's 2024. Let's cut the spam. 👀

This gem by The Marketing Millenials gave us a chuckle.

We all hate spam. I'd put money on that. If you're still planning to send emails to folks who haven't asked to hear from you this year, then grab that Shame Bell and ring it hard 🔔

Go on. Do the right thing. You don't want to be that guy.

These emails are proudly made possible by

Africa's best email service agency and email marketing platform

Before you go!

We sincerely appreciate you being here, friend 💌

This newsletter has been growing at a tremendous rate and we're putting some hard work in behind the scenes.

If you're enjoying these, have any suggestions or improvements, or if you'd even like to feature your expertise, tools or insights, let us know!

Fire off an email to say hi here. We'd love to hear from you. 

Before we go! Remember, we help businesses and content creators, just like you, win at email. How? Here are three ways we can help:

Get the guide! We've spent 200+ hours compiling over 250 pages covering everything you need to launch and win at email. Find out more here. 

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Contribute your knowledge! We're looking to feature experts in future Volumes. Have an idea to share? Let us know here.

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