CW10
What will be the biggest email design trend of 2018?
Litmus polled marketers, asking them which of the follow 10 email design trends would be the biggest in 2018:
- Using shorter, more bite-sized email content
- Sending more text-only emails
- Utilizing language that’s more human
- Adding progressive enhancements to create richer experiences where supported
- Improving email accessibility for people with disabilities (blind, color blind, etc.)
- Building stronger narratives and storytelling
- Creating interactive email experiences
- Focusing more on personalization and subscriber lifetime value
- Scaling email build systems through templates, modules, snippets, partials, etc.
- Increasing message variety to keep subscriber interest
Check out the results of that poll...
https://litmus.com/blog/top-email-design-trends
...then join this discussion, letting us know what you think and whether we missed a major email design trend.
…find a way to influence Microsoft Outlook users to use a different email client. 😂
Mornin,
Litmus teamed up with Microsoft to make the new Outlook better. https://litmus.com/blog/litmus-and-microsoft-partner-to-make-email-better
Note sure if its still going on but they mentioned that you can write a emeil to litmus (outlook@litmus.com) in onen of the Bodcasts
I'm personally hoping for more text-only emails and utilizing language that's more human. In combination, these feel more like personal, 1:1 emails and my suspicion is that they may see higher response rates in the right industries/circumstances due to that personal feel. That said I'd also hope that marketers strike a balance between mimicking 1:1/personal emails and using misleading tactics like fake forwards, fake replies, or intentionally sending emails that look like internal mistakes.
I suspect that those misleading tactics contribute to the 8th trend on your list, which is focusing more on personalization and lifetime value. Using gimmicks can lead to short-term gains in open or click rates but can burn brand trust in the long term.
Are these so-called text-only emails truly text-only? As in zero HTML/CSS and purely ASCII? I suspect not.
What I do suspect is really going on is a revival -- and I'm showing my age here -- of the AOL version: an HTML-lite, little-to-no CSS that looks like it's text-only. And I've created a few of these lately myself for the same reason: They load super-fast, they don't look "sale-sy," and they're written in newspaper-style sentences (e.g. 1-2 sentence grafs, 20 words or less, etc), not bullet points and taglines (i.e. copywriting instead of technical writing).
Luke, I think you're right. These are more accurately called "HTML-lite" emails, since they surely include tracking pixels if nothing else. But, yes, the goal is (1) quicker load time and (2) more casual or urgent feel.
I personally think marketers should be looking to use these very selectively. HTML emails with plenty of images are the norm in many verticals--and for good reason. HTML emails perform better. But there are exceptions. B2B brands have some of the more compelling use cases. And triggered emails are one place where "HTML-lite" emails can make sense.