Interactive email marketing: what’s it all about?

We open this post on interactive email marketing with a very straightforward question: is email marketing still a sensible and profitable strategy today?

Let’s look at some data for the answer:

– Today, 1 out of 2 media planning experts use email marketing: A figure that is high and growing (hubspot.com).

– 64% of smaller companies are using email marketing to reach their customers (campaignmonitor.com).

– 37% of brands are increasing their email marketing budget; in contrast, only 1.3% are cutting it (litmus.com)

– Revenue from email marketing is expected to reach a total of $11 billion by the end of 2023. 

This figure has been on the rise since 2020, when it was around $7.5 billion (statista.com).

In short, the answer that emerges is loud and clear: Email marketing is an extremely effective and valuable strategy for business professionals, now more than ever. And, it’s absolutely critical for smaller businesses.

This first basic awareness is well established.

But, let’s go to the basics: what is interactive email marketing?

We look at this in the next section.

Then, in the remainder of the post, we will focus on 5 types of interactive email marketing that are extremely effective and can be adapted to your business.

Finally, we will focus on a pattern punctuated by 5 “T’s” (Target, Tease, Teach, Test, Track). Applying it to the best of your ability makes a huge difference; and you can optimize this even further through interactivity.

Interactive email marketing – What is it? What are the benefits it provides?

Interactive email marketing is an interesting trend, one that is already solid showing promise for the future.

It’s the sending of emails and newsletters that contain elements of interactivity; thus, elements that transform classic one-way communications (from the company to the recipient) into a real dialog. It’s a participatory journey that almost always results in personalized and tailored calls to action.

What are the main benefits that companies can expect from this type of campaign?

– First, interactivity is a perfect hook for capturing the recipient’s attention, keeping it alive and lengthening the average email reading time

– It stimulates engagement and interactions;

– It creates an interactive path, which proceeds in stages and by “exchanges,” and it ensures that the message you want to convey is more clear, understandable, and memorable for the recipient;

– Naturally, this leads to a decisive increase in the conversion rate. Thus, a virtually certain improvement in ROI;

– Finally, interactive email marketing leads to improved target segmentation, with an increasingly broad and deep collection of data about your audience. The mechanism is intuitive: the recipient is asked to make navigational choices that, if well designed, reveal a lot about his or her characteristics, needs, and possible desires.

In short, these kinds of strategies definitely point toward personalization.

Interactive email marketing – 5 effective types

Now, as promised, let’s turn to a more operational plan and look at 5 types of interactive email marketing that companies can easily and successfully implement in their email marketing campaigns:

1. Interactive surveys and infographics

Inserting surveys in your interactive emails guarantees a double advantage: on the one hand, you show interest and closeness to your customer, calling them out, inviting them to interact. On the other hand, you are able to surgically collect very valuable information to reconstruct both individual profiles and a picture of your audience, more generally.

All of this happens simultaneously, and in a very simple way.

To ensure the effectiveness of this element, here are some tips:

– Make sure that the questions you ask are meaningful, but also simple and very direct;

– The choice of questions is crucial: they must meet the interest of your audience, but also be functional to the objectives of your campaign;

– Always provide for a consistent course of closed-ended questions, but consider leaving one question, perhaps the last one, to include open-ended responses.

Involving infographics is also an interesting option: this is a format that the customers increasingly like, because it provides a visual idea of the topic, even when there are more abstract and numerical elements at play.

Implementing interactivity in infographics can be used to highlight certain data points or to reveal different variables in a way that captures the viewer’s attention.

2. Games and Quizzes

This is a dynamic that is similar to the one above for surveys and infographics, but with a plus that can come in very handy: that of gamification.

These kinds of interactive elements, therefore, work very well when aiming to trigger audience engagement.

In any case, don’t underestimate the great communication power of entertainment!

A game or quiz, for example, can be a great tool for building awareness around your brand, product, or service, without being too heavy-handed and self-referential.

3. Interactive invitations

Since the pandemic, the world of events has experienced great opportunities as a result of the integration of traditional “physical” and digital sides.

Email invitations that contain interactive elements fit perfectly in this groove.

We’re talking about a wide range of options, from a simple Google Calendar link, to the possibility of having specific details, insights, and special content at the click of a button with which to interact.

4. Product previews

Here is a particularly interesting interactive integration opportunity for businesses (even very small ones) that have an online shop.

It’s about going beyond simply sending product emails to offering real interactive showcases related to your products.

The path can and must be complete: from storytelling related to the products to direct purchase, with possibility of choosing different customizations.

For example, a fashion company could use interactivity to the selection of sizes, colors, and customizations of any kind.

Everything that usually happens in the physical shop can be translated directly into the body of the email, shortening and simplifying the Customer Journey. And we all know how huge a difference this simplification can make in terms of conversion and increased sales.

5. The ultimate boost? Interactive videos

The best performing digital tool in terms of communication effectiveness and target audience engagement?

Video, without a doubt.

So why not include it within your email marketing campaigns?

Simply including the word “video” in the subject line of an email can raise the open rate by 6%. (superoffice.com). This may sound like a small percentage, but marketers know that 6% can make a huge difference.

It’s not just about open rate. With video, there is a definite improvement in the comprehensibility and memorability of the messages conveyed. A surge in recipient engagement. An increase in click-through rate. And the ability to make the most of the data by aiming for increasingly personalized communication.

We talked about all of this in our blog post dedicated to video newsletters: check it out to get all the insights.

Let’s highlight one point: within an email marketing campaign, video offers impressive results. Embracing the interactive video breakthrough means going even further with user-oriented story-telling and the ability to implement calls to action that are built on the individual recipient’s profile and browsing choices.

How to embrace this shift?

Rely on specialized platforms, such as Babelee‘s Video Interaction platform.

For more insights, see here.

Interactive email marketing and the “5 Ts”

Let’s close with a very quick focus around 5 themes, the “5 Ts:” 

– Target

– Tease

– Teach

– Test

– Track

These are important areas to consider when designing your email marketing strategy:

Target: having an in-depth knowledge of your target audience, divided into increasingly specific clusters with homogeneous characteristics, all the way to personalization.

Tease: the ability to attract attention, arouse curiosity, and stimulate the desire to learn more.

Teach: never forget to be useful and offer value to your target audience.

Test: the importance of experimenting (in an intentional, planned way and not recklessly) to put the effectiveness of your strategies to the test.

Track: carefully measure performance and results to understand what worked and what didn’t, so that you can continually recalibrate your campaigns, always aiming for continuous improvement.

How does this translate to the field of interactive email marketing?

It gives an additional boost. 

Implementing interactivity means multiplying touch points.

As a result: you get more precise knowledge about your target audience. It’s a path made of continuous anticipations, almost a chain of “teasers.”  You can balance the added and informative value (“teach”) with entertainment. Finally, “testing” and “tracking” become even more surgical because they can focus on certain segments of communication, those that lead from one interactive step to the next.