It’s no secret that email marketing is an important aspect of any retailer’s customer engagement strategy. A recent February 2019 report from market research firm The Radicati Group estimates that there will be an average of over 293 billion emails sent and received per day by businesses and consumers in 2019. That sort of potential reach cannot and should not be ignored.
This is a double-edged sword however, as it likely means any email your business sends runs the risk of being caught up in the sea of others your customer receives. So how do you separate your email from the rest and make it memorable to your customer? One solution is to make them more functional and interactive, something now being made easier thanks to the Google-backed, open-source AMP Project.
Make your email marketing more personalized and interactive
The goal of the AMP Project (which is an acronym for “Accelerated Mobile Pages”) is to deliver more dynamic, visually-appealing web pages that load near instantaneously, similar to the manner in which apps function. As part of this effort, the AMP Project is also bringing this mindset to email design and delivery with AMP for Email. This will allow senders of AMP-enabled emails to craft interactive, personalized, and user-focused emails, thereby creating a more engaging user experience that doesn’t even require the recipient to leave their inbox on both web and mobile. For retailers, this functionality opens the door to a number of customer engagement and email marketing possibilities.
Imagine giving your customers the ability to (almost instantly) browse your various product catalogs and inventory, view up-to-date product reviews, and make purchases without ever having to open a separate browser window. This provides your customers with a secure, hassle-free e-commerce experience. It also provides you with a medium to promote e-subscription materials -- such as newsletters or promotional campaign sign-ups -- with easy to fill-in forms that again do not require the customer to leave your email. This ease-of-use is sure to be something they respond favorably to, making it much more likely that they interact with emails from you in the future.
Additionally, an interactive experience such as the one that AMP provides allows your customers to quickly and easily respond to questionnaires or surveys you send out, which in turn gives your business the insight it needs into any areas of improvement involving the consumer. Understanding the customer experience is vital when it comes to building brand loyalty and improving customer satisfaction, and can also provide your business with valuable customer data.
AMP for Gmail live, with other providers to follow
AMP for Email officially launched for the Gmail service on March 26, and with over 1.5 billion users around the world, it’s a safe bet that a good number of your customers have a Gmail account. AMP for Email will also be coming to Mail.Ru, Outlook.com, and Yahoo Mail in the future, according to an AMP development blog post. Additionally, several email service providers -- including Amazon and Twilio -- will be supporting AMP capability. Functionality with these service providers is especially beneficial for retailers looking to continue to take advantage of (or even begin using) email marketing analytics tools.
So, what do you think about AMP for Email? Is it something your business may consider utilizing for its email marketing and engagement needs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
