What Will Happen This Year? 5 Trends Impacting Email in 2013

5 Email Trends for the New Year

Everyone is doing predictions this time of year and I felt obliged to join in on the fun. As we begin another year, it’s important to study the trends in email so we can connect with customers in the most meaningful way.  Below are five top trends that I think will drive email strategy and innovation in the New Year.

1. Transactional email explodes. I’m not just saying this because we’re in the business of delivering transactional email. Studies show that 56% of organizations plan to increase their email budgets in 2013. Since our inception, we have watched transactional email scale at exponential rates. We started with 1,000 customers in 2009 and now we have over 70,000 – all of which rely on email to drive their business. To date, we have delivered over 79 billion emails – a number that will change dramatically by the posting of this post, and we are not stopping any time soon.
2. More email moves to the cloud. More and more companies are moving portions of their email infrastructure systems to the cloud for its flexibility, scalability and affordability. Business of all sizes find cloud based email systems easier to manage and easier to deploy, but is especially helpful to small businesses. Whether they choose a hybrid or full scale solution, organizations are finding value and cost benefit to moving some or all of their email systems to cloud based systems to create a more nimble architecture and to streamline operational costs and efficiencies.
3. Mobile needs to be wedded to email. According to eConsultancy, 88% of people check email on their mobile phones on a daily basis, but 39% of organizations don’t have a mobile strategy in place for email. Complicating that, 48% don’t know how many of their emails were opened on smartphones.  In 2013, companies need to be laser focused on mobile. Return Path’s study revealed that 63% of users would close or delete an email that was not optimized for mobile. Therefore, the health of any email program will be reliant on how responsive it is to mobile.
4. Big (email) data is mission critical. In order to deliver relevant content, you’ll need to leverage more and more data to personalize and customize communications that will drive user engagement. Use your tools to analyze behavioral information that can be used to segment and produce dynamic content. Also combine preference data and website browsing stats to deliver timely messages that will capture your user’s attention.
5. Developers dominate. According to Forbes Magazine, the number of  developers has increased 7% since 2012 and is on track to increase 30% by the year 2020. More and more companies need savvy technologists to create solutions that leverage big data and drive revenue for mobile and social channels. This is backed by the U.S. News and World Report where software developers and web developers rank in the top 7 and 9 spots.

I believe that more than anything, continued innovation is on tap for 2013 driven by bright individuals that are creating amazing technology to surprise us in the year ahead. Onward!