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Essence of Email Weekly - How will coronavirus impact global retail and eCommerce?

November 6, 2020 • 13 MINUTE READ
ECOMMERCE

How will coronavirus impact global retail and eCommerce?

Coronavirus is spreading at an alarming rate around the globe, messing with the stock market and causing operational disruptions to industries from retail to travel and hospitality.
It has a critical impact on global supply chains and markets worldwide have been on a rollercoaster as a result of the economic impact it could have.
In the year where analysts expect to see an increase in media investments from marketers eager to capitalize on events like the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the outbreak could have a cooling effect and perhaps some less predictable consequences.
On the supply side, businesses are grappling with how to continue their manufacturing operations since so much of that activity stems from where the outbreak has been the most severe: China.
Factories have been closed for extended periods of time and many aren’t yet re-opened or operating at full capacity, which leaves retailers wrestling with disruptions in their production processes. Many brands are seriously concerned about their ability to supply goods to customers without major delays – if at all.

You can read additional articles on how coronavirus impacts eCommerce and retail and hopefully get an insight into how your business can deal with the current crisis situation:
FRAUD-LESS EMAIL MARKETING

BIMI: Latest and greatest in email authentication

BIMI, or Brand Indicators for Message Identification, is a new standard created to make it easier to get your logo displayed next to your message inside inboxes. Not only will BIMI help your visibility, but it’s also designed to prevent fraudulent emails and improve deliverability.
For a BIMI logo to be displayed, the sender needs to have DMARC, SPF, and DKIM set in place so that the source can be marked as trusted. The brand also needs to publish its logo in the DNS (Domain Name System) record.
BIMI is a text file that resides on your Domain Name System (DNS) and follows a specific format similar to other email authentication formats like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Once the recipient receives the email, the inbox provider locates the BIMI file to verify the message. Once authenticated, the BIMI file points the recipient’s email service to the brand logo and displays it in the inbox.
How to set up BIMI for your own brand:
1. You need additional authentication records set up for BIMI to work, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
2. You need to have access to your domain name servers to set up a new BIMI DNS entry
3. You must use an SVG file for your logo
What you gain by utilizing BIMI:
1. Brand recognition, as the emails contain your logo and your recipients can quickly recognize your messages, which also builds trust
2. Brand protection: In order to set up BIMI, you need to have set SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
3. Better deliverability, by improving authenticity and reputation
You can find additional BIMI articles on Litmus, Email on Acid, and GlockApps.
Why should you care?
Industry knowledge is power. BIMI may be brand new on the market, but considering how impactful it is both for email security and brand recognition, it is likely that it will be considered as a best practice at some point in the future.
Be an early adopter. Book a free consultation with our Email Deliverability Experts at Essence of Email and learn how to get started.
BENCHMARKS

Is my email marketing performance as good as other brands’?

Comparing yourself to others is a good thing in the email marketing industry. If you know how other companies’ emails perform on average, you have a framework for evaluating and improving your own messages.
Privy pulled out data from over 30 billion emails that had been sent through Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, and GetResponse and laid out the latest email marketing benchmarks. In addition to the raw numbers, they also added suggestions for improving the metrics that don’t meet the standards.
We will reveal a few of these suggestions and you can see the rest here:
1. Open Rate: 20.4%
The average open rate that the companies are seeing amounts to about 20%. If your average is lower than this, the main reasons might be your subject lines or sending time.
2. Click-to-Open Rates: 14.9%
Click-to-open rate (CTOR) is often confused with click-through rate (CTR), but they are different. CTOR is the percentage of people who clicked on a link in your message, out of everyone who opened the email, while the CTR is the percentage of people who clicked out of all recipients.
If your CTOR is well below the average of 15%, consider adjusting the placement and the text of your CTA button to make it more noticeable and enticing. Pay attention to segmenting your campaigns too.
3. Unsubscribe Rate: 0.19%
Once someone unsubscribes, the chances of getting them to sign up again are low.
If your unsubscribe rate is higher than the average of 0.2%, this is a sign that your subscribers aren’t happy with your emails. One of the main reasons for this is that they might not find your messages relevant or interesting. In this case, you should review your email segmentation, or consider that you might be sending too many emails.
There is no one-solution-fits-all when it comes to improving your email performance. Different audiences respond differently to the same content. It takes lots of time, tests, and experiments to find out what works and how to quickly adjust.
Take a look at the full 2020 Email Marketing Benchmarks Guide by Privy, then compare your results to the average and adjust accordingly.
Your email channel has a huge potential, so take advantage of it! At Essence of Email, we have the experts and necessary tools to skyrocket any email program. Need inspiration? See how our clients have succeeded.
EBOOK

The Future of Email in 2020 and Beyond

In their recently published eBook, Litmus asked industry experts to share their visions and predictions for how some of the most crucial elements of email marketing will change in the next decade, including email design, privacy, teams, and more.
Some of the key elements of the eBook are:
  • The ways in which email teams will change and what skills will be in high demand in the years to come
  • How email strategies will become more targeted and personalized by necessity
  • Why brands will have no choice but to make subscriber privacy a priority
  • How seamless integrations will become the crucial factor for effective email tech stacks in the future
The 18-page long eBook is packed with interesting content and is ideal for any digital marketer sending emails. You can download the eBook from their website.
For a less detailed overview, check out Litmus’ infographic – the chart highlights the five biggest predictions for where the email industry is heading in 2020 and the decade to come.
RETENTION MARKETING PLATFORMS

What’s new in companyland?

On March 5, a CRM company, Pipedrive, announced their acquisition of Mailigen – a cost-effective, easy-to-use email marketing automation solutions company based in Riga, Latvia. The new acquisition will make it easier for Pipedrive customers to access software that generates leads and nurtures customers with the ease of use that is Pipedrive’s hallmark.
Over the next few months, the companies will focus on integrating their technical platforms and organizations and will soon come to the market with a new, high-value offering for customers. “By joining forces with Pipedrive, we are combining two strong purpose-built products, providing our customers more focused and robust sales and marketing solutions. In addition, both companies have world-class technical teams and are a great cultural fit”, said Janis Rozenblats, CEO and co-founder of Mailigen.
Mailigen helps businesses acquire and build lasting relationships with customers through email, social, and mobile channels. Pipedrive, the #1 user-rated CRM software, is the first CRM platform developed from the salesperson’s point of view. The tool addresses sales professionals’ most pressing needs: speeding up prospecting and lead qualification, reducing time spent on repetitive tasks, and gaining greater visibility into sales performance.
WEBINAR

The Future of the Inbox

A webinar that belongs on the list of email marketing news is The Future of the Inbox. It will take place on March 31 and speakers from Verizon Media, Google, Litmus, and Salesforce will discuss how marketers can prepare for the future of email inboxes.
As published on the Salesforce website:
“A person’s email inbox is where life happens: promotions, invites, work collaboration, and password resets. Over the course of the decade, our relationship to email has changed—and the inbox is changing as well.
In this webinar we share how the inbox is adapting to changing customer expectations and moving towards a more dynamic experience. Learn how topics like AMP, interactive email, privacy requirements, design trends, and more are changing the inbox experience today and in the years to come.”
At Essence of Email, we think this webinar is worth listening to. So, save the date!

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