VerticalResponse marketing team members, Colleen and Savannah, recently attended the Marketing Sherpa Email Summit in Las Vegas. This is the second in a series of posts on their learnings from the conference.

It’s the year 2013: I, the female version of Marty McFly, am hoverboarding (one can dream, right?) my way into present day 2012 to share insider knowledge with you about email and social marketing campaigns from the future. I know you may want lotto numbers, but these tips are pretty good too… All right, I may not be from the future, but I do have tangible tactics that’ll bring you into the forefront of future email & social marketing. Where did I gather this futuristic information? Marketing Sherpa! At this year’s Marketing Sherpa Email Summit, a panelist of email & social marketing experts presented In the Year 2013: Email Marketing Technologies & Tactics of the Near Future. Now, I know 2013 isn’t that far into the future, however, technology & online habits change within a flash. The panelists discussed the ‘future buyer’ and how his or her buying habits will affect your future email & social marketing campaigns. Here are the top 5 takeaways you can start implementing now to bring your own email & social marketing campaigns back to the future:

1. Put Your Finger to the Test – Mouse (Will) Be Gone! 

As mentioned in a previous post, according to Morgan Stanley, by 2014, mobile Internet usage will soon surpass that from a desktop. And, according to the Marketing Sherpa panelists, an A/B split test sent to frequent mobile openers revealed that a mobile specific version of the email received a 64% higher clickthrough rate! With 1.08 billion smartphones currently in the world, optimizing emails to be finger-friendly (sounds bad, but means well) on a touchscreen will be vital. Give your current emails the touchscreen test and see how easy they are to navigate with just your fingertips. Is the text within your email an easy read from a miniature screen? Are your links big enough to endure man-hands? Also, are your emails rendering/downloading correctly on a smart phone? If not, find out how to properly render emails on an iPhone here.

2. Did You Check Us in? – Get Local

The use of geo-location apps such as Foursquare and check-in integrations like Facebook Places is on the rise and will continue to emerge. Using geo-location tools to reach out to customers via smartphones while they’re in the ‘hood’ will help build social buzz and drive foot traffic. Geo-location users are also twice as likely as an average online adult to share product information, coupons and discounts with their friends. How do you incorporate location-based marketing for your business? We have a webinar for that!

3. This is Real Life – Show ‘em Some Action

I don’t know about you, but the phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ just doesn’t seem to resonate when I’m looking at images of say, office supplies. However, putting your products to play has been proven to show much more substantial results. According to the panelists at Marketing Sherpa, images demonstrating products in use/action (lifestyle vs. product) have received a 63% higher clickthrough rate. Bring visions of the future to your customers – Give them a glimpse of what it might be like to have your products or service in their life – it’ll motivate them to take more action.

4. Tick Tock – Give Real-Time Cues

With the emergence of daily deals and flash sales, time is of the essence. According to the Sherpa panelists, 95% of emails are opened 2 days after they’re actually received! Including visual time cues, like a countdown timer within the body of your email will provide customers with a realistic sense of urgency. How do you implement something like this? Check out companies like Movable Ink. They offer free and paid apps ranging from countdown timers, to local maps and more. All you need to do is copy and paste their provided HTML into your email and voila, you’re a visual cue aficionado. Fancy!

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