#InspiredMarketing Predictions: Bryan Wade, @ExactTarget

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing predictions on the future of marketing from 25 industry thought leaders. These predictions have been compiled in our new whitepaper, Inspired Marketing Predictions for 2013. Today, ExactTarget’s own Bryan Wade shares his thoughts.

The Year of the First Impression

When it comes to email, 2013 will be all about making that first impression of the email count, reaching your readers wherever they are, and making sure your message gets read. The changing landscape for where and how emails are being viewed opens the door for new innovations in email. Three things in particular will impact email marketing in 2013:

1. Mobile will become the platform of choice for email.
Handheld devices will overtake the PC screen as the place where consumers read emails first, making mobile rendering the most pressing issue email marketers face. Marketers must adapt—literally—with adaptive HTML design using responsive designs. The @Media rules built into HTML to detect handheld devices versus C screens will make their way into the mainstream email design standards. New technologies are making links device-aware (thus allowing marketers to redirect to a mobile app instead of the web), causing link redirects to be smarter and more mobile-aware.

2. Inbox organizers will change subscribers’ view of email.
Marketed to consumers as time savers and productivity tools, inbox organizers will become increasingly popular in 2013 as consumers realize their benefit for organizing and managing the inbox. Both ISP based-organizers (e.g., Gmail and Yahoo!) and client-based organizers (e.g., Outlook) automatically organize and display content based on rules set up by the consumer—essentially changing the way consumers view emails in their inbox. This technology could be a game-changer in the way marketers think about inbox preview and rendering.

3. Testing will become the new send wizard.
In 2013, marketers will increasingly allow data to drive their email strategy through the use of testing. Marketers will devote more time to testing subject lines, images, content areas, or even entire email layouts to see what drives a higher ROI. Sophisticated marketers will not only test the emails themselves, but they will also test which data segments perform best. Testing tools are so easy to use that every email send will become a test—and today’s winner will become the baseline for tomorrow’s test. Marketers will gain greater insight into winning subject lines, content, and layouts—including important information about seasonality or how a campaign may lose effectiveness over time.

Bryan Wade
Vice President, Email Products
ExactTarget
www.exacttarget.com
@Bryan_Wade

Bryan Wade is a proven leader with an entrepreneurial spirit, a drive to build products that deliver strong ROI, and over a decade of experience. Bryan believes that meeting with at least one customer every day is the key to keeping perspective and driving his team to always think off the customer first. Software built with the marketer in mind is the key tenant and foundation of how he leads his technology organization. Bryan is married and a proud father of two. He coaches both of his kids’ basketball teams and takes his college basketball seriously #benchmob.