How AI Is Revolutionizing Email Marketing: Strategies and Benefits

51% of marketers use AI tools to optimize content, from email campaigns to search engine optimization.

Email marketing has always been one of the best channels to build relationships with customers. But the earlier approach to email marketing is no longer efficient. Customers now want personalized emails that feel curated for them. 

And that’s where AI in email marketing comes into play. AI is transforming the way email marketing operates. It tells marketers at what time an email should be sent to a particular customer and with what message. It provides these insights based on customer behavior analysis. 

Let us explore the strategies powered by AI and the benefits of using AI in email marketing. 

Strategies Powered by AI in Email Marketing

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AI is making email marketing more effective and efficient. AI is used to build systems that yield the best results. Let us look at these strategies in depth:

1. Personalized email campaigns with AI

Before the era of AI, personalization meant adding the first name of the person before any mail was sent. But with AI, personalization goes beyond adding a name. AI creates emails based on customer behavior analysis, browsing history, and purchase patterns. AI can craft content that feels personal to every customer. 

Here’s how businesses are applying it:

• Dynamic content blocks

Marketers use AI tools to change content within an email based on customer preferences. For example, a sports brand can recommend sports shoes to one customer and gym shoes to another in the same campaign. 

• Product recommendations

Just like e-commerce brands use AI to recommend personalized products to users on their website, AI can recommend products in emails. If you bought a phone, the next email might be showcasing accessories.

• Interest-based subject lines

AI can test multiple subject lines and pick one that is most likely to get a response based on the customer profile. 

• Behavioral triggers

There are certain behavioral triggers, like cart abandonment, signing up for a webinar, or someone asking for a product launch. AI keeps track of these behavioral triggers and accordingly sends emails in real-time.  

2. Predictive analytics for better targeting and segmentation

The most remarkable feature of AI is how it analyzes a huge amount of data and gives insights accordingly. AI uses past data to predict how a customer is likely to behave next. 

Practical uses include: 

• Identifying high-value customers

AI segments your customers into groups based on the purchases they made or the amount of money they have spent on your products. For example, AI can segment customers into premium buyers or regular buyers and plan the marketing strategies accordingly. 

• Predicting churn

AI keeps track of the email open rates and interactions. For example, a customer who hasn’t interacted lately can be presented with a personalized offer.

• Optimal send times

AI calculates when each customer is more likely to open and engage with your email so that your emails don’t get buried in the inbox.

• Purchase predictions

You can understand this better with an example. Suppose a person buys pet food every month around the 28th to 30th. You can use email marketing to remind them before their stock runs out.  

3. Automated workflows for smarter campaign execution

AI creates intelligent and adaptive campaigns. It gives automated responses to every reaction from customers. Consider the following examples:

• Welcome series emails

You can send new subscribers a sequence of emails introducing your brand, product, testimonials, and values.

• Lead nurturing

AI can send emails containing informational content, new product launches, or discounted offers based on how customers react to your emails.  

• Re-engagement campaigns

AI tracks customers who stop opening your emails and creates personalized messages to bring them back.  

This level of automation ensures your emails are relevant and aligned with the customer's actions. 

4. Content creation using AI tools

Marketers use AI to create subject line content and full-fledged email drafts. It creates email sequences for various campaigns as well. 

• AI copy assistants 

Tools like Jasper or Copy.ai help marketers create engaging copy.

• AI design recommendations 

AI platforms suggest layouts and color schemes to improve click-through rates.

• Language adaptation

AI can translate and create content for global audiences in their specific language.

• Voice integration 

Brands are even experimenting with AI voice API to complement email campaigns with voice-enabled content. For example, an email promoting a podcast may include a play button that uses an AI voice to give a gist of the episode.

Benefits of Using AI in Email Marketing

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Let’s now uncover the key benefits that AI brings to modern email marketing strategies.

1. Higher engagement through relevant and timely communication

We receive hundreds of emails every day. But every person has a specific time to open emails. Most of them don’t open emails as soon as they receive them. Therefore, sending emails at the time a recipient opens an email can improve the open rate. That way, the first email to land as soon as they open their mail will be yours.

For example, a travel company can send destination offers based on browsing history. Customers who search for beach vacations are offered sunny gateway offers, and those who search for something adventurous are offered trek promotions. 

• Sending emails at personalized times improves the open rates.
• Dynamic content makes emails feel customized.
• Marketers use relevant product recommendations to encourage customers to click.
• Marketers use AI-powered subject lines to significantly improve open rates.
• Trigger-based campaigns deliver messages when customers are most interested in a product.

2. Improved conversion rate with data-driven decisions

AI transforms raw data into actionable insights, which drives higher sales. 

For example, a coach can create an email marketing strategy for its coaching program that sends personalized reminders, motivational emails, and curated content based on learners’ progress.   

• Predictive analytics spots purchase patterns and opportunities.
• Marketers use personalized offers to increase the chances of checkout. For example, consider a skincare brand recommending a moisturizer to a 25-year-old working professional who travels daily through heavy traffic. She has dry skin with pimples. The brand pairs product recommendations with testimonials. She buys the product because she finds exactly what she was looking for amid the noise.
• Marketers use optimized CTAs (calls-to-action) to guide customers toward conversions. For example, instead of using ‘buy now’, use ‘ready for pimple-free skin’.
• If someone is interested in buying premium products, only then will they receive updates about new product launches or other premium services. And this is achieved through smarter segmentation.

3. Time and cost savings for marketing teams

AI analyzes data within seconds and generates actionable insights through it, which saves time and transitions a team’s focus to more important matters.

For example, consider a SaaS company having a marketing team that is busy creating personalized email campaigns and not planning the next marketing campaign. Using AI together with the best free email marketing platforms, these processes can be automated, so teams can focus on other important tasks. 

• AI automates workflows and reduces manual work.
• AI handles segmentation and targeting at scale.
• Marketers use content generation tools to cut writing and design time.
• AI predictive analytics reduces wasted effort on ineffective campaigns.
• Marketing teams can run more campaigns without increasing the headcount.

4. Future-proofing email marketing

AI is making email marketing better today, and in the near future, it will completely transform how this industry works. 

For example, a retail chain can start experimenting with AI voice-enabled newsletters. Subscribers can “listen” to the brand’s weekly style tips through embedded audio.

• Customer expectations keep growing. You can deliver mesmerizing experiences with AI to gain a competitive edge.
• The integration of AI voice APIs opens doors for multi-sensory campaigns. Imagine emails where customers can listen to personalized messages instead of just reading them.
• Businesses store data continuously, but they must convert it into meaningful insights to make it useful. Marketers use AI to analyze data quickly and derive meaningful insights that increase conversion rates.
• AI handles daily repetitive tasks, so you can save time and focus your creative energy on other crucial work.

The Next Chapter: AI-Driven Growth in Email Marketing

AI in email marketing is helpful for businesses that want to grow and establish themselves as an authority. 

The core benefits of using AI in email marketing are:

• It helps with higher engagement.
• The conversion rates also improve.
• It saves time through automated workflows. 

Looking ahead, the future of email marketing with AI will be characterized by innovations, such as AI voice-based explanatory audios and maybe videos in emails. 

If you are a marketer or business owner, now is the time to embrace these shifts and future-proof your business. And if you’re confused where to start, having the right guidance can make all the difference.

Want to learn directly from experienced professionals who’ve scaled successful marketing campaigns with AI? 

Connect to an expert mentor today who can help you take your email marketing skills and your career to the next level.