With email becoming more and more accessible through the use of smartphones, email marketing has become a vital part of communicating with potential customers. But this complicates things. Via mobile people receive messaging all the time, and getting them to engage with mailers can be challenging.

In response, we are now seeing advertisers use email marketing more efficiently and creatively, seriously considering what the receiver would appreciate.  They are considering the fact that email should be a seamless process of interaction - as seamless as instant messaging, taking an Instagram pic, or downloading an app.

Below are a couple of examples of marketers doing this successfully:

Nike+ uses simple but creative execution

Nike sent the following email as part of a Nike+ campaign.

They managed to create a mailer which works well on both a desktop and mobile screen, due to its simplicity and design. Big buttons and short copy means this email execution doesn’t limit itself to a particular device or space, but embraces the idea of customers in a mobile world. View the mailer in a larger format.

Brooks Brothers pushes the boundaries

Visual aesthetics are increasingly being embraced by marketers. This particular example breaks the rules of what would traditionally be considered ‘best practice’. The mailer below was for Brooks Brothers, where they displayed their range of polo shirts in a wide range of colours.

In the above mailer, elements that would usually be considered in good user experience (UX) like relevant call to action buttons, link options and information, have been replaced with a visual aesthetic to grab the reader’s attention. The scrolling mechanism engages users and keeps them moving down for more.  The mailer is so aesthetically interesting I found myself scrolling up and down a couple of times!

Pushing email into social and gamification

Some email marketers have also made efforts to create social interaction via email. In the example from Style Campaign below, you can see how they’ve used hashtags to render Twitter conversations directly into emails on opening through the use of the Twitter API, as part of a larger email game framework. Tweets are automatically updated and users can view Twitter conversations without being signed into Twitter.

On top of this, it’s possible to integrate personalised design and other features, like including users’ game scores next to their tweets.  This gamification of a user’s inbox is a great example of how people are recognizing that email is becoming a social and live space. Read more about this from Style Campaign

The email space is changing. People aren’t confined by physical space or environment, and marketers need to seriously consider email as a social platform for continuous communication. Have you come across any innovative mailers? Share them with us.