4 ways the Smartwatch will impact email marketers in 2016

Email marketing is still highly effective, but the smartwatch brings with it a new challenge for marketing strategists

I've recently upgraded my watch to a Sony Smartwatch 3, but the Smartwatch 2, depicted below, is often cited by technology bloggers as being one of the devices that kicked off the wearables trend in a big way back in 2013. Life with a smartwatch isn't as difficult to get used to as I thought it might be, instead adding a lot of value to my day in ways I could never have imagined. As a copywriter I've penned many an email for many a marketing campaign, so the way the smartwatch began to change my behaviour as a consumer was of particular interest to me.

The smart watch will impact email marketers

I seldom read full emails or messages on my smartwatch (possible though it is with plain text versions - more on this in a moment), but it does act as a very nifty buffer between me and my phone, allowing me to glance at my wrist whenever an email pops through to see who it's from, what it's about and whether or not it's worth my time. With a swift swipe I can mark it as read or delete it, which means that if the smartwatch does take off (and the new Apple Watch has all but sealed the deal here), email marketers will have a potentially unwelcome challenge on their hands.

The Apple Watch will in all likelihood herald a new age of wearable technology. One look at the how the iPhone kick-started the smartphone revolution and it's hard to disagree, particularly when you've experienced the form, function and sheer convenience of a smartwatch first hand. If you buy anything other than an Apple Watch, the likelihood is that you'll be using Android's rival operating system, Android Wear, which, after its latest update, has won over its critics and become the best of the bunch, for now.
Regardless of which smartwatch dominates the market, here are just 4 ways they're likely to change the way digital marketers think about their email campaigns in the coming year.

Short content will rule

While the smartwatch can already pack some serious punch when it comes to features and usability, tapping on links and browsing web content is a long way off and will probably never be considered practical. So it's important that the content you deliver provides immediate value and a clear indication of what's next. Long form content will most likely get discarded, marked as read and left to gather dust in a user's inbox if they're skimming through their emails while waiting to hop on a train. Make it short, pithy and engaging. Not always easy but always worth the effort.

Plain text will make a surprising comeback

Just because your subject, pre-header and opening message need to be short and concise for viewing on a smartwatch, doesn't mean that you have to dumb your emails down and put creativity back in its box. Plain text versions of emails are still best practice, and they're about to come back in a huge way thanks to wearable tech. Currently all smartwatches, to my knowledge, display plain text alternatives of your emails where possible. This means that pretty images and media content aren't going to make it through to your audience - at least not at the smartwatch 'buffer' stage. So make sure your plain text alternatives are just that - plain text and to the point - and you might just earn some screen time on a user's phone if they deem it relevant enough to reach into their pocket and take a closer look.
Make your emails too 'content rich' without a plain text alternative, and you risk zero engagement and a one way swipe to the junk folder.

Open rates will likely decline, but don't panic!

If the Apple Watch takes off and smartwatches become the new smartphone, open rates are going to take a hit. The problem is, as email marketers we might not know why. The previous two points give some obvious rationale behind the decline of open rates - we're going to have to get through what is essentially an additional 'checkpoint' before we get some serious screen time from the user - but it goes deeper than that. Most email clients tend to track opens with images, and because the smartwatch will only show HTML emails in their plain text alternative, tracking becomes a bit of a problem. Someone could read and digest your content without every 'opening' the email on their phone or computer. Combine that with the fact that you can't tap links or engage with content in any meaningful way on your wrist, and marketers have a real brainteaser on their hands.

So what's the answer? "Visit website | view on your phone" is a start...

We've all seen that at the top of our emails. If an email doesn't render properly in Outlook or Thunderbird or any email client the user happens to be reading on, there's almost always the option to ‘view online’ at the top somewhere. If smartwatches become as ubiquitous as smartphones, then 'view on your phone’ could be the next big thing. If it's something that engages the user they would simply click the link to make it load in their mobile's browser - sort of a rudimentary bookmark to remind themselves to read it later. Either that or some more refined bookmarking system will take hold, perhaps making way for a new wave of apps that filter emails from your watch and queue them up for viewing on your phone at more convenient times.
If smartphones changed the rules for email, then smartwatches will change the game entirely. Watch this space.

Thanks to Darren Thackeray for sharing his advice and opinions in this post. Darren is a digital marketing copywriter at Yell. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.