We all want to know if the pandemic and lockdowns have damaged email marketing. After all, we need to be fully aware how it has affected our businesses.
The first thing to concern us is whether we should change our methods. Most reports suggest that subscribers’ behaviour was modified to cope with each crisis, and continued to change, depending on how the pandemic, and various government decisions, affected them personally.
One common phrase that has come to be accepted is that there is a ‘new normal’. It is, unfortunately, misleading. About the only thing we can describe as a ‘new normal’ of email marketing is constant change; what works this month is unlikely to perform similarly next month. We go from lockdown to pious hopes of sudden social responsibility in the population. Now we are told that we will have to find new ways of living with Covid.
It is essential to work out responses to the specific circumstances at a particular time. In the early stages of the pandemic, putting words like community in a Subject Line almost guaranteed the email 
would be opened. When restrictions were lifted, subscribers looked for something more positive. All this suggests we have to keep up with what they look for.
We need to use our returns from past email marketing campaigns in a significantly different way to how we’ve used them before. We should still stick with the best practices we’ve learned as they have worked for us, hence the title of best, but we should interpret the results in a way that suits each new circumstance. Available in our data is precise information as to the likely response of your subscribers to the next disruption. All you have to do is work it out what it is.
You already have a baseline; the pre-pandemic data. How things have moved on during the lockdowns is the next thing to establish, together with how things changed once the requirements were eased. We were told we should go back to work and then that we should remain at home. It was a pain at the time, but has rewarded us with vital information.
When the next crisis occurs, and although I’m not one for predictions, that one is pretty secure, you will have a model to follow, based on returns and data. The triggers are there in your returns.
Search your data as it will predict. What was the response of your subscribers to the first lockdown? Was the change instant or was there a delay? Was there one particular segmented email marketing list that changed first? These are the indicators for how you should alter your tactics in the event of a particular crisis.
It is, in effect, another layer to go through at the start of an email marketing campaign. Giving your data, you will be ready to respond immediately to any new phenomena that appear with a degree of confidence. Your data defines the style, content, and even the Subject Line, of your next email marketing campaign.
