In a recent update, Apple introduced in IOS 15 a new feature called Hide My Email. According to Apple, “Hide My Email is a service that lets you keep your personal email address private whether you’re creating a new account with an app, signing up for a newsletter online, or sending an email to someone you don’t know well”. Another feature released in IOS 15 is the ability to mask your IP address and block third parties from tracking email opens or other IP data with Mail Privacy Protection.

Why Does This Matter?

An email address today is similar to a Drivers’s License or Social Security number. Emails are online identification that allows people to communicate, register/sign up for services, purchase products, and access the world of the internet. Businesses heavily rely on email to reach prospective and existing customers and conduct day-to-day business. The success of email communications is typically measured in email deliverability and open-rate metrics seen for individual and total email broadcast to your email list. What happens when open rates begin to decrease and your overall email deliverability looks to be in the tanking?

Businesses will need to start thinking about the future where privacy is heavily weighed in regards to your online communication with customers. One of my favorite blogs, HubSpot, has written a great article summarizing the impact of email marketing that can be read here.

What Is Next?

It is still a tad too early to start saying exactly what will happen next but one thing that I do know is that businesses that will continue to thrive into the future will find a way to pivot strategies to reach their people. I expect that the average person with IOS 15 will not pay for any of the add-on services from Apple but even the ones that do use the “Hide My Email” service will most likely never de-activate their “fake” email. A less known tactic that has been available for years through Google is the ability to create “fake” email addresses much like what Apple is now doing. I have personally created these emails for years but rarely do I need to go and stop email from delivering from one of them. Read more about this hidden trick in GMAIL here.

Most people rarely reach for the unsubscribe link and instead spend 30 minutes to 1 hour daily sorting through emails. Sure, email metrics will be affected by this kind of change and the future will be even more difficult to navigate with additional resources put into the hands of every online user. This isn’t a bad thing overall. Our data and ability to reach our customers are important but our customer’s privacy is also something that should be just as important.

A Few Helpful Tips

Your customers will want to hear from you if they enjoy your services so don’t change your email marketing and communication strategy right away. Here are a few tips that we are taking here at fuseStarter.

• Warm up your customer email list if you haven’t been communicating with your customers via email. At fuseStarter we send our clients a monthly email that provides helpful information about their business and also keeps them up to date with all that is going on in fuseStarter.
• Start reporting on your email marketing campaigns and begin to broaden your metrics tracked. At fuseStarter we know how our email campaigns trend with various metrics. When we see those metrics start to get outside of our tolarence we can dig in and find out what is happening on that specific campaign. Again, HubSpot’s article offers great metrics that you can be tracking in your business today that will help with the coming changes. Click here to read that article.
• Find ways to get your customers to move to alternative communication when opportunities present themselves. SMS Messaging, Online Meetings, Facebook Messenger are all newer ways to communicate with your customers that can increase your conversions and grow your rapport with prospective customers. We are not suggesting that email is unnecessary but having alternative ways to communicate with your audience is a good strategy to future proof your business.

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