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Interactive “next-gen” emails coming soon to Salesforce

Interactive “next-gen” emails coming soon to Salesforce

Last month it was announced that Salesforce is acquiring the email startup company Rebel. Rebel is an email platform that allows businesses to create interactive, next-gen emails that greatly enhances their direct marketing services. What is an interactive email? Recipients of interactive emails can shop, play interactive games, write reviews and more, all directly within the email. This takes email marketing to a different level, and explains why Rebel billed themselves as “email that doesn’t play by the rules”

Specifics on the acquisition haven’t yet been released, and most importantly, we aren’t sure when the Rebel email features will be available for use in Salesforce. What we do know is that this addition will be integrated into the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, significantly enhancing any B2C marketing efforts for anyone using Salesforce.

Email marketing is growing

Ask any experienced marketer and they will tell you the simple truth, that the more your prospects or customers engage with your content, the more likely they are to buy. And the humble email could definitely use a little more pizzaz to compete with all of the other interactive media we see nowadays.

Suprisingly, email marketing has been growing of late. According to Salesforce’s ‘State of Marketing’ report, email marketing has increased by 106% in the last 2 years, as marketers are testing new channels in conjunction with proven ones to find combinations that work best for their consumers. Which is what Rebel is all about, getting many different channels, such as video, websites, and mobile shops, all aligned to create a more immersive marketing experience.

Currently, Marketing Cloud is Saleforce’s smallest division, bringing in  It $452 million in revenues last quarter. This puts marketing well behind revenues for Sales Cloud ($1 billion), Service Cloud ($892 million) and Salesforce Platform ($712 million). While marketing doesn’t seem to be the primary focus of Salesforce’s efforts, they are certainly committed to being a revolutionary platform, and one that could potentially lead the way in whatever they do. Rebel emails are another piece of the puzzle, and should be a nice addition to the platform.

 

The outlook for the future

Currently, Rebel has pretty much shut down their website as the transition looks to be underway.

Prior to the acquisition, Rebel featured 4 main products:

  • Rebel Shop: which allows users to browse and purchase items directly from an email
  • Rebel Mail: which puts many standard web functions, such as quizzes, directly into emails
  • Rebel Actionable API: which allows developers to create an email entirely in JSON, making it a platform for app type functionality, such as booking appointments.
  • Rebel Lite API: similar to above, but as a lighter version, with reduced analytics and functions.

However, there is a good chance Salesforce will change all of this as they integrate it into the Marketing Cloud

No matter how Salesforce deploys the Rebel features and API’s, one thing is for sure, those next-gen emails, with super cool interactive features, will soon be available on a Salesforce org near you.

 

-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team