Be prepared to up your email marketing game as we head into 2016. This last year also showed an incredible leap in email evolution, with the biggest game changer being the advent of wearable technology. In 2016, the challenges include (1) growing your list, (2) retaining your list, (3) understanding the psychology of mobile, (3) video, and (4) turning the tables by focusing on marketer needs.

Starting from the bottom up, the common ground challenge faced by all enterprise level marketers is to grow their email marketing list. The solution is lightboxes, but even lightboxes come with their own challenge. You’ve probably seen a lightbox before. They’re the sometimes annoying boxes that pop up before you’re able to access a page fully. It asks you to take some action, which is usually signing up to the email list. However, not all lightboxes are the same. The best was – the ones that don’t annoy or frustrate but do trigger enthusiastic conversions – are the ones that are well designed and creatively presented.

So the 2016 challenge isn’t just making sure you have a lightbox, but making sure you’re has a strong visual and branding element that acts as an invitation rather than promo or spam.

The next challenge is going to be making sure people don’t opt out your subscriber list. Ensuring you’re retaining your list means you’re going to need to think like them. Your audience is always on the go and that is only going to change in 2016 and there’s an increased demand on attention with less and less time to give out. Understanding this means creating content that is mobile friendly and (more over) why mobile is so hugely popular; it means understanding the psychology of mobile.

Accessing emails on mobile is huge, and partly because it’s also something you can quickly rifle through while in line or waiting for a meeting to start. But mobile messaging is about more than just punctuated communication or mobile-optimized communication. It’s about giving people something to engage in during that short window of time.

The answer here is video. Videos are huge on Vine and now even on Instagram. So why not take it to your email marketing campaigns. Not only is video more engaging by cultivating a more intimate connection with the reader, but it’s also a lot easier than writing out copy. Save the copy for the content that matters and toss in videos into your campaign.

That said, mobile is about more than just what your readers are doing. The supreme 2016 trend turns the attention to the sender and not just the receiver. 2016 is going to be about how you the marketer engages in an email campaign. So when it comes to mobile, mobile is going to be just as much about how you can send out email campaigns on the go and how easy it is to do that.

So as you venture in to 2016, consider your email marketing goals and your email marketing frustrations as a marketer. Your game plan should include benchmarks for each quarter that meet both goals and make the process easier for your team.