Digital Strategy: 5 Reasons Email Marketing Isn’t Dead
When it comes to creating a digital strategy, there are a number of different areas of focus to consider including email. As new digital tools — like Twitter and Facebook — vie for our attention, some have proclaimed the death of email. However, that isn’t the case.
Depending on your goals, email can still be a successful component of your digital strategy and here are five reasons why:
1. Email Remains the Primary Method of Communication
Ask any professional today and they’ll tell you that they have an email address. Leaving email behind to adopt a new system is an unnecessary expense that many businesses aren’t prepared to absorb. Even if they wanted to, many companies can’t abandon email due to interactions with customers, vendors, employees and investors—all of whom have email accounts.
2. Email Remains a Necessary Component of Social Media
Many of those who argue that email is dead, cite social media as its killer. However, every social media account from Twitter to Google+ has one thing in common — you are required to enter an email address at registration. Email isn’t going away any time soon because it still has the power to help connect the dots among websites, in-person interactions, social media and other methods of communications.
3. Email is Universal
While the early adapters might be ready to move on from email, the majority of people are still using it. According to email marketing provider Visiblegains, an average of 3,392,948 emails were sent every second in 2010. In 2011, there were estimated to be over 2,900,000,000 email accounts, compared to 750,000,000 Facebook accounts.
4. Email Presents Communication Opportunities for Businesses
Unlike many other communication methods, email is scalable. Regardless of how many potential customers you have — six or 60,000 — you can still reach them using email. In many cases, email marketing is also a more manageable expense than other scalable communication methods, such as direct marketing.
5. Email Notifications Remain Popular (Despite Spam)
Opponents of email sometimes suggest that spam and bursting email inboxes will be the death of email, however the popularity of daily deal sites such as Groupon and Living Social — delivered by email — suggest that users appreciate the simplicity of having messages delivered to their inbox.
SOUND OFF: Does your company use email as part of your digital strategy? What reasons have you found to support that email is alive and well?
