Will email marketing exist in 5 years?
- Updated on: 2017-09-02
- Read original article here
Adobe Campaign’s third annual consumer email surveydecreased 27 percent from last year. If you work in marketing, chances are good that you've heard all the buzz about Adobe Campaign’s third annual consumer email survey . It's a fantastic collection of insights into consumer habits in the inbox, but some industry experts are honing in on a single piece of data that doesn't seem promising for email marketing as a channel: According to Adobe's findings, the overall number of hours consumers spend on email each day
First of all, that particular statistic is just one figure in a massive, comprehensive report. And while yes, there has been a downturn in people checking email overall, everyone's favorite demographic to name-drop (millennials) love it more than ever. According to the report, more than half of 18-24 year olds still check their email while in bed in the morning, and 43% of millennials aged 25-34 admit to doing the same.
The fact of the matter is that despite all the rapidly shifting trends in tech, email remains a cornerstone for many channels: You need an email address to even sign up for most services, including social media accounts. Because of its eminence in the digital space, because it continues to drive incredible ROI for businesses, and because it remains a channel consumers wantto use to hear from brands, we don’t believe email is losing momentum at all.
Besides, the whole "email is dead" spiel certainly isn't new. Every time a new report comes out or shiny new technologies emerge, media hype leads to ominous “email is dead” headlines…. and again and again, email either emerges triumphant or plays really, really well with whatever was supposed to bring about its demise.
They do still make for great comedy, though… When email first started becoming a go-to communication method, something else came with it: spam. Everyone started getting inundated with Viagra ads and million-dollar offers from Nigerian princes, and people thought the inbox would be forever lost. But despite the fact that spammers now send around 100 billion unwanted emails, modern spam filters mean we rarely (if ever) see them. They do still make for great comedy, though…
a thorn in AOL’s side Everyone who was online in the late 90s and early 2000s remembers the widespread love affair people had with AIM. But it flamed out as quickly as it rose to popularity. Turns out, AIM was actually a thorn in AOL’s side : It didn’t actually make them any money, and they never intended for it to get so popular. So the company didn’t put any effort into maintaining or developing its massive presence, and it eventually fell by the wayside.
Even though people are most definitely attached to their phones, this one didn’t take off like people expected, either. The reason: Texting is an extremely personal communication platform that signals intimacy, so while it works for some brands, SMS marketing often comes across as too intrusive.
support one another This one made for a huge scare in the email marketing world: The insane popularity of social media must mean a certain death for email, right? Wrong. The two coexist quite harmoniously and actually support one another in some interesting ways.
Slack Don’t get us wrong – we’re all about Slack here at Emma. Our staffers use it on the daily for quick messages and all-too-important GIF communications. But products like Slack don’t replace email as a channel: They just discourage us from sending it in situations where it’s the wrong medium, like when you’re figuring out lunch plans or asking someone if they can stop by your desk for a quick chat. Collaboration apps like Slack were built for internal communications and don’t do much good when it comes to public-facing marketing messages.
