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The Truth About Email Marketing's Future
by Loren McDonald, Thursday, December 5, 2013 12:49 PM
In a 2011 Email Insider, (“Teens: OMG. Email is for Old People”), I predicted,
"Email use will evolve as people move through different stages in their lives and as more emerging communication channels move into the mainstream." I still believe email will not die anytime
soon. However, some uses might fade as user demographics change and as marketers and consumers adopt other channels, especially mobile apps. 'Email' is Not the Same As 'Email
Marketing' Email for friends-and-family communication is going the way of fax messaging. It's not dead, but it's no longer the "go-to" channel. Observers usually say young people
are giving email the big middle finger. However, I rarely rely on email for personal communication, and I'm old enough to remember watching JFK's funeral on live TV. I use my smartphone to
text or send direct messages on Facebook and Twitter, giving me a real-time conversation when I can't or don't want to talk. I will, however, forward a commercial email or news story to my wife or
college-age daughter. In this context, email is declining slowly. But, like the fax machine, it won't die; it will just evolve to a niche use. One caveat as I survey the 30,000+ email
messages in my work inbox: Email will remain the most popular medium for work-related communication for a long time. Does 'Email Marketing' Have a Different Future? When you
analyze commercial email according to its uses, you can see where it could face competition. Before I delve into that, let me explain a key concept in email marketing's future: the
"addressable audience." Regardless of a competing channel's popularity, marketers must be able to deliver a comparable or replacement message to an individual. This is where many channels fall
short. Brand marketers, let me ask you some questions:
- For what percentage of your customer database do you have permission-based email addresses?
- For what percentage
do you have mobile phone numbers and permission to text? How many Twitter handles do you have, and how many follow you? What percentage of your database has liked your Facebook page?
- If you
have a mobile app, what percentage of your database has downloaded it and authorized push notifications?
For these alternative channels to gain messaging mindshare, they must achieve
mass adoption, allowing marketers to reach customers and prospects at a comparable rate and cost as email.
Mobile Apps + Push Notifications: Email's Most Likely Competitor? I'm
bullish on mobile apps and push notifications for their potential ability to replace some email marketing messages. It probably will happen with app-centric brands whose primary relationship
is through the app, not the email address. That said, one client, a leading mobile app, continues to increase its email volume dramatically every year. Here are three predictions:
1. Newsletters: Content-focused newsletters will remain popular and relevant, especially for B2B companies and publishers. B2B marketers can distribute multiple articles within a single
newsletter, and publishers can monetize these emails through ads and sponsorships.
2. Broadcast/promotional messages: Most consumers will prefer email for messages that include several
offers or kinds of content. Will mobile app users want their smartphones to ping them all day long whenever a message arrives and then have to click again to view it? For non-timely messages, I doubt
it.
3. Transactional/triggered messages: These are email's primary challengers, especially push notifications for bulletin-style messages such as flight delays, flash sales, breaking
news headlines and order confirmations linked to in-app landing pages. This transition won't happen overnight, because mobile apps must overcome several barriers to reach email's universal
utility: Customers have to find, download and open them (only about 25% of mobile apps get used more than once), then agree to accept notifications and be willing to receive potentially dozens of them
daily on their smartphones. What do you think? Could any existing channel replace messages that are email's domain today? Do you agree with my assertion that mobile apps may hold the greatest
promise? Let me know in the comments. Until next time, take it up a notch!