We're Not Ready To Live In A Post-Email World Yet

Email is ubiquitous, and younger generations are just as hooked on the marketing channel, according to a study released this week by SendGrid.

The Denver-based email company, which also filed for an IPO this week, partnered with Egg Strategy to poll 1,200 consumers under the age of 50 on their messaging use. The Future of Digital Communications Report surveyed members of the Gen Z (ages 13-21), Millennial (ages 22-34), and Gen X (ages 35-50) generations to inquire about their communication habits and use of email.

The SendGrid study suggests email isn’t going away anytime soon, because it’s a staple form of communication for younger generations. Email is an easy win for marketers, but it’s also a consistently easy win. In fact, consumers don’t expect to give up their email any time soon. A majority of respondents expected their email use to increase or stay the same over the next five years.

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“As marketers, we’ve all seen the headlines about email’s pending death, however, there is no doubt that email is entrenched in people’s everyday lives,” says Scott Heimes, CMO at SendGrid. “Specifically, 85% of Gen Z consumers use email at least monthly. This number is only expected to grow over the next few years as Gen Z expects to increase their email usage the most of all generations. Gen Z and Millennials actively prefer the use of email over all digital and physical promotional channels studied as the direct form of communication when it comes to engaging with brands.” 

Email is also a unique channel for marketers because when it comes to brand engagement, consumers overwhelmingly prefer to interact with B2C companies via email. Across all age groups, three-quarters of respondents selected email as their favorite communication channel to engage with their favorite brands.

“The benefit of email is that, it not only allows consumers to share deals or advertisements with their friends and family but it’s also easy to search and organize,” says Heimes. “Brands that tailor emails to the wants and needs of its target market increase the chances of consumers buying that product or service or engaging with that email. Our research showed that 74% of people choose email over other communication channels as their preferred method for companies or brands to interact with them which creates a unique opportunity for brands.”

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