People have been talking about the death of email for years now, and yet we continue to find more and more uses for it.
Email marketing is still the most economical and the most powerful marketing tool for a majority of businesses. Marketers consistently ranked email as the single most effective tactic for awareness, acquisition, conversion, and retention.
The more we try to find a better alternative to email, the more we realize that we already have the solution that just needs to be used better….email is still relevant, it’s just a matter of how you’re using it.
Maintaining Email’s Relevance:
Why train people to be productive with email rather that moving to something better already?
Over 205 million emails are sent every day and the number is only growing. If email is dead, why are people still using it?
It is true that some tools and apps can displace some of the functions of the email, but an email is a multifunctional tool; you don’t just use it to communicate; you use it to market, perform project management functions, provide sales support, approach new leads, fix appointments, design your calendar, collaborate with the team and so much more.
With so many benefits, then why is it that people doubt the capabilities of their email?
The problem is with the way we use email rather than the email itself.
Did you know that 58% of adults check their emails the first thing in the morning? Like it or not, email has seeped into our very lives and has become an integral part of it. Given these facts, we can safely assume that email is here to stay.
Why won’t text message work just as well for me?
Imagine this, the moment you walk into a store and several salespersons start tailing you and keep asking you to try various products. How would you feel? Annoyed, I’m guessing. Why? Because they are not letting you shop in peace and are stepping into your space.
Facebook, texts, and Whatsapp are considered private spaces, meant only for friends, colleagues, and family. While email maintains a careful professional distance, that is not the case with other means of communication.
Email is not so personal that you end up annoying people nor is it so distant that you end up getting ignored – it is your best bet.
Anyone who has an email account can send an email to any one of the billion active email addresses, be it on Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, or Outlook. Interoperability is one of the greatest features of email which is hard to find in any other instant messaging apps. For example, you can’t use the Facebook messenger to tweet someone, can you?!
Aren’t there better, newer methods to use for marketing than email blasts?
Sure, there are newer methods to market, but email’s advantages such as immediacy, simplicity, and familiarity almost always outweigh the advantages of other methods.
For instance, you might think, I could just conduct a webinar to generate leads why bother to do email marketing.
Here are a few reasons why:
- Attending a webinar requires effort from your prospect while opening an email and reading an email is an extremely simple task.
- Email is more immediate. The gap between registering for a webinar and actually attending is enough time for a prospect to change their minds.
- Putting together a webinar is relatively more expensive and time-consuming.
- If you don’t have an authority online, your webinar won’t have the desired effect, which is not the case with email.
Email marketing helps you reach out to a large number of prospects at the rate of a few pennies per message. In the age where startups are trying hard to flourish with limited budgets, this is a cost effective solution.
Additionally, email is one of the most efficient ways of collecting customer feedback. Ask marketers the importance of a feedback and they will tell you that it’s the crux of every marketing strategy there ever has been.
Imagine sending a customer feedback survey through a Facebook messenger, Whatsapp or any other channel. Chances are, customers would see it as an intrusion of their private space. Since, email provides a healthy balance between professional and personal space, sending surveys via email can provide genuine customer feedback insights.
Will email serve me well even in this mobile era?
In the age of mobiles, email marketing is a brilliant strategy.
Here’s why – sending email newsletters is the easiest way to enter into the mobile space of the customer. Like I said before, people will not welcome the idea of you sending them Facebook messages or text messages because it is their personal space, and that limits the opportunities to enter their mobile realm, but with email, you can easily and efficiently do that.
For instance, using email marketing for mobiles is better than using SMS marketing.
Here’s why:
- Texting might cost customers sometimes, while email is completely free.
- Emails have more space to craft a compelling marketing message compared to texts.
- Emails are available on all devices, unlike texts.
A few other important reasons why email is here to stay:
- Email is sort of the social security number for your online life. Enter any website or online account your email id is the key checkpoint for the website to identify you.
- Over the years, email has stayed pretty stable while many other communication tools wade in and wade out, such as the Windows live messenger.
- It is relatively more resistant to hacking than other platforms. There have been more cases of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter accounts being hacked as compared to emails.
Send better emails
The problem lies in the way we use email. Equipped with the right tools and extensions, email is more powerful than any other communication tool that has ever existed on the internet.
Instead of trying to find a better alternative for email, we should focus on learning how to use email better.