Don’t Write Off Email Just Yet

Email changed the world, but is it still relevant in today’s marketplace?

When the Internet was in its infancy, email was an amazing new way to communicate. Marketers learned early on that it was an important way to communicate with their potential audiences. And until other forms of online marketing (social media, PPC, SEO) took hold, it was still one of the most important ways to spread your message.

But where is email today? Should we be spending time attempting to reach customers through email when we have so many other tools at our disposal?

According to some experts, email still has a chance to be an important player in the online marketing world.

“We’ve got our phones in our hand when we wait in line or for a friend to meet us … and pretty much at all other times. It’s a constant opportunity for email to connect with a subscriber,” Curt Keller, CEO of Benchmark Email, told BizReport. “You’re no longer bound to when an email subscriber may be at their desk. You can easily check numerous email accounts at once, click to see YouTube videos and your social networks all from a link within your email.”

Although email may no longer be the main marketing platform online, it is most likely still the main reason people use the Internet.

According to Exact Target, there are currently 3.2 billion email accounts in the world, 95 percent of online consumers use email and 91 percent check their email at least once a day.

But what can marketers do to ensure that email still remains a viable medium to promote their brands? The first is to make sure you are targeting your campaigns — a targeted email sent to a non-targeted list can get you a whole lot of unsubscribes. It is also important to make sure to optimize your email for any device your reader may be on, include mobile, desktop or tablet. Readers will no longer put up with a broken link or un-optimized message.

Users seem to prefer promotional messages sent to their emails far more than through social media. And all messages – including promotional – have a 66 percent open rate on mobile devices.

So while it may seem that email is no longer relevant, marketers need to still consider it an important possibility when it comes to reaching their customers.