Will e-mail marketing go away in 2012 (or ever)?

I used to hear a lot about that, but now that Social Media is highly integrated with services like Constant Contact, I believe it is here to stay until something better takes its place.

The ability to be face front with subscribers and grow your contact list via these avenues is to important an asset to ignore. Everytime I create a newsletter it gets shared on all my SoMe accounts and followers are directed back to my newsletter and can subscribe. Through SoMe you capture an audience for your subscriber list never accessible before - from all over the world! And adding a Join my mailing list Button on your website adds another great source.

I think its not so much about whether email marketing is going away so much as the concern should be whether it is being used to its full capacity for maximum ROI.

I don't think email marketing will ever go away. The main reason is, as social networks are the biggest thing, people sometimes create multiple accounts, or outgrow them (Myspace), but email is the standard that everyone uses. You even need one to sign up for all the popular social networks as well as to conduct/manage your business and expenses online. Apart from that, people rarely change email accounts, so I think it's safe to say that email marketing will go away. I DO feel it should be refined so as not to be as spammy, though.

Eventually, some service or new way of thinking will appear that changes the game. But similar to the answers before me, I don't see this happening anytime soon. When I first started, sending bulk emails consisted of cutting/pasting names from excel into outlook. In 1998 we used our first 3rd party service for an obscene monthly fee. Since then, many things have changed with technology, but the fundamentals of reaching out to people and getting them to either click or read something remains the same. And it's incredibly cheap for the system.

For our retail clients, there is nothing more effective in generating online sales that via the good ol' email newsletter. Think of a good campaign, throw in a couple of appealing graphics and a catchy subject line and you can tweak, modify and test your way to ROI whilst avoiding the SPAM gremlins.

Is there an entity that could change the email marketing landscape overnight? Absolutely..it's Facebook, but...

What's interesting to me is that Facebook removed the ability to update fans (or send them private emails/messages) on Sept 30, 2011. You can still reach out to your Facebook fan base via 'Event invites' but you can no longer send emails to your fans. In fact, they'll even let Facebook admins troll their contacts from Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, Outlook..etc (http://on.fb.me/x1jOni) to get more likes, but not send them direct messages. Hmmm..

Though I understand the ramifications of moving in this direction, this is surprising to me as I believe they are sitting on a virtual gold mine and could even take on a juggernaut like Constant Contact by moving more aggressively into the business space. Businesses would, in my opinion, pay monthly fees for the ability to reach out to their Fan Base via FB. And in doing so, they could blur the lines between email marketing and social media. It wouldn't be a popular decision among FB users, but how many of their decisions are? (think Timeline!) Not to mention, has anyone noticed their revenue increase from advertising? (http://rww.to/yCVHk6)...can you say 1,600 % increase in 2011?

So are they really concerned about protecting FB users from businesses who want to sell to them?

As for the end user not wanting to get FB SPAM messages, they simply 'unlike' the page. No crazy multi-step (and unreliable) unsubscribe process.

Naturally FB will want to exercise extreme caution, but sooner or later FB will open the door to B2C messaging. This could change the email marketing landscape quite a bit.

No.

I defy you to walk through any open space office and find that anything less than 50% of the people there are in their email program (writing or reading). Email still viable now and for a while to come. Think so.

Email marketing will go away when the 20 year olds are the marketing chiefs, so it may still take 20 years for email to go away. In the mean time billions of spam pieces will circle around the planet every day with the only effect that marketers satisfied their communication needs regardless of outcome.

Do you know the reason why email marketing companies can rightfully state the email volume is still increasing? Because you can buy 8 Million US business email addresses for just $800 it was $80,000 10 years age. Email marketing or spam accounts to 90% of all email sent. 83% of all email received are caught by spam filters that ordinary users never even recognize ;)

Did you know that advertising in Yellowpages is the only reason why these massive telephone books still exist. Over 80% of the distributed books go straight into the waste can. But small business owner in the age of 40 - 60 don't know any other way so they continue to pay - regardless.

Anyway, Average Joe will continue to pay in every month and so email marketing will continue for at least 20 years.

I'm off of personal email since Jan 1 2010 - dropped business email by 90% since Jan 1 2011.

Axel
http://XeeMe.com/AxelS

I use Linkedin for marketing: roughly 1 in 2 responses to a Linkedin message reply with an email. Changing medium, like this, is not normal: whens the last time a prospect responded to your email by tweeting or calling you?

Email will remain the most used marketing medium because an email address is a low capital means to reach someone. Social media, phone calls, and other mediums are possibly more effective, but they are more difficult/expensive to execute well.

When you see emails consistently responded by any other medium, email will no longer be effective.

Right now there is nothing new in the pipeline to replace email marketing.It will take one generation for its efficient utilization globally. Most of the under developed and developing countries believe in hard copies due to rampant corruption.

I do not think email marketing will go away anytime soon. No matter what people say, it has proven itself as one of the most effective marketing tactic there is. What I believe in is that, email marketing will have some changes in lieu to the constant trends.

Email marketing will not go away forever. but for the present condition Email marketing activities are slow own. Lot of domination from social media sites made email marketing less usage. but for the better communication Email marketing is the best tool.

http://www.nichesuite.com/

Not in the near future. We are all so used to emails, its too early to pull the plug.

Not in the near future. We are all so used to emails, its too early to pull the plug.

Email will remain an important marketing tool in 2012. Social is an additional channel, not a replacement one, and social participation correlates with increased activity in all digital channels: a rising tide lifts all boats.

A recent study by Merlke shows that social media users are significantly more likely to check their email four or more times a day compared with non-social media users who are online, and two-thirds of mobile device users check their email accounts at least once per day. The study also indicated that even though consumers are spending less time on personal email, time spent on commercial email has increased between 2007 and 2010. Source: "View from the Digital Inbox 2011," Merkle, February 23, 2011 (http://www.merkleinc.com/vfdbwhitepaper/).

It won't go away completely, but it will continue to decline in effectiveness.

With the advent of tools like SaneBox, OtherInbox and Gmail Priority Inbox, it is easier than ever for recipients to separate the wheat from the chaff. So it will become much more important for email marketers who want their emails to actually be opened and read to deliver actual value.

And of course there's also the fact that social channels provide the opportunity for much more relevant filtering and curation of what one receives. Speaking personally, I know that when I turn on my phone/Mac my email inbox is usually at the end of the 'things I check' list - after Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc...

I don't believe anything is safe from extinction. However I do believe that e-Mail will continue to be a marketing tool as long as it is a primary communication tools used by potential customers. As e-Mail use increases, the value of using it as a platform to market does also. As e-Mail use decreases, marketers will move on to the next method for reaching new and existing customers.

@Axel, You are dead on - almost.

I think what you are really trying to say is - Consider there are at least 3 generations of demographics and their respective mixes to which marketing must cater to. Each generation has its preferred method for receiving media of any type. Therefore, ineffective marketing methods are usually guilty of targeting the wrong marketing materials to the wrong market or using the wrong tools for that generation's preferred technology. Your telephone book example is genius!

So, consider also, that in 20 years, when the current 20 year-olds are 40, they, too, will not necessarily be most effectively marketed to by the new marketing tools of that future era and will still need to be accommodated until they, too, understand the new technology of their time.

So perhaps the original question should be "when will e-mail marketing go away in respect to changing technologies and what will take its place?

Michael, email marketing *needs* to go away. :)

It is not likely to do so for at least another couple years, but I would say that the effectiveness of that approach for marketing purposes is declining. Among other things, it is too hard to implement good calls to action that won't trip up on various email security filters, and as more user get used to avoiding phishing attacks, the value of sophisticated emails will greatly diminish, if only for trust reasons.

Social media mechanisms are far more valuable from my PoV when it comes to email marketing. As a technologist, I can't tell you the last time I responded to any email marketing in general, more so from any untrusted partner.

Newsletters and such still have their place, and I'm fine with them, but when it comes to marketing campaigns designed to obtain new customers, I don't see them being effective even now.

-ASB: http://XeeMe.com/AndrewBaker

Before you go off and bury email marketing, please understand that their are entire industry verticals that tend to lag behind technologically. There are verticals that still use fax machines to send and receive documents. I sincerely doubt that these folks will be checking their LinkedIn or Facebook accounts any time soon.

Email marketing is still very viable in many, many verticals and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

In terms of changes on the business landscape the term "forever" is no longer applicable. Email marketing will be here until the next generation of technological innovation occurs. There is still value for small business in email marketing in terms of being able to reach out to a targeted market with a specific message. Individuals are so inundated with information today that email marketing can not be the only tool used to successfully broadcast a company's message. Any company that relies on email marketing alone risks the danger of the message being deleted before it has ever been read.

Email marketing as a tool to evolve, if emailing strategy is integrated into social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and adjust the parameters to monitor the campaign to higher levels of commitment from the service provider with the advertiser, which allow better feedback to the target audience and generate more active leads to database of the CRM application client, and will have a vital integration in the ecosystem.
Email marketing such alone SPAM generator and used as an isolated tool does not have long to live.
In Enfotactica we have been pursuing this strategy with great success for our clients, who are mainly business schools offering MBAs, masters and doctoral degrees to their target audience, corporations and public offices.