Email is Alive

Email Isn’t Dead – It just isn’t responding to you.

After listening to the barrage of tweets and articles "echoing" through cyberspace regarding the "Death of Email" -- I have to call Bull$#!^.  No offense to Jessica Vascellaro, I like the Wall Street Journal, but stating that "Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over" is more than a fictional statement - it's downright wrong.  The fact that your "Why Email No Longer Rules..." article has a button at the top to email the post to others is clearly an indicator of why email is still an internet powerhouse. (Not to mention the email button is first on the list

Think of it like this, email is a core pillar in the foundation of the internet. Without email, right this very moment, we'd all be useless online. Try going a day without emailing anyone anything - and then repeat forever.  Email is not going away. I can agree that social media like; Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn is a prevalent vehicle for communication online, I also agree that email isn't as important in certain applications as it was a few years ago.  However; I'm having trouble swallowing the pill of "Email isn't going to last". It's a vehicle of communication that to this day still outweighs the predictability of social media in regards to revenue and measurement, that may change, but it will always have its place in the interactive marketing space.

I just got an email - oh, it's from Facebook and the subject line reads "Facebook Birthday Reminders for Week of November 2nd".  Another email,  it's from Twitter,  "JaCaldwell is now following you on Twitter!" I love that guy, glad we can connect! " To conclude my soapbox examples, Amazon.com - possibly the most relevant online marketing I've ever experienced over email.  They're not going to tell you it's failing, because it isn't.

Email marketing is still in its infancy, the adoption rate in small business is still growing and businesses in general are just starting to apply advanced techniques and best practices to their email marketing campaigns.

Too long has email been treated like postal mail without enough customization and relevant timing. Social media has done a great job of capturing the feelings and emotions of the users at the exactly the time they need to hear something relevant. Postal mail and email have been too far removed from the initial emotion that garnered attention from the consumer/user in the first place, but again that's changing. Currently the triggers and auto-responders are being put in place alongside powerful CRM tools that provide the user with dynamic content that's not just relevant, it's personal.  The days of the "batch and blast" mass mailings are becoming far less frequent and much more worst-practice than main stream.

So, to finish my rant, I'd just like to say that email is far from dead. While social is becoming more applicable to communication online, it isn't the death of email it's just the evolution of connectivity. People like to receive information in different forms - the order confirmation for that new book you just bought from Amazon won't be sent via Twitter anytime soon. The flow of information through the "ancient" inbox is still top of the list for B2B and B2C markets, I'll bet my career on it.

Thank You – Rand Fishkin.

With so many internet marketing vehicles around these days it's great to see an industry respected SEO give validation to a proven internet marketing technique like; Email Marketing. Cheers Rand! So many SEO's and internet marketers in this day and age are still pumping the under matured 'Social Media', while email is still a valuable and powerful tool to drive interested users to your site and produce a sustainable ROI. Viva la EMAIL!

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SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Email Marketing and SEO from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.