The digital marketing trend watchers at ClickZ surveyed its subscriber base about the future of email marketing. Here’s some of what they discovered:
Email marketing is not dead yet
Despite some reports that email marketing is being swallowed up by social media, two-thirds of the 141 marketers who responded to the survey said email remains an “extremely important” or “very important” component of their broader strategy. An additional 20 percent of respondents said email is “important, but not central.”
Personalization is the biggest email marketing strategy change agent
When asked which of the current trends in email are likely to impact most on their email marketing strategy, 30 percent of the marketers responded with “personalization.” Segmentation was mentioned by 21 percent of marketers.
Email will always be email
What will email marketing look like in five years? Will it even be recognizable? The feeling appears to be decidedly yes. More than one-third (38 percent) of respondents think email will be “broadly the same with some innovations,” while another 39 percent believe that email will undergo “major changes, but with the same fundamentals.” Only 2 percent said there will be no change to email in the five years.
Explaining email’s staying power
“While email is no longer the only option we have for communication over the internet by any means, it still manages to offer something that instant messaging, website-specific direct messaging, SMS and social media do not,” the ClickZ report states. “Email can be personal or professional, informative or brief; it integrates seamlessly with other organizational systems, and can deliver files, newsletters, RSS feeds, updates and invitations directly to your computer, smartphone or wearable device. And as a marketing channel, it gets results.”
Not all marketers believe it’s clear sailing for email as an effective tool. One marketer believed that email might be in danger of dying out in certain contexts. “I think email will remain important for person-to-person communication and business-to-business communication, but I think the business-to-person communication use of email will diminish or cease to exist.”
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