Email is dead.
Is it??
Thing is, the way people use their inboxes IS changing. Gmail now offers automatic sorting, so your emails get categorized as Updates, Promotions, Social and more. Texting, either through phone apps or social media messaging, has overtaken the types of conversations that used to happen over email.
And spam filters are getting better and better.
I’m generalizing, but these are the comments I hear in the online marketing industry, where women entrepreneurs connect and discuss HOW THE HELL to maintain authentic relationships with people when there’s so much noise and inboxes are crowded and open rates are falling.
I spoke with an email marketing expert, Misty Mozejko, about this. She agreed: as recently as within the last 18-24 months, people have changed how they use email. Filtering and social emphasis on messaging is part of it, so it email marketing saturation (so much to read! So little time).
But there are a few factors that make email decidedly NOT dead:
- It’s a standard. We’ve sold through email for a looong time, and people expect to get sales links via email. They may or may not catch the sales link on Instagram – and if they don’t, they go to their inbox to find it.
- Once you’re in, you’re in. As spam filters have improved, deliverability (or what it takes for email to get INTO your inbox) has gotten tougher… but once you’re in the inbox, you can do great things.
The challenge is staying on top of the rapidly-evolving and improving spam filter standards. Plus, doing what it takes to tweak your marketing copy (which you might adore! And might work GREAT on social!) so it doesn’t trigger any spam filters.
Here’s an email that was flagged as spam by my Gmail account (although other emails from this organization land in Promotions or Updates):
- 6 Causes of Employee Demotivation (and How to Address Them)
What the hell about this subject line caused it to trigger spam? Or was it something about the topic?
I bet a lot pithy, compelling, short, pain point, benefits, all-the-good-marketing-best-practices copy triggers spam filters.
Email is not dead, but it’s like many of the other tools in your marketing toolbox: it’s evolving.
