Is it all over for email?

 2018-11-24

No matter how Jurassic of a concept email seems to be, it is an essential part of our lives. Whether we’re studying, working or just using the internet for entertainment purposes, an email address is usually the key to getting into the door.

With the rising concerns of privacy intrusion and GDPR changes, email seems to make us more vulnerable than anything else. Despite all odds, email continues to dominate and is a major way we communicate with one another.

Instead of falling, the amount of emails sent on a yearly basis are actually increasing. As surprising as it may be, a study done in February 2017 by Radicati Group estimated that nearly 270 billion emails were sent that year alone. This and previous data points towards an annual rate of growth for email to be at about 4.4% and that figure could have 319 billion emails sent around the world by 2021.

Approximately 3.7 billion people, in other words over half of the world’s population, is estimated to be active in using email. Not only that, almost 60% of adults check their email the first thing in the morning. What could be more important than email if it’s the first thing most of us are doing as soon as we wake up?

This is primarily the reason why email marketing is, has and will most likely remain a strong marketing channel for years to come. We are unlikely to pay as much attention to social media messages or even advertisements on instant messaging platforms as we are when it comes to email. Something as simple as a captivating header and subject line gets us to open up an email and read it more minutes on end.

With the average attention span of the online audience now being between 5 and 10 seconds, that is a major advantage over any other platform to advertise. People expect to read for a while when it comes to email and are not inclined to just swipe up or down to the next one. At the end of it, emails may contain sensitive and important information which makes people more aware of how they react to them.

While email marketing is huge, it is still taken for granted. Expecting to just send out email blasts to millions of people now will probably get your IP blacklisted. If you are lucky to get through email SPAM filters and into a user’s inbox (which is highly unlikely), you still need to have content which captures their attention. This is the age of personalized email and relevant messaging. Companies which are investing more in building relationships with their audience, finding out what their interests are and sending out relevant material are far more likely to get higher open rates.

Better email marketing strategy not only means your emails will get into the inbox, but it also means people will be more interested in reading them. Use the right tools to analyze the interaction your emails get and it will be easier to continuously evolve and improve your marketing efforts.