HFTB Marketing Blog

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I remember a certain social media/blogging conference I attended in 2006. The mantra of which was, “email is dead.”

Of course, this was in the context of online marketing. In other words… no one answers email, especially commercial email, so what’s the use.

The solution, which most, if not all, of the presenters put forward to the unwashed masses (read-in “attendees”)…

Stop emailing.

So given the “death of email” prognostication, where are we in 2009? Is email marketing truly dead?

Resurrection

Sonia Simone at Copyblogger doesn’t think so. In her post, Why Email Marketing is Dead (And How to Bring it Back to Life), Sonia explores some of the reasons email is not, in fact, dead… contrary to the post’s title.

So what were the gurus at the new media conference basing their predictions on back in 2006? Well, for one, technology.

The argument was that because of RSS and the public’s limited bandwidth to filter through the enormous number of emails that present themselves in inboxes daily, people would simply stop using email for commercial communications. RSS would step in to allow for more efficient screening of what is, and isn’t, wanted.

So has this happened? Not really. Email remains an extremely effective method of reaching a target audience. But there’s a rub.

It’s the Content, Stupid

It happens that email was not the problem. BORING email was the problem. And by boring, I mean email that really doesn’t provide value to the intended audience.

What’s interesting here is that the same can be said for all types of new media. If the content doesn’t deliver, don’t blame the technology; blame she who misuses the technology.

Wasting people’s time through blanket emails that are sent to purchased email lists or unsolicited recipients isn’t email’s fault. It is, however,  the fault of he who doesn’t take enough time to build a following through consistent and frequent valuable contributions.

Take a look at Sonia’s post here. She lays out the case for effective email use and some tips to help you keep the medium in good health.

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