It’s 2009 and a select bunch of commentators have recently been proclaiming e-mail marketing as dead in the water. When it comes to e-mail, spam is obviously a major turn off, but has it crippled the use of e-mail? Absolutely not. Sending e-mail is, and will persist to be, the single most popular activity on the Web, at least for the foreseeable future.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has been touted as a possible replacement for e-mail delivery, but new technologies always take numerous years to gain momentum and are still relatively unknown to your average Joe in the street.
But let’s not forget the sheer social advantage e-mail has over alternative technologies. The development of e-mail was a major milestone in communication, ranking alongside the pigeon messenger and the telephone. RSS barely scratches the surface! You may have a mobile phone and you may use it regularly, but do you still use a landline? My guess is “yes”.
RSS may be a tool that can be used alongside, and possibly in combination with e-mail. Furthermore, since anti-spam software is becoming increasingly sophisticated, we may find our inboxes becoming much cleaner as a result. Cleaner inboxes mean less deleting and more reading of e-mail messages.
So the question is: is e-mail marketing still effective? Yes and no! It depends on the nature of your e-mail campaigns, the subscribers you market your information to, and other numerous factors. Bad campaigns and leads equal poor performance. On the other hand, good e-mail marketing campaigns have potential to generate tons of repeat business, establish a solid reputation, and entice visitors to interact with new developments on your site.