The ‘Instant’ Death of Email Marketing? No so fast.

In today’s New York Times there is a story about email getting an instant makeover. It talks about how email is becoming a thing for old fogies. More and more people are bored with the “long process of signing into an account, typing out a subject line and then sending a message that might not be received or answered for hours.” The future lies in instant messaging, texting and social networks like Facebook.
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It’s clear to this marketing consultant that we are headed toward a telepathic world, where everyone will know what everyone is about to say before they do, and answers overlap questions. Pretty soon instant messaging won’t be instant enough.

Which brings me back to email. I can’t predict what’s going to happen 5 years from now, but I’m pretty sure that in the next five years email will have an important place in the business world. The reason for this is that businesses rely on email for many things:

• Interoffice communication
• Communication with customers, prospects, vendors etc.
• Contractual agreements
• Sales and marketing pitches

That’s not to say that newer, more casual forms of digital communication don’t play a role in these things as well – but email creates a digital trail that can be followed, and if need be, verified. There is a clear chronology with email, which is important when dealing with business issues – who said what first, and why.

With email, there is also the aspect of taking the time to think about what you should write.  This is funny because I can remember a few years back people bemoaning how email had killed the art of letter writing, since with email writing you were less concerned about content, grammar and style. And now emailers of the world are complaining how texting and tweeting is killing the email. Ha!

The only problem I see for companies who use email for marketing is that it’s going to be harder to reach their prospects. For B2B companies, it will be less so because emails are preferably directed to a business email address. If people in companies use their emails for business, then they will continue to see the marketing pitches in their email boxes. For B2C companies, it will become more of a concern, because if the public turns away from using email to communicate with friends, then they will be less likely to look at their email inboxes.
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So what’s going to happen? Or, should I ask, do we have the patience to wait until it does? Have we evolved to the point where we only want instant resolution to the future?