The use of email marketing has been essential to online business success for the last two decades or so. The debate about email marketing and its effectiveness has also been going on for some time. Have the rumors of the death of email marketing been greatly exaggerated? We will address this issue in this post.
The value of an email list
Over the years online business ‘gurus’ have built lists of hundreds of thousands of email addresses. This resulted in their ability to make literally millions of dollars online and specifically in the area of affiliate marketing. Having an email list acting as an asset to their business allowed them to promote products that someone else created and/or to create their own digital products to promote to their list. Most of the successful online entrepreneurs will insist that the ‘money is in the list’. But is it?
Changing technology
With the rise of social media and its marketing applications, new digital entrepreneurs have moved substantially away from email marketing. These new online marketers claim that they have seen the future and are embracing it fully. They insist that the ‘money is now in messenger apps’. While email stats show declining open and click-thru rates as compared to instant messaging which is delivering high rates for both stats does this mean that email marketing is dead? All you have to do is jump on a free webinar to evaluate the claims of the ‘new frontier’ online marketers. If you think about how you treat email versus instant messaging you can see their point. You, like most people, have hundreds even thousands of emails in your inbox that you have not opened and never will, let alone read. Is email marketing going away for good any time soon?
The mere fact that most of this new breed of online marketers still maintain an email list is a confirmation that email marketing is not going anywhere, at least not anytime soon. One of the reasons they are holding on to this valuable asset is the fact that, as with any new technology, things are subject to change.
Regulations
Social media companies avoid a lot of regulation from governments primarily because they are not considered ‘publishers’. But just think about the most recent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enacted into law by the European Union in 2016. This regulation introduced compliance rules that anyone doing business online must abide by. Granted, most online entrepreneurs won’t run afoul of these because of the size of their operations but most service providers they do business with must comply.
Additionally, large social media companies have been negligent recently in their handling of customer data and that raised concern among many. As with any new technology controlled by large social media corporations they can change their policies whenever they feel it suits their agenda. Recent breaches of privacy by Facebook compelled them to actively implement policies in order to revert back to the original intent of FB. Facebook was meant to have friends and families share experiences and memories through interaction online and Mark Zuckerberg made it clear they intend to make that the priority.
Email marketing not dead yet
So where does this leave email marketing? As mentioned before, an email list is still a valuable asset to online marketers. With possible government regulations on the horizon to deal with social media, the more established email communication will be garnering less attention. What this all means is that online marketers can continue to exploit their email lists to their heart’s content. And they will be happy to make more money in the process.
D. Brahim
Related:
Internet Marketing List Building
Affiliate Marketing and Building Your Email List
Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission on any sales of products or services we write about.
