E-mail is now among the most tra­di­tion­al channels of online com­mu­nic­a­tion. In the interest of staying relevant, it seems that social media is outdoing e-mail, and marketing companies have in­creas­ingly turned their attention to Facebook and the likes. Does this spell the end of the e-mail? Despite its waning in pop­ular­ity, e-mail cor­res­pond­ence still plays a vital role in private and business com­mu­nic­a­tion (es­pe­cially marketing).

Prac­tic­ally every internet user needs an e-mail inbox

In spite of the in­creas­ing pop­ular­ity of instant messaging, the number of e-mail accounts is on the rise. One reason for this is the rise of e-mail accounts on smart­phones and the constant dis­tri­bu­tion of webmail services (e.g. cloud mail). Even though younger gen­er­a­tions tend to send each other short messages, they need an e-mail account when re­gis­ter­ing for Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, and other sites. For this reason alone, e-mail is an important tool for marketing experts, as are news­let­ters, which help a business to reach its customers. You will find everything you need to know on the topic of e-mail marketing in this guide.

E-mail vs. messaging apps: which is leading in the private sector?

Instant messaging services, such as WhatsApp, boast im­press­ive user stats and play a mean­ing­ful role in private online com­mu­nic­a­tion. With group con­ver­sa­tions and in­di­vidu­al chats, the total amount of messages sent in 2014 amounted to 64 billion daily. This number will def­in­itely be higher given that 500 million people used the service in 2014 and just one year later the number had risen to 800 million. But there’s one channel that can top these stat­ist­ics: the classic e-mail.

196 billion e-mails on any given day

Around 196 billion e-mails are sent worldwide every day. 55 % of these are business-related, meaning that each worker receives or sends 120 e-mails daily. Studies show that the amount of e-mails landing in inboxes and outboxes has been con­stantly on the rise. Despite these figures, saying ‘there’s life in the old dog yet’ when referring to e-mails would be jumping to con­clu­sions as ‘only’ 45 % of these e-mails are sent privately as opposed to the billions of private messages sent on WhatsApp. However, these figures show that e-mail still dominates private com­mu­nic­a­tion.

nication: the time-wasting inbox

According to a UK study in 2016, British workers spends around 90 days a year on their e-mail. This is down to the huge number of e-mails we receive each day, which can become very difficult to manage, es­pe­cially when, for example, you return to work after some time off, only to then waste valuable working hours sorting through the mountain of e-mails waiting in your inbox. In many companies, e-mails are used to com­mu­nic­ate between col­leagues more fre­quently than for official business. The UK also has one of the highest en­gage­ment rates in the world for checking work e-mails on the weekend.

Al­tern­at­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion channels for the office

This flood of e-mails can be very dis­tract­ing and has led employers to look for al­tern­at­ives. The opinions of the employees are split according to many surveys: lots of workers would prefer a different way of internal com­mu­nic­a­tion, e.g. in-house social networks or an employee intranet. There are many tools that can be used to channel e-mail traffic in a better way and to run secondary messages over other channels like social media or chat:

  • Social intranet
  • Google+
  • Apps and messaging services
  • Ex­ten­sions for e-mail clients
  • Company blog or mi­crob­log­ging
  • Wikis

Customer com­mu­nic­a­tion will continue mostly through e-mails. Many internal processes can be co­ordin­ated through channels such as staff an­nounce­ments, press reviews, event in­vit­a­tions, meetings, as well as employee surveys and internal news­let­ters.

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