“Email is the best thing that happened to Digital”
Yes, The Best! Now, why do I say that?
Emails essentially are a non-intrusive, humble, affordable, expressive means to interact with your customers!
I remember when I joined the email industry in 2009 in India, email was still naive and growing. Even then, I used to hear stories of social media taking over email marketing and email was to die soon.
Having joined Netcore, an email company back then, the first blog I wrote was “Email is not dead”.
Fast forward; one decade later I found an article by Wallstreet “The Hot New Channel for reaching real people: Email”
So let’s just say “Email will be soon dead” is the biggest myth of the digital industry, one which is still doing rounds.
From Purchase data to Double Opt-in, Email gained more respect…
While email has the best ROI, the context to get that ROI has been evolving.
A decade back people would purchase email data or acquire it from dependable sources (that sounds authentic but it is not) and start emailing. This was that time when Spam was not very popular.
A time where-
The unsolicited email sending was at its all-time best performance.
And Spam filters were less suspicious.
But like every bad thing comes to an end, spam couldn’t survive inbox for long.
And there comes a time where-
Anti-spam filters got stronger over time and unsolicited email became tougher to Inbox. It’s noticeable how spam emails dropped from 90% to 45% by 2018.
Brands started to focus more on collecting email addresses via website widget in a Single Opt-in or Double Opt-in form.
List collection methods got more innovative and authentic, email contact got more valuable than merely being an email ID.
As a result, Brands are now cautious of whom they are communicating with…
Although Spam is pervasive, the obsession of sending to all has reduced. Now Email senders around the world are getting more cautious about solicited email and staying relevant.
Email as a channel became a channel of engagement and good email senders/marketers around the world use it wisely.
According to SmartInsights, each dollar spent on Email Marketing, generates $40.
Email evolved so fast, that there was no looking back:
While Spam is still an OCD in the email industry, there is a lot that happened with email in the last decade.
What started as an alternative to direct mail has become one of the most powerful ways of engaging with your users.
Ecommerce, job board, telecom, banks & financial institutions, new-age apps, social media, retail companies, there is almost no vertical who doesn’t rely on emails today.
For me, there were five breakthrough moments in the history of emails in the last decade:
#introduction of video-
From plain text to start to a storytelling video experience, that’s how the evolution began. Responsive emails grabbed the momentum.
#gifs/countdowns-
People started using gifs, and countdown timers to start making emails more engaging.
#Quick action button-
Gmail also announced quick action buttons in the email through “Google Schemas”
#the tabbed experience-
We witnessed primary, promotion, social tabs as a default way to look at emails. This was an inflection point for email marketing as this was a big step to classify the growing spam and bad user experience across mailboxes.
#The interactive email-
Now emails with the help of AMP are interacting with us. Say goodbye to static emails. With AMP one can interact with an email without moving away from it or being redirected to another page.
Actions like RSVPing and appointment confirmation, even a small range of product browse all can be done over email itself.
To sum up in Simple words-
Email just started talking to you.
Comes the Big Question – What we need to do to ensure people continue to love Emails…
Email after 3 decades still is an important way people communicate, it is still relevant and a lot has happened to its evolution.
All of it for one common reason
“For the love of Email”
Because people still like receiving and reading emails.
A report from Statista shows that 49% of consumers said that they would like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands weekly.
And “For the love of emails” it is our responsibility to ensure Email continues to thrive:
I won’t go deep into the technicalities, but I do want to mention certain steps that any email sender must know/follow.
4 steps for good email senders to ensure Email thrives:
- Treat your email list as real people:
Your digital identity is not just your digital identity, it’s you and should be treated like how you treat a human. Don’t treat email id just as an email contact.
There is a real person behind an email address and he/she would want you to take permission before sending anything to them.
If people in your email list are not responding to your emails any more you might want to unsubscribe them, usually setting a sunset policy is a good idea.
- Spend time improving content and engagement on email:
“I love getting the same boring email every day from the same brand,” said no one ever.
There are few good emails I have received in the past and brands are really putting in hard work to engage with their users.
I would love to see if more brands can spend time designing good emails, keeping in mind humor and value.
- Upgrade your knowledge on email and deliverability:
One must consistently upgrade their email marketing and deliverability knowledge.
Keep an eye on key trends, what other email marketers around you’re doing.
There are many good blogs that one can learn from and many forums that are dedicated to emails. The only Influencer community is one of my favorites as you get to hear diverse thought leaders form the email industry.
- Organize or attend email community meetups and Conferences:
For the love of emails, one must organize or attend community meetups or conferences so that we can educate more marketers around us, and they continue to evolve.
Recently we did our bit by collaborating with emailexpert who are organizing the World’s largest virtual Conference on Email “Inboxexpo”.
One must attend it to hear veterans, thought leaders and diverse attendees who breathe email every day.
In the words of Andrew Bonar, founder of emailexperts and Inboxexpo who believes in Email as we do.
“The love Pepipost has shown emailexpert since we first talked about launching as a formal business and hosting our inaugural conference has been overwhelming. The size, scope and reach of our event has been enhanced many-fold as a result of their early participation. Tanishq Juneja as co-founder of Pepipost has shown that he and his team, and in fact, the entire Netcore family take their sponsor status as founding partners of emailexpert extremely seriously. We are bigger and better for our relationship and feel blessed to have a partner with the vision to see online conferences are the future”
Thank you, Andrew. You are kind and so are your words! For Pepipost, sponsoring InboxExpo was like a no-brainer. Emailexpert and Pepipost share the same love – the love for emails. Creating a worldwide community of good email senders and encouraging good email practices has always been a prime motive for us at Pepipost.
Pepipost is there for any email sender around the world-
“For the Love of Emails”
Now and Always!
