Sometimes Email Marketing Best Practices Require Ignoring the Media

If you saw the headlines this week that email is too slow for the class of 2014, did you have a little panic attack as an email marketer? Or did you take it in stride?

I’ll admit when I saw the headlines around the new Beloit College Mindset List and the assertion that these young folks find email too slow, I had a reaction. But it wasn’t panic. It was “not again.”

It seems like the media wants to see the end of email, since we keep hearing about its demise. And here again was another supposed symptom purporting to make us believe email suffers from something incurable and deadly.

Here’s the thing. These kids might think email is too slow, preferring texting and instant messaging instead. But when this class of 2014 leaves school and heads out into the working world, guess what their primary means of communication will be?

Email.

Their bosses will email them. Their coworkers will email them. Meeting notices will be sent and accepted by email. Documents will be attached, forwarded and archived by email. Work assignments will be made by email.

And they in turn will reach out to prospects, customers, vendors, partners, bosses and coworkers with…wait for it…email.

They’ll use email for personal use too, as they shop for furniture for their apartments, computers for their home offices, and pictures for their walls. Merchants will email them order confirmations, receipts and shipping notices, and these young ’uns will likely sign up for some email marketing campaigns too, in the hopes of spending less on that furniture, technology and decor.

I won’t dispute that the class of 2014 thinks email is slow, just like they think all the other things on the Beloit list, like phones have always been cordless and Russia has always been a friend. I only take issue with the media’s use of the “email is too slow” as a headline in what seems to be a pervasive attack on email.

Email is here to stay, as a communications tool and as a marketing tool. So stick to your guns, email marketers. Stick to your email marketing best practices. Even if those email marketing best practices sometimes mean you must ignore the media.

See the complete list Beloit College Mindset List at http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php.