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B2BM
April 2009
18
Debate
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Go to www.b2bm.biz/blog
Question: Will email remain an effective way to market to
Generation Y’s B2B marketers, who have grown up with comparably
faster instant messaging and more engaging social media?
YES – EMAIL WILL LAST NO – EMAIL WILL BECOME
AS A TOOL TO MARKET OBSOLETE FOR TARGETING
TO GENERATION Y GENERATION Y
By Steve Kemish,
By Per Löfgren,
IDM Digital council chair and
International product director,
client strategy director, Adestra
PAR/EuroContactPool
Yes, Generation Y is immersed personalise who the email If you want to communicate faster and more direct methods.
in social media and instant comes from, the subject line, with a company down the road, such as SMS, online
messaging, but before we write and – if you so wish– the entire you’re hardly likely to send a communities and web
off email altogether in B2B contents of the email, making it runner with a message in a messaging. These are the people
communications, we can’t relevant and instantly more forked stick! You’re just as who will be our employees just a
ignore the unique benefits it effective. unlikely to send a letter starting few years from now.
brings to the recipient and the Combine this with the highly ‘Dear Sirs, with reference to Their way of working means
marketer. advanced reporting and yours of the 14th inst.’ But that, as managers, we have to
The key difference between analytics email offers and it that’s how things were done learn to regulate, monitor and
email and social media is the makes tracking success and just 30 years ago. track communications within
delivery. Email is delivered identifying recipient The next generation to enter these almost anarchic, fast-
directly to their inbox at a time preferences easy. the workplace always brings its moving virtual environments.
that suits them. Plus it stays It’s not to say that it’s an own technology. Thirty years That will bring its own
there for as long as the either/or situation. Email can ago it was fax, 20 years ago challenges.
recipient requires, allowing compliment social media computers arrived, a decade As marketers, we have to
them to come back to it, pass it perfectly to drive advocacy. later came email. recognise that communication
on to colleagues as well as print Emails’ ‘push’ technology does A friend of mine who is the channels will change every few
it for reference. not rely on the person coming principal of a school in Sweden years, and that we will have to
Everyone who is using the to you and is the perfect way to is of the email generation. He adapt our technologies or risk
web will also understand and communicate out to your base. tried to email the school list but missing some of our key target
expect email, whereas social The reasons B2B marketers got very little response. When groups.
media requires the user to be have used email in the past he asked his pupils why they It’s just possible that the
more proactive to join and get have not changed, and as yet, hadn’t replied, the most sheer unmanageability of multi-
involved. there is no other channel that common answer was that they media could prompt a return to
Email can also be very offers the same reporting, hadn’t read his email. more traditional communication
powerful in terms of relevancy targeting and visible ROI. It Young people don’t methods, but I doubt it.
and timing. An email can be may have been around for communicate that much via The Generation Y recruit in
personalised to the recipient as years, but that only means it’s a email. They don’t devote time to his or her first job would
much or as little as your data trusted and known checking their emails and so probably view them with the
allows. This does not just mean communication tool and feedback is slow and indirect. same curious detachment as the
the salutation, but you can definitely not a fad. They prefer to communicate via runner with the forked stick.
≤
Have your say online: respond via B2B Marketing’s blog at www.b2bm.biz/blog
Interactive poll: The readers’ opinion
Question posed on B2B Marketing eBulletin sent 4 March 2009
≤
To subscribe to the
15%
Generation Y has grown up with the Internet,
eBulletin, go to
Yes
and is totally immersed in things like instant
www.b2bm.biz/register
messaging and social media. As a result of
this, will email – which is slow and formal by
To suggest a subject for a
comparison – still be an effective means to
future poll, email
target them with B2B communications?
joel.harrison@b2bm.biz
85% No
Yes 15%
No 85%
The email was sent to 20,000 recipients
B2BM APRIL 09 – www.b2bm.biz
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