THE DEATH OF EMAIL TALKING POINT
Talking Point – Gartner reckons social networking services will replace email as the main interpersonal communications vehicle for 20% of business users by 2014. Discuss...
YES – To a certain extent, email’s all-
pervasive power is bound to
wane as channels evolve.
David Eldridge, Managing Director, Alterian
I
n this fast-paced era where we’re all impatient for information and real-time news, many are suggesting that Twitter and other social media devices will lead the way in the future of communication. Is email, our trusted and reliable communication tool for the past 20 years, set to become obsolete in the face of social networking? Well, to a certain extent, the answer to that question has to be yes. Email may well become redundant for some forms of communication particularly between groups of people and the tech-savvy younger generation with their preference for text messages, IM, Facebook and Twitter. This is bound to impact upon the virtually ubiquitous reliance on email that has characterised recent times as people increasingly want to send quick, short messages reaching many people in one go, updating peers on their ‘status’. Having said that, I think most people will still use email for a significant part of their communication activity both for personal reasons and for business reasons. Although email can be seen as a noisy spam-filled activity, it is constantly being revolutionised by new technology. This makes it possible to create and deliver highly targeted messages with dynamic and personalised content that enhances user experience. In fact, it is social media that is breathing new life into email. Many of us now include our Twitter handles and Facebook names on the bottom of an email.
The younger generation will learn to
appreciate the importance of email as they move up the career ladder. I’ll happily ‘tweet’ what I had for breakfast, but email has been, and I think always will be, the preferred method of communication for much of my business and personal needs.
www.dmarket.co.uk
T
NO – Discussing
which channel is superior is
approaching the question from
completely the wrong angle.
Paul Bates, Managing Director UK, StrongMail
he blogosphere is a buzz with tired arguments over whether or not social media signals the death of email. The most recent prediction
comes from Matt Cain of Gartner, signaling that “by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.” This very well might be true, for the 20% that need to collaborate, however it in no way replaces the need for bi-directional communication. Anyone that engages in a debate over which channel is superior is approaching this from the wrong angle. Not only do both channels complement each other from a marketing perspective, they are significantly more powerful when used together than either channel alone. What’s most interesting is that while the talking heads continue to debate the value of one channel vs. another, the 800 pound gorillas in the email marketing and social media spaces are answering this question for us by taking convergence to the consumer. In the past few weeks, Google,
Microsoft, and Facebook have all announced plans to integrate email and social media for their end users. Google and Microsoft plan to integrate social functionality into Gmail and Outlook respectively, and Facebook is rumored to be launching its own webmail service. These announcements are significant in that, if all three are successful, the consumer’s view of email and social media will become highly integrated during the next year or so.
As email marketers, it is important to
prepare for this shift by developing an integrated marketing strategy for the two channels now. Get ready for your viral marketing programs to become exponentially more powerful.
April 2010 27
BOOK REVIEW
HOW THEY STARTED IN TOUGH TIMES
Reviewed by
Antony Begley
Managing Editor
As the name suggests, How They Started In Tough Times is a resolutely upbeat book aiming to inspire existing businesses and those considering start-up businesses but put off by the fact that we’re in the jaws of the worst recession in living memory. Clearly aimed at small business owners/managers, the book “tells the inspirational stories of remarkable businesses that bloomed in an economic downturn”. Structured around 25 company case studies, the book takes a fleeting glance (a dozen pages per company) at the problems each business faced in a faltering economy and how they overcame those problems. Interesting, rather than genuinely informative or useful, How They Started In Tough Times is a bit light on insight and facts – most of what’s in it you could gather from an afternoon on Wikipedia and Google. Having said that, it’s an entertaining high speed trot through the stories behind a raft of household names from Microsoft and IBM to Penguin, Specsavers, Moonpig and LinkedIn. Of particular interest to some readers will be the chapter on the creation of insight and data oufit dunnhumby. Marketing comes into most of the tales in
one way or another, but again there’s little room for detail. Not a tome for hardcore business, marketing and management book devotees, but certainly an entertaining way to pass an hour in the airport waiting for your delayed BA flight to take off.
Crimson Publishing, £12.99.
n If you have a book you’d like to have reviewed, contact Antony at
abegley@dmarket.co.uk
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