I've heard plenty of people say "Email is dead" over the past year or so, often in relation to the exponential growth in the use of social media. Normally such rhetoric is making a statement about the fact that people are interacting with brands in a new, more personal, touchy-feely way and therefore don't respond to the old fashioned model of Brand > Customer communication using an official and authoratitive voice. Whilst I agree that the way brands speak to their customers is changing (we are the first to encourage more open channels of dialogue using social media!), I don't agree that email is dead. Email can go hand in hand with social media.

The fact is that people do still rely on email for essential information from companies they are interested in hearing from. The reason I think open rates are down is that people's inboxes are just too full of emails from companies. As we spend more money and time online (and as a result subscribe to more emails, knowingly or not) we are being inundated with email. If you are anything like me you have thousands of unopened emails in your inbox from brands that I simply cannot be bothered to unsubscribe from. (I don't know why these companies just don't unsubscribe me after a certain time of not opening any of their emails?)

What if you continue offering emails, but supplement these emails with other ways of delivering your news, offers, updates (or whatever else you put in your emails)? Use your email as a roundup, a regular (weekly?) communication that acts as a kind of 'best of'. Then deliver your time sensitive messages using RSS feeds; your more editorial, chatty messages using a blog; your response-required communications via Twitter. Of course, include all this in your round up email too so no-one misses out.

No-one here will ever suggest you bin your email marketing communication. What we will suggest is that you evolve your email marketing strategy by integrating your email and your social media efforts.