Long Live Email

The paperless office was something that was imminent many years ago. Paper, much like email, is still very much in evidence anywhere you look.

Postal services around the world will tell you that the humble letter is disappearing from their delivery bags as a good proportion of this postal traffic is replaced by the faster electronic version.

At the same time, broadcast TV is seeing a move towards people consuming their content online, at their convenience rather than on a fixed schedule.

So we are seeing a migration of services to more convenient channels. However, the basic idea of one to one communications vs. broadcast messages remains intact. There are still situations where you need either one or other approach.

While social media now provides consumer level answers to the question of how people can broadcast their messages, it is still email which offers a key one to one solution. 

Furthermore, I have considerable choice when deciding on an email provider. I know that, when my current provider upsets me, I can quickly move to a new email provider and still be able to communicate with all the people I need to. The social media business is dominated by big corporations who have no vested interest in compatibility between their systems. And they own all the information you place with them - something which carefree teenagers are finding hard to live with when starting to look for jobs.

So don't write off email - it's still an effective tool in the marketing business. Use of different marketing "channels" has always been something to juggle with - we just have even more channels now than we used to.