Why email marketing is NOT dead - 53.71% open rate

I'm constantly reading that email marketing is now not worth it, it is dead as well as controversial theories.

Legend: B2B (Business-to-Business), B2C (Business-to-Consumer), ROI (Return on Investment)


As we all know everyone working in an office has an Email. That is why B2B emails have solid ground. There is no alternative so far, at least nothing professional as Email is.

B2C emails are the ones where most concern is. But as a marketer you can focus on B2B or B2C emails depending on your niche.

Consumers/Customers won't have alternative to email as well.

Why do I think like this? Well, all email pessimist are based on the fact that email exists since 1971 and because technology evolves really fast it is logical that it will be replaced by something else.
But hey... Ever received a Viber message for a product? I did !
Is that an alternative ? - Yes.
Is it good alternative ? - No! Just no way!

Sometimes I purchase protein powder online from a famous store we have in here. I have put my telephone number for discussing the delivery time and if address is accurate etc. They use that number to message me on Viber for promotions as well as at least 50K people. This alternative to email ended bad. Same would happen with Skype and other tools intended for CHAT since their beginning.
Chat is a really good replacement for SMS,but it shouldn't be for Email, simply because Email has sophisticated SPAM filters that CHAT tools don't.
As a marketer you may dislike these SPAM filters but they are the reason Email communication won't die anytime soon.
When I was flooded with those Viber marketing messages I was constantly thinking that I got a message from a friend. When I found out it is yet another marketing message I got irritated pretty fast. So Viber couldn't deal with that! They did an option to block these messages 2-3 years ago,which really shows the weakness of how to deal with the situation.
That is why I deleted my Viber but never deleted my Email
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Another proof - mixed list of B2B and B2C emails got 53.71% open rate


Behind this successful email campaign sits the fact that it was carefully created in 4 hours time!
Those points are covered:
• Email list that has old,inactive customers and targeted B2B emails.
• Subject title that offers what those people always needed, no blacklisted words!
• Good reputation sending server
• Engaging body content

Why you don't have such successful campaigns ? Well you probably haven't done these points exactly as they should. But this is your problem not that Email marketing is dying.
Email marketing is actually constantly evolving and a beautiful example is the Drip Email marketing. My personal opinion is that this is TOP ROI path and success for every business that can efficiently use it.


This totally destroys all the mentioned above as tips for successful marketing and great open rate that may lead to sales. Those people are complaining that email marketing is dead as well.

There's a single exception in that situation - you have the targeting! No matter how you've got that list, if you have clear idea why those emails are collected into a single list and you are in the same niche maybe you can sort it out!

Unfortunately purchased lists are often (lets say 95%) lying about the targeting, scraped lists are often bombarded with SPAM (because if you had the chance to scrape it,many others also did) and your message cannot be seen, and inherited lists are often full mess as you don't know what you're inheriting.
Again - if you're in that situation there's no reason to blame the Email marketing efficiency.

Final thoughts

Why did I wrote all this?
1st - To stop (if I can call it) propaganda about that email marketing is dead, which probably annoys me as well as other perfectionist people that love to live in a world with more truths.
2nd - I couldn't find very clear,concessive and proving stuff, just general thoughts.
3rd - Your reply may be something that I can learn from as well.

Email marketing should be a way to maintain customers attention and re-sell to them, but not grabbing a list from somewhere with no targeting and good approach and make business.
Email marketing is usually enhancement of what you got.

Thank you!