Email may not be "dead" but it's time to face that it's dying

I would recommend to use video email instead. Research showed that people spend 7-8 seconds reading ordinary email and usually not till end. With video email, 78% more people (more than email readers) will watch video till end. And by the way there are free video emails on the market. I am using one and it is a very good quality. It provides a huge selections of HD templates and I can schedule date and time when I want that email to come out.
Google it or message me and I will give you the link of the one that I use.

Building a non responsive list always has been a waste of time and effort. If you are expecting them to give you their cc from your first contact its a bit unrealistic whether reading your email on their pc or on their phone.

You have to build relationships with people.If you provide real value to people who want your offers building a responsive email list is still a viable marketing method, even if its only a first step to keeping in touch via wider routes including social media.

In any case what's your alternative?

lol, so wrong, if its dieing for you the your not doing something right. Email is still the most preferred method to be sold to. These goes even over top of social networking as well.

Where do you get the information for your crazy notions? In fact the ROI on Direct Mail and Email is increasing over the past few years.

"Direct marketing return on investment (ROI) is improving. In general, for 2012, an investment of $1 in direct marketing ad expenditures is predicted to return, on average, $12.18 in incremental revenue across all industries. This exceeds the $11.86 achieved in 2010, and $12.03 in 2011. In comparison, non-DM ROI is expected to be $5.26 in 2012."
2012 Direct Marketing ROI Forecast

A return of $12.18 for every dollar invested is not 24%. If you look at email, it is $39.40 for each dollar invested. *

* Direct Marketing Association, The Power of Direct Marketing, 2011-2012.


Maybe you could enlighten us about where you get your statistics...

Mahlon

nah, it's fine.

Email is everywhere - business, personal. It is the fastest way of advertising communication. Sending an ad via text may not be out of the question, but texting would have to evolve from its current state. Also, because of people reading their emails via mobile becoming more widespread companies have to adapt to the difference in the size of the device. You see more "white space" ads with larger links so when people tap them on their devices, they aren't hitting everything else at the same time.

There are various formats in which to deliver information. Deliver value and test what works with your subscribers. If they like what you have to offer, they will continue to open your emails.

This forum always seems to have these sky are falling type threads.

The truth is to be a good marketer you always have to track and adjust.

If you are not converting at the moment than adjust to that, and correct it.

Many people on here love the word "dead", but the internet and internet marketing will
always be around, and so will the good marketers you adjust.

Steve

I have to somewhat agree with email marketing, I am still finding good success with my subscribers, but I can see how it has dropped somewhat this past year.

Proof? Like, actual proof? Gotta love a good, something is dying thread! More made believe numbers, more made up stats, can't we have a thread which says "Threads about dying are dying"?

Pitino just won the NCAA national championship game and almost shit his pants as the fireworks went off. See my video at www.YadaText.com

......................
Now this could be sent by text or email...

I prefer text marketing for the same reason stated by the OP

Results....

Who says you cannot generate interest in under 160 characters

Where did you hear that?

Direct mail is as strong as ever...as long as you know what you are doing.

I have been using email marketing since about 3 years before aweber was even started. They have been around for some 15 years now.

I can tell you that my open rates and conversion rates are actually higher now than when i started. no kidding. I operate in some of the most competitive niches around include both the credit/finance and health niches. But i can tell you that i do a lot of things completely different than what is preached by most folks at places like WF.

If your rates are falling that much then you are probably not learning from your own mistakes. You are probably trying to do things exactly the same way you always did...guess what...that won't work.

I also use https://www.callloop.com/ for text messages. I can tell you this, i do get higher open rates with callloop. But thats not near the end of the story...see high open rates is not what any of us are after really is it.

we are after profit. Email is still king for generating profit by a very wide margin.

Yes, lots of people us FB, twitter, and text's to communicate. But guess what most of those same people still use email for the vast majority of their business needs. They dont see a twitter message or txt and buy stuff nearly as often as when they see an email message. There are many reasons for this...some are very simple and should really be obvious to most folks.

People interact with other people using those other methods, but email driven messages are still where the money is at for the vast majority of businesses. That aint going to change for a really long time...at least in tech years...lol

Consider this - 95% of all marketers fail online. That stat hasn't changed a tad. I would think that the "death rate" of email might be due to some, probably wildly high, percent to the fact that some marketers wear out their welcome.

Customers are becoming a little more sophisticated in regard to the net. Hokey headlines are more likely to get emails zapped right away now. Stupidity that some might have put up with before is reaping high returns -- for opt outs.

I still remember the first one I opted out of. I thought I needed the email (was new and the name was a big one). Then one day I got a message that read "XXXX killed himself". I was shocked and opened it to find it telling us about the guy working himself to death to get this new product out to us. I not only hit that unsubscribe button, I sent a message to the website and railed them good for it. I subscribe to few now. They get a few readings and if they aren't worth the salt, I opt out. There's too much quality out there to waste time on the amateurs.

Just like any other area of marketing - you have to know what you're doing, and you have to do it with excellence. Gee, go figure.

Man,

I'm getting kind of tired of threads like this. A few of the responders hit the nail on the head with their statistics that were cited.

Anyway, it all depends on what you are doing and what the CONTEXT is.

Trying to sell right off the bat in any medium might not get you too far unless you've really thought it out.

For instance, are you a relative newbie?

The gurus and big names can sell right off the bat and with greater frequency than a relative new-comer because of several factors. List size being one.

However, if you are new, you have to work double hard to build a relationship and add value to your subscribers and treat them like gold, cause that's what they are.

As your reputation increases, you can sell bigger and more frequently.

And as others mentioned, context.

Sure you can sell and notify via text, but how many people are going to buy something when they get a text while they are in the car driving or wherever they happen to be? Even if it is SUPER compelling, they might get 50, 60, even 100 subsequent texts that inevitably bury your text under a heap of rubble.

Technology changes, no doubt about it, but the fundamentals are the same now as they've been for as long as people have been exchanging currency for goods and services.

The marketing mix: Message, market, media

Craft your message for the right market, delivered by the right media.

Are you selling financial services to senior citizens or weight loss programs to new moms?

You can't paint with broad brushes, because for every person like you who says you can't do it, there is someone making buku bucks in the exact same way.

I recommend immersing yourself in the fundamentals: Hopkins, Caples, Kennedy, Carlton, Schwartz, Zig Ziglar, Halbert, and others.

Email will never die. This thread will, though

Actually, eMarketer released a study about a month ago that e-mail use was actually increasing due to mobile devices and that conversions are better than ever if you know how to set up an effective marketing funnel.

In fact, by the time you have finished reading this post 43 people in the USA converted over to a smart phone (not sure what the figure is globally).

Mobile advertising and texting (SMS) are effective as well, but e-mail is definitely not dying; at least, that's what the numbers bear out as of March, 2013.

RoD

My conversions are better now than ever..

It might be dying for you.. But not for me

If one person or many people fail with a specific marketing strategy, does not mean that everyone who undertakes the use of that marketing strategy will also fail.

what i meant to say was that email marketing is absolutely dying.

I think all yall who buy into that rubbage should just sell me your list on the cheap and cut your losses.

Move on to twitter...thats where the real money is.

If email is dying, why are venture capitalists buying up success email newsletters for millions upon millions of dollars?

Email newsletters connect advertisers with eager audiences - latimes.com

wesd22


I guess your right..

maybe you should get a job ??

Oh crap!!! I think I'm going to have to switch to using a carrier pigeon.

Now lets all sit back and wait for him to release his "Discover how I'm able to consistently get over 100% conversion rates in every niche with my secret email tips... Even though email marketing is dead!!" WSO.

Or was this guy actually serious?:confused:

This is why your argument is useless:

Let's assume half of everyone promoting via email believes your "email is dying" argument and stops using email. That would dramatically lessen the competition for the other 50% who continue to use email. It would actually improve their results, as the recipients would receive 50% less email promos.

The same shift happened with direct mail. Before the days of email, everyone used direct mail to promote. A large number of those accepted the "direct mail is dead" mantra and switched to email. That resulted in much less competition for those still using direct mail. And that is why direct mail is a GREAT way to promote these days, and ROI is actually better than in the "old days" even though the postage costs are much higher.

Make no mistake - where there is a vacuum, it will be filled.

I've made thousands of dollars online for 15 years without any list.
I tried it for a while, but found they were mainly freebie seekers and decided to cancel the list from Aweber rather than keep paying for these people each month.

Hello wesd22,

As others have said, email is still everywhere; I know plenty of marketers still using email as a primary means of communication, and that is the key - you need to utilize several methods of communication: mobile, social, AND email. Giving up on email is a MAJOR mistake- certainly, you don't just rely on email, but you DON'T give up on either. You never put all of your eggs into one basket- you wouldn't do that with email, you wouldn't do that with social media either.

I read recently (eMarketer, Econsultancy, or something similar) that email is STILL the preferred way of businesses and consumers to communicate. Yes, mobile and social have definitely made impacts, and will continue to do so, but don't think email's going away any time soon - it isn't.

As Paul mentioned, it's all about relationships no matter what medium you're using. If you meant to say credit cards (CCs) in your post, you certainly don't ask for that right away, as I don't see you being successful getting that immediately. It still takes at least 7 contacts before a prospect is even willing to consider your offer and purchase from you.

If done properly, email is still quite effective, and will be for some time to come. It should be PART of your marketing strategy, but certainly not the whole strategy (no one method should- diversify, just like you would an investment portfolio).

Hope this helps!

Take care,

Joe Chengery

And you lost thousands upon thousands by not having an email list. Though I'm sure we've been over this before and you refused to accept it as truth so not sure why I'm bothering.

Are you pulling these numbers from thin air?

Funny how my DM clients are doing better than
ever in spite of these ROI drops, huh?

This is a post I made in another forum here:

Recently I was wondering if what Gary Halbert said about direct mail was even relevant anymore. I was thinking perhaps his stuff (not the actual copywriting advice mind you, but the channel he worked in, direct mail) was out of date. It seems direct mail is indeed going obsolete, but it's not quite yet there.

I think the take away is that while direct mail still got better response rates, it has declined by 25% in the past 9 years, and email and telemarketing deliver a higher ROI, email being number one in that regard.

Here is the article [please note, you may want to take with grain of salt, because they deal with direct marketing, however they do admit that direct mail is down by 25% in the past 9 years]:

Despite the perception in the marketing industry that direct mail and telemarketing are less effective than digital channels, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has found that direct mail boasts a 4.4% rate, compared to email's average response rate of 0.12%, says Yory Wurmser, director of marketing and media insights at the DMA.

Depending on how one crunches the numbers, direct mail has a response rate of up to 10 to 30 times that of email — and even higher when compared to online display, Wurmser continues.

Using transactional data from Bizo and Epsilon, the DMA analyzed more than 29 billion emails and 2 billion online display impressions to track consumer actions both immediately following a click and in the days and weeks after being exposed to an online ad.

“Overall for display, only 6% converted as a result of the immediate action of the click,” Wurmser says, meaning that 94% of conversions happen at a later date — an important finding, considering that the success of display's impact is generally judged by its click-through rate.

Despite this news, Wurmser notes that in the nine years the DMA has been doing its response rate report, the rate for direct mail, while still “the better channel than any other out there right now,” has gone down 25% overall.

“Yes, there has been a reduction in the response rate level from a direct mail perspective,” he says. “But, looking at it strictly in terms of response rate, direct mail still outperforms digital.”

However, looking at the playing field from an ROI point of view, email is more cost-effective than direct mail or telemarketing. The report found email had the highest ROI, at $28.50, compared the $7 for direct mail.

As to why direct mail remains such a strong channel while simultaneously declining in terms of overall response rate, the reason could be related to the fact that consumers are — now more than ever — continually bombarded by digital messages they don't want.

“Because of the proliferation of emails and the onslaught of display ads everywhere, there is an advantage of going through direct mail,” Wurmser muses. “Direct mail in a way has become less cluttered.

The DMA's report was based on data collected through an April 2012 email survey and an analysis of transactional data provided by Bizo and Epsilon.

http://www.dmnews.com/dma-direct-mai...rticle/245780/

If you really are just having trouble with your email list, I'd say it's something you're doing wrong. You need to reconfigure, look at some successful templates, ask the right questions on the forum and then test and see what works. If you really work at it you'll see your conversion rate go up. Find something that works and keep at it.

I'm going to have to disagree. If you just send them crap hoping they buy things without actually communicating with them, then it probably will die for you. Emails can still be used for other things, especially driving traffic to your site (especially if it converts to mobile).

Also regarding people forking over their CC/Paypal to you, what if in the future their are mobile versions of offers? Clickbank has some offers that are compatible with mobile.

Eventually there will be mobile versions of everything... that's how I feel. It's only a matter of time.

Also these people on your list are actual human beings. What if they see something intriguing you sent them in their email, and then think "I'm interested to know more, that last product actually helped me out!(assuming you actually help your list)" and visit whatever it is on their desktop/laptop? Though I think that would only work for people who actually communicate well with their list and actually have given products that help them.

Also email will remain to be emails... I think you mean the platform in which people read their emails has changed, but people still read their emails lol. Again, they are people.

The conversation about how people don't trust what's in their email, that's true... unless they don't trust you despite joining your list. If people trust you, they'll click whatever is in your links. But if you give them garbage, they won't. People don't join a list to get junk mail... the headlines some marketers use is also BEYOND spammy lol.

We just need to pick up our game, rather than doing things in the same way and expecting the same results.

After all that is the definition of insanity.

I don't believe e-mail marketing is dead, we just need to reinvent ourselves within it. Create real relationships, add real value rather than just doing as the herd does, and spamming the crap out of everyone hoping that something sticks...

Sigh. Another thread saying something that I am making more money than ever from is dead. If this is what "dead" is like, then I might just kill all of my income streams, because "dead" is really working out for me!

Fine, if you think that it's dying then be my guest and don't do email marketing. More for me and my fellow internet marketers that know it's not dying.

My open rate and conversion rates haven't fallen at all.

Now, with that said, I think people are expecting more out you (which is a great thing).
In other words, I don't think you can hammer your email list 1-2 times a day now with a paid promotion.

Fact of the matter is that you must build rapport with them and make them like you. People are getting savvier and that is a good thing.

Oh look another one of those "It doesn't work for me so it must be dying" guys...

This is just a silly thread from someone I can confidently guess doesn't even use email marketing OR doesn't use it properly. If they did then they wouldn't have started this thread in the first place.

YOUR inability to make something work does not mean it doesn't work. It just means YOU can't make it work.

There is a LOT more proof out there that backs up the complete opposite of what you are saying in this thread. The only thing that appears dead is your ability to make money from email. So give up. Throw in the towel. Leave it to the rest of us who are using email marketing effectively.

If you want attention then go and walk naked down the main street of your town but don't just try and start 'death of' threads because they really offer absolutely no value to anyone at all... especially when what you are claiming is simply not true.

Email marketing will become harder as there are more marketers competing for the same users and as more people switch to reading e-mails from their mobile devices.

I did some research and I read an interesting fact. The majority of people who read e-mail from their smart phones also read it from their computers and/or tablets.

haha, the deeek that posted this thread has probably never built a list...I mean comon.

Email marketing has never been better for our business. I am serious....worked good in 2011, in 2012 even better, and 2013....well its kickiing ass yet again.

I love these threads, they are so stoopid but they they are normally shot down very quick by senior warriors.

you may be doing something wrong bud. if you're providing value to the contacts on your email list, there's no reason why your conversions and open rates should be low.

Perhaps your marketing and targeting isn't niche enough...or perhaps you need to up the quality

Simple solution...write emails that people will want to save to read later, or better yet, click on the link and sign up for whatever you're promoting.

Funny, cause there is a ton of articles over the internet that "Mail Marketing" is the future

Also because the quality of emails would be dropping significantly due to the fact more and more newbies are trying to make money with email and not really knowing what they're doing.

This is just personal habits, cannot be conclusive.

*yawn ..............

not only this... day after day there is more and more competition.... one email can get 40 offers per month and you need good luck and high relationship if you want that the guy chose your offer.

that's a good topic, about "email for mobile"... I've always sent epic-long emails; adding to the mix some "mobile device friendly" ones is a very good idea; any ideas? I'm thinking short 2-4 liners with URL link to squeeze that's ez to fill out/click/autofill w/social media login already done, is a good idea, like kindle apps for 'rate this'

I have noticed a change in email. If a person is interested, and participates even as a lurker in your community, they will stick around. Email works for them, as well as being a member of the Facebook page community. For my local marketing, I've found people would rather be on Facebook than receive email. Some people sign up for my newsletters due to Facebook. As for 160 characters, people love headlines. These types of posts get me great traffic.

Wrong!!! Email has never worked better for me.

Seems like you must doing something wrong

If everything's dead, does that mean we're zombies?