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The Death of Email Marketing

by Marcus C
38 replies
Hey Warriors,

I received an email from a marketer today who states that email marketing will become increasingly difficult in the near future due to competition, deliverability of emails and autoresponder companies getting stricter with their clients.

He goes on to say that email marketing will be replaced by telephone marketing and squeeze pages will gather telephone numbers rather than email addresses.

What is your take on the future of email marketing? Is it a dying art, or will email marketing be a viable source business for many years to come?

Thanks,

-Marcus
#death #email #marketing
  • Profile picture of the author severt
    Hmm, I'm not sure if those allegations are true.
    We internet marketers tend to subscribe to a lot of newsletters, but I don't believe all other people outside of IM do that too.

    And I don't believe telephone marketing will be the next big thing either.
    People like e-mail because they can not be pushed by some smooth talker.
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    Sounds to me like scare tactics from someone wanting to sell those old marketing techniques.

    Email marketing is tough, but not tougher than phone sales. :p
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    • Profile picture of the author DogScout
      Originally Posted by tpw View Post

      Sounds to me like scare tactics from someone wanting to sell those old marketing techniques.

      Email marketing is tough, but not tougher than phone sales. :p
      Depends on the 'talents' of the salesperson. I am killer face to face, (or on phone), however, designing a sales page and driving traffic is a bit more technologically intense for me & I find much harder... just saying. Lol.
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      • Profile picture of the author tpw
        Originally Posted by DogScout View Post

        Depends on the 'talents' of the salesperson. I am killer face to face, (or on phone), however, designing a sales page and driving traffic is a bit more technologically intense for me & I find much harder... just saying. Lol.

        Me too...

        But on scale, I think email marketing is far more effective than telephone sales, because most of the people manning the phone lines in the boiler rooms are simply warm butts filling chairs.
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    Well a 'guru' IM guy with the initials of FK had a product last year that extolled the advantages of boiler room telephone sales rooms over e-mail or sales page marketing. In fact, I get several calls with pitches a week in spite of being on 'do not call list'.

    I COULD research who and where they are calling from and report them, however, that is a multi-year process. The 'do not call list' is a regulation that is virtually ignored because it is hardly enforced.

    Before ramping up to hiring a boiler room of tele-marketers, I suggest contacting John Durham who (along with possibly Mr. Hiles) may be the best talent on this forum in that field. (They, as far as I know DO NOT ignore the 'do not list', however, in fact, I really have no idea other than their moral compass seems to be higher than doing that:p).

    **Now that I think about it, I really only have their intimation that they are good, again, I base that 'assumption' on their knowledge of face to face sales that I glean from posts, etc.:rolleyes**
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  • Profile picture of the author premiumonlinewriting
    This actually occurred to me earlier today when I took a look at my inbox and unsubscribed from a bunch of newsletters. But I think it's the same as anything else: if you're in a competitive niche, of course you're going to be competitive. Every man and his dog has a "make money from home" list these days.

    As for phone marketing taking over, I'm with Brian above. If you're talking about SMS, then yes, you could be on the right track there. SMS is definitely growing but I can't see it displacing email altogether. If you're talking about actual phone calls replace email marketing - forget it, not gonna happen.
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    • Profile picture of the author jvjoe
      I don't think telephone marketing will take over from email marketing. Nobody will like to receive calls around 3:00am talking about product you want to sell, besides that, it may be expensive to call your client over the other side of the world. To me Email marketing is still one of the best, because you can always go back to your email to read the last newsletter but in the case of a phone call, if you don't have the gadget to record the conversion then if will lose alot of information. That's just my own though...
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  • Profile picture of the author Zero
    Plenty of people seem to be killing it with email so i don't see how it could be dying any time soon.
    How well you do with email will depend on your message and yourself ( how well a relationship you built with your list ). I don't see that changing any time soon.
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  • Profile picture of the author tampaprogrammer
    Its also a numbers game. You can easily send out 10k emails in a day. You can't talk to 10k people in a day.

    Maybe the phone calls are a higher conversion rate but I would rather have 1% of 10k emails converting than 10% of 100 phone calls in a day converting (not to mention the time involved in talking to 100 people in a day).
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  • Profile picture of the author Royce Space
    Why can't people understand that SEO is not dead, Article Marketing is not dead, PPC is not dead and so Email Marketing is not dead. IM is constantly changing, you need to ADJUST.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Douglas
    Originally Posted by Marcus C View Post

    Hey Warriors,

    I received an email from a marketer today
    The Death of Email Marketing
    That is irony at it's finest LOL
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    • Profile picture of the author zamzung
      Originally Posted by Ron Douglas View Post

      That is irony at it's finest LOL
      I agree with this... don't fail for everyone someone says...
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  • Profile picture of the author JasonParker
    You guys are talking about my article

    Sounds like someone misread what I wrote because I never said email marketing is dead or it's going to die.

    I said it's becoming less effective, more expensive, more regulated, more competitive, and eventually it's going to get to the point for a lot of marketers where the costs of doing it will make it not worth doing over other methods.

    The phone selling I'm talking about is about pre-qualifying prospects who are interested in buying what you offer. So it's not like calling 100 people a day. It's like calling 1 to 10 people a day who are most qualified and have communicated with you telling you that they want to talk to you about your offer.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jager
      I was applying for a job and told the start-up founder this. He was adamant that phone calls to pre-qualified leads would be too time-consuming.I disagreed and didn't get the job for one reason or another.

      Either way, interesting that someone else has noticed the same thing

      Originally Posted by JasonParker View Post

      You guys are talking about my article

      Sounds like someone misread what I wrote because I never said email marketing is dead or it's going to die.

      I said it's becoming less effective, more expensive, more regulated, more competitive, and eventually it's going to get to the point for a lot of marketers where the costs of doing it will make it not worth doing over other methods.

      The phone selling I'm talking about is about pre-qualifying prospects who are interested in buying what you offer. So it's not like calling 100 people a day. It's like calling 1 to 10 people a day who are most qualified and have communicated with you telling you that they want to talk to you about your offer.
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  • Profile picture of the author Exire
    Originally Posted by Marcus C View Post

    I received an email from a marketer today who states that email marketing will become increasingly difficult in the near future due to competition, deliverability of emails and autoresponder companies getting stricter with their clients.
    People have been saying this for years. Usually with the intent of selling you on some "revolutionary" system or other that will replace email marketing. It's the old ploy, "There's a problem with 'X'. Luckily for you, I have just the solution and I'll sell it to you for just $X!"

    He goes on to say that email marketing will be replaced by telephone marketing and squeeze pages will gather telephone numbers rather than email addresses.
    Telephone marketing has different requirements associated with it than email marketing does. Depending on what you're doing, you may need to register as a telemarketer with the FTC (if you're in the U.S.) and scrub your call list for numbers on the Do Not Call registry. The FTC has a bunch of regulations about who you can call, for what purpose, and within what time frame, even if they willingly gave you their number. The exception seems to be if they're already your customer--then you can call them for up to six months, I believe. The six month window is renewed each time they make a purchase so you're able to call them again within that six month window without any FTC concerns at all.

    I'm not completely familiar with all of the FTC requirements but I know that you generally can't just go calling someone out of the blue. You could, of course, higher a telemarketing firm to do it for you and let them deal with all of the red tape but unless you're selling a mass market physical product on the cheap and expect thousands of orders or a narrower niche market product that's ungodly expensive then a telemarketing firm is probably going to be far too pricey for something like this.

    What is your take on the future of email marketing? Is it a dying art, or will email marketing be a viable source business for many years to come?
    Email marketing will be around for a long, long, time I would think. The whole CAN-SPAM Act thing was supposed to kill email marketing too but, obviously, that didn't happen.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michaelangelo Flores
    Well I met a considerable amount of contacts and friends through e-mail marketing. I've even developed a lot of personal relations with my leads and damn this isn't gonna stop soon either! So no, I sure as hell don't think e-mail marketing is dead.

    I hear though, that mobile device marketing could be the next big thing. I don't have any further evidence to support this though...
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  • Profile picture of the author paul_1
    I agree with Zero, I think email marketing will linger for along time. I don't believe selling products can be presented well just by talking to people on phones.
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  • Profile picture of the author xxxJamesxxx
    Lol... The guy telling you this emailed you!

    Personally I think there's nothing to worry about, just as long you build a relationship with your list and make them look forward to receiving your emails, you'll do just fine.

    James Scholes
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  • Profile picture of the author Marcus C
    Hey guys,

    Thanks for your input.

    Yes, it was Jason Parker who sent this email. Hi Jason

    I was intrigued by Jason's comments because he is an email marketer who has been in the email marketing game for a few years now and has seen some noticeable changes in the amount of clicks he receives when sending out emails. He also notes problems with deliverability, the cost of autoresponder services and regulation, which could push email marketers out of business in the near future.

    You can read the full article on Jason's blog:

    Make Money Affiliate Marketing With AffiliateBadass.com » In The Future… Email Marketing Will Be On Life Support

    I have my own take on the state of email marketing, but I thought it would be useful to get the opinions of other experienced email marketers. I don't think cold calling people is the future, far from it, but telephone marketing via SMS is being used successfully as we speak and I imagine this will only grow bigger in the future.

    Best wishes,

    -Marcus
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  • Profile picture of the author RefundHost
    Originally Posted by Marcus C View Post

    Hey Warriors,

    I received an email from a marketer today who states that email marketing will become increasingly difficult in the near future due to competition, deliverability of emails and autoresponder companies getting stricter with their clients.

    He goes on to say that email marketing will be replaced by telephone marketing and squeeze pages will gather telephone numbers rather than email addresses.

    What is your take on the future of email marketing? Is it a dying art, or will email marketing be a viable source business for many years to come?

    Thanks,

    -Marcus
    More difficult? Yes.
    Telephone? No. Mobile TEXT, Yes.
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    • Profile picture of the author Shaun OReilly
      If someone is e-mailing their list around 5 times a day with
      pitch after pitch after pitch and virtually zero content -
      then frankly they deserve to get dwindling returns from
      their e-mail marketing.

      The results you get from e-mail marketing depend upon
      how effective your strategy is as well as external factors
      like where the eyeballs are going - now and in the future.

      If you believe that building relationships via e-mail isn't
      worth it then that will generate a certain set of results.

      I believe that builiding strong relationships with subscribers
      via e-mail marketing is worth it to build a list that lasts for
      the long-term.

      Sure, there are challenges ahead for e-mail marketing - as
      there are for most marketing channels.

      However, if you've got an effective e-mail marketing strategy
      then e-mail marketing is a great option now for the future too.

      Dedicated to mutual success,

      Shaun
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      .

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  • Profile picture of the author anthonyb
    Email marketing is not dead for now, and no one is able to predict what the future holds. However, what we can all agree on is that certain niches have been deluged with newsletters, straight of the back commercial mails etc. IM and Forex niches are notoriously over crowded with all manner of email marketing. What tends to happen, with a scenario of oversupply, as seen with email marketing within IM is that consumption reduces, to a point where only serious suppliers are left to provide the goods. My guess is that the coming years will weed out most marketers providing mailing content within the IM niche leaving only the top marketers providing mailing content.
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    • Profile picture of the author JimDucharme
      There are two tracks to this "email is dead" discussion. One focuses on email in and of itself being obsolete and dying. I believe the first mainstream media post on this one came from the WSJ. Even Facebook jumped on that bandwagon and their COO declared that email was going away. They then attempted to launch their own messaging service and that failed.

      The other tact is to suggest that social media is more effective as a marketing tool because of noisy inboxes.

      The whole email vs social debate is erroneous. By definition any interaction between two humans is social regardless of what channel that interaction takes place on. Smart marketing is leveraging each channel's strengths in a "combined arms" strategy.

      I believe currently the ROI on email marketing is about 40 dollars for every one dollar invested and that's a pretty good return. Email is also very measurable and other channels are still struggling towards that kind of accountability.

      I don't believe there is any one magical channel for marketing. Email has it's strengths such as transactional messaging and social channels such as Twitter are very good for brand building and relationship building. Use the right channel for the right task in combination with others.

      Mobile is definitely going to change the playing field for email. Once technology starts traveling with people and they aren't forced to give up their time at desktops and laptops, how they employ communication tools to access and use information will fundamentally change. They will be reachable throughout the day and they will expect you to be more engaging and timely. Now you have to think a lot more about location, timing and relevancy (what are they doing right now?) - don't send me an email or SMS for a breakfast 2for1 at five to noon and so on.

      Regards,
      jim
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  • Profile picture of the author TopKat22
    I don't think there is anything to worry about. My email open, click through and buy rates are higher than any other method I've ever used for online or even in my offline business.

    And when you compare the cost for those much higher rates, it is beyond phenomenal.

    Personally, I'd rather get an email than a phone calls (which annoys me and take too much of my time) or text messages, which I would not sign up for under any circumstances at this point and would NEVER buy from anyone who sends me a text unsolicited.
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  • Profile picture of the author mojojuju
    I keep getting phone calls from marketers telling me that telephone marketing is dead.
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    :)

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  • Profile picture of the author eagleshot56
    It has already taken a beating over the years. They have made it really difficult to send emails to non opt-ins. Also, some people have strict spam filters set up, so getting it to the persons in-box can be challenging.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Hill
    Everyone is missing one important factor when it comes to email marketing that is the difference between a successful email marketing list and a dead email marketing list.

    That one difference is VALUE...

    If you deliver value from day zero (on your landing pages etc) and continue that trend then email marketing will be successful for you. If you do not deliver value or send email promotions disguised as content then your email marketing list will abandon you.

    It's much more than setting up a landing page and getting subscribers. You have to also consider where the source of this information is coming from when people say "Email Marketing is Dead".

    Mike Hill

    PS. What makes me laugh is those marketers who are claiming email marketing is dead spread their message via email... :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author entrepreneurjay
    Email marketing is not going anywhere anytime soon. Open rates are down across the the board but it is still very profitable.

    So no it will be around for years to come too many businesses rely on email marketing as their bread and butter.
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  • Profile picture of the author Guru_Marketing
    Originally Posted by Marcus C View Post

    Hey Warriors,

    I received an email from a marketer today who states that email marketing will become increasingly difficult in the near future due to competition, deliverability of emails and autoresponder companies getting stricter with their clients.

    He goes on to say that email marketing will be replaced by telephone marketing and squeeze pages will gather telephone numbers rather than email addresses.

    What is your take on the future of email marketing? Is it a dying art, or will email marketing be a viable source business for many years to come?

    Thanks,

    -Marcus
    As long as people have, create and check emails regularly, email marketing won't die, regardless of competition and market saturation.
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  • Profile picture of the author JasonParker
    Sure there are things YOU can do to increase response... No one's denying that.

    That has nothing to do with my article.

    There are external factors way out of your control.

    -Competition is increasing

    -Costs of 3rd party e-mail services have increased by multiple times

    -Open rates are down across the board

    -Some 3rd party services are having trouble with deliverability

    Those kinds of external factors are the ones I'm talking about.

    You can preach all you want about this or that, but it doesn't change what's happening around you that's out of your control.

    My post was not to say e-mail marketing is dead or it's going to die. It's just getting less effective... and it'll get less and less effective.

    E-mail marketing has changed a lot in just the past few years. It's still heading in the same direction.

    Those are the facts.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ben Gordon
    Email marketing will not die out in the near future. It is still very profitable and an immense amount of money is able to be profited from it.
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  • Profile picture of the author jtnatoli
    I think that any marketing tactic gets harder over time as saturation, dissonance, and audience "tune-out" ability increases. Email is definitely one of them.

    People are increasingly using social media to replace messages that formerly would have been sent via email. My wife for one almost completely ignores her email in favor of FB. She explains that it is because her inbox is full of marketing emails and she doesn't feel like combing through it. FB allows her to be more selective about who can send her messages.

    With the integration of Google+ and GMail, this trend may start expanding in the other direction, and other email providers will likely follow suit with deeper integration to popular social networks. Now.. telephone marketing replacing email – I think is far-fetched.

    I think that on a whole, things are moving towards integration, with each channel presenting the user with a set of tools to affect their overall communication sphere. Simple example is setting your email preferences via FB, or blocking certain senders from your email client. That concept will definitely be taken further and further, to where?
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    It doesn't matter. Internet Marketing is dead ... or almost

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...you-think.html

    And Ezine Articles has bit the dust too.
    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ally-dead.html

    We're all doomed.
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