Golden Leads

Here we are at the start of one of the busiest seasons for email marketing. With the holiday and end-of-year rush about to hit not only marketers but consumers on October 15th, the segmentation, development, design and behavioral elves are busy in workshops across not only the US, but the entire world. So why do we keep reading that email marketing is dead or dying?

The reason is other marketing media — direct mail, search, blog, PR, new 2.0 media, viral, broadcast and print — are all changing. These industries are trying, in essence, to lobby against each other to place themselves at the top or portray themselves as leading, or at least not losing, prominence in the minds of their audiences. It is the fight for dollars in the advertising business.

In truth, media are shifting. Not dying. Preferences on how people are reached are changing and we all need to change with them. We still watch TV, just in a different way in some households. We still read the papers, but they are not our go-to source of immediate information. We still subscribe to magazines and listen to the radio but for reasons other than our evolving desire of connectedness and immediate gratification. In a sense not only we have shifted this measurement as an audience, but marketers like yourselves have assisted with this always on mentality.

So what do we do? Trash one medium over another? Write studies claiming that one is dying while the other we are passionate about is thriving? Seems this is what many are doing.

We are here to let you know that yes advertising and marketing are changing, but one still does not kill off the other. They are interdependent. We actually, not sure if you noticed with all the summer events and daily noise in your own inbox, have not sent this ”monthly” newsletter since May, and here we are in September. Why? Well summer has been incredibly busy not only for us at eROI and our clients, but felt that everyone needed a little break. Is this close to what you thought it would be? Is email dead? Read some of the other articles to understand that it is only evolving right now to a medium that is working better due to marketers and companies taking it more seriously and doing it right by listening to their subscribers, customers and competition.

Long live media and strive to do better.

Stop lurking on the blogs and start interacting, leave your thoughts around this topic as a comment on this blog. If you want to share but don’t want them published, let us know in your comments and we will keep them hidden. (Thought I would spell that one out for you Ken)

Thanks to The Email Wars for this great article.