Where Will Email (Marketing) Be By 2020?

by Roland Pokornyik

People who are not really into email or online marketing, usually ask us:* Is it a good idea to build your business on email? I heard that email is dying because of Facebook and popular chat apps like Snapchat. *

Yep, we have to agree that P2P email is dying and is being replaced by faster, simpler, more interactive solutions nowadays.

  • Chat apps are killing SMS and personal emails, since they are cheap (free), fast and really convenient to use.
  • Apps like Slack or Trello are killing the really ineffective email communication inside teams via introducing super effective platforms for communication, with highly functional UI and fast interactions. Great job, I have to say.

**But is there anything which could replace email (marketing) by 2020? **I don’t think so.

Email is your “unique ID” on the web. An email address is probably the first thing you register when you go online. You simply need one email address to get started! You may have multiple email addresses the same time, but I’m sure you have a main one, which is your universal ID.

Till everybody has at least one email address, we will send and receive emails somehow. The format may change though.

Voicemail, Videomail or Holomail? 🙂

I think most of us tried voice mail (even if it’s connected to mobile communication) and video mail as well, but we don’t use any of these too often. Not in personal communication at least and we rarely get video mail from businesses. We do get emails with video like content (mostly anim GIFs) since it’s an effective way for boosting the interactivity of your email campaigns.

Holomail does not exist, and it seems to be only a funny thing nowadays. So it’s unlikely to change the way we use email by 2020.

 

Email is still growing

image source: Smartinsights.com

The pace of the growth is a bit questionable though. According to Forrester’s forecastUS email marketing spending is increasing with roughly 9% YoY, while Transparency Market Research says that the global email marketing industry is growing at a healthy CAGR of 20% and is expected to reach USD 6.5 Billion by 2018.

So we are not worried. Email is definitely not dead. Email is here to stay and definitely has a future for the next X years! X equals to 5, 10, 20 or… What do you think?