Is Email Marketing Obsolete?

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That is a pretty surprising question. You no doubt have sorted through your email dozens of times today, sent many emails out and gotten that many or more in, so to declare that as a form of communication that email is obsolete would be a mistake. Email is no more obsolete than letter writing or chatting on the telephone is. But it is okay to say that its feasible that email is no longer cutting edge and its era as a principal tool for internet marketing may be coming to an end, in its present form.

When email first became a fashionable, it effectively changed the way communication functioned in a way that can only be compared to the invention of the telephone. Email combined the speed of a telephone conversation with the capability to document what was said in a written letter. Back then, to be able to dispatch an email that reached the recipient's email box in a moment's time, even if they were on the other side of the world, was extraordinary.

The internet marketing possibility was wonderful. As internet marketing became a respected form of conduct business, it grew up as the use of email matured . However there was concern in Cyber Land and I perhaps don't have to enlighten you what the issues were. It can be summed up in one word - spam. Spam is nothing more than unwelcome email communications by and large from an internet marketer. The corresponding experience outside of the internet is the Telemarketer phone call in the middle of dinner or junk mail and both are definitely as annoying and undesirable as spam marketing emails.

Subsequently in the last decade internet marketing via email as the primary means of communication with your clientele has grown in two parallel lines. The legitimate side of email marketing and client assistance has grown and turned out to be more sophisticated, respected and convenient. Several businesses were able to build extraordinary online business empires supported by email marketing and ongoing email communications with a growing client base. For thousands of online marketers, the idea of conducting business without emailing customers seems not viable.

But it was the other parallel line that grew like a cancer to the stage that it snarled email communications and has hindered email deliverability for the many genuine email based internet merchants operating in cyberspace. The spam merchants working with refined mass mailing services and software have inundated email inboxes of every citizen of cyberspace to such an extent that, without spam control software, both at the server level and at the desk top level, it is practically impossible to use email for routine purposes any more.

Spam control software has grown exponentially as well and become powerful and sophisticated. It has also spawned a cottage industry which has forced a whole new cost of operations on every email user in the world who wants to steer clear of the spam avalanche they will face if they go unprotected. This has created dislike and distrust in the email system of communications in general and certainly toward online merchants who wish to use the internet for customer service and marketing. A few have spoiled it for the whole.

Due to this ongoing war between spam operators and spam control software services, email deliverability has become a tiresome chore to maintain and without continuous oversight, an internet merchant can lose contact with its customers in short order. For that reason, email could become more difficult as a valid and easy to use tool for marketing and customer communications.

Meanwhile up-to-the-minute forms of communications such as instant messaging, VOIP and WEB 2.0 interoperability have begun. The chances are that we will see internet merchants move away from email marketing to exploit these much more dynamic methods for connecting customers. This can be seen with the advent of social networking such as Twitter and Facebook. And while email will never die as a cornerstone of online communications, from an internet marketing point of view, it is time for us all to find new and effective ways to think outside the square.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Article by Gail Bottomley, an email consultant who teaches responsible email marketing at onlinemarketingtacticssite.com Her coaching in email marketing small business is renown internationally for innovation and inspiring ideas. Visit her site at: onlinemarketingtacticssite.com

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