Email is dead, right? Wrong! Since it's invention and implementation in 1972, email has been the new kid on the block. Up to today, we use it for many different occasions.
We use it to send the link to that family vacation photo album to our great-aunt Debbie. We email updates to our boss Jack on our latest project tasks, and we even send virtual inbox reminders and To-Do's to ourselves. Contrary to popular belief, email is far from dead. In fact, it's become an even more integral part of our day to day operations.
Need more proof? Here are a few reasons why we are still firm believers in the power of email, and why you should hop on that bandwagon.
1. Emails Are Better For Storage And Logs
If you are working with tons of people as a freelancer or business owner, you know how important it is to keep track of your communications with each individual client. Chat apps like Slack and Skype have become popular for quick, instant communication. They are not quite as great as email for keeping track of all of your chat logs. Sure, you can download chat logs from the apps, but keeping track of attachments and individual conversations is much easier in email threads.
2. Managing Multiple Email Accounts Is Easy
If you are anything like most millennials out there, you probably have at least 3 email accounts. According to Pew Research, over 92% of online adults regularly use email, and 61% of those users check their email daily. Maybe you need a dedicated account for your business. A personal account to communicate with family and friends and some kind of spam account. Sure, you might be able to create multiple channels and conversations on apps like Slack and Skype. With a dedicated email client like Mailbird (Windows) or Airmail (Mac), you'll be able to easily see all of your inboxes in one convenient place.That means that you can create as many individual email accounts as you need and you'll be able to keep track of all of them intelligently, and efficiently. Email clients like Mailbird were built to handle multiple email accounts and can be far more diverse and inclusive than any chat app.
In fact, with Mailbird, you can even activate chat apps like Slack in your sidebar. Making sure you'll never miss an email or instant message ever again.
Mailbird with Slack integration
3. You Still Need Email, Plain and Simple
Here's the thing - if you want to sign your business up for an exclusive seminar or be a part of that Starbucks loyalty program. Or maybe if you want to create a website for your services, you need email. Signing up for all of these things, you might be able to skip the tedious process and just click to sign up via Facebook. But, at the end of the day, your Facebook account requires an email address. Even apps that claim to be the next "email killer", usually require an email to sign up. The reality is, email is far from dead because as of right now, we still (desperately) need it. In fact, the Radicati Group predicts that the total number of active email accounts will increase to over 4.3 billion.
So, let's not focus on how to get rid of it but on how to best embrace it and on how to manage it most effectively.
4. Email Was Made For Marketing
If you've been keeping up with marketing trends over the last few years, you'll know that two new major methods of marketing have become very popular - Digital Marketing, and the Inbound Methodology.
Digital marketing is all about taking a more digital, environmentally friendly approach to standard paper flyers/snail mailed surveys marketing tactics. Inbound is a new method within the digital marketing sector. It encourages ways to bring customers to us instead of using the traditional door-to-door method of going to them.
Throw these new trends, the one that has stuck around for years and years is email marketing. Remember our post "Email Marketing & Millennials: Do We Think Email Sucks?" Email Marketing & Millennials: Do We Think Email Sucks?"? We showed you that, despite all these new and inventive messaging apps, Millennials love their email. "Millennials, like myself, love our email. We are just as addicted to it as our social media, so much so that we are the highest demographic who thinks we will still bekicking it with our inboxes in 10-years time."
But we do use email to communicate in a different way compared to previous generations. With the sheer volume of social media messages going out every second of the day across an increasing amount of platforms, it can be hard for the average millennial to keep up with your brand.
This is why when it comes to consumer-to-brand communication, social media is for stalking our ex-boyfriends and email is for making sure we don't miss out on that 50% sale."
At the end of the day, email still reigns King over all other forms of quick, virtual communication. We don't deny the power of using instant messaging apps. Truth is that they alone won't be enough to serve all of your purposes - personal or business - like email can. It's just far more versatile and inclusive than any other option, especially when you're tackling your busy inbox with an email client that was made to get things done, like Mailbird.;-)
