The Pending “Death of Email” is Greatly Exaggerated

I’m a firm believer that there are four pillars of Internet marketing with a potential 5th:

1. Good content. Articles, videos, cool pictures, podcasts, etc., all qualify as “content.” If your content is good, you can have success online.
2. Search. Until someone comes up with a better way to find news or specific info, search engine optimization will be a big part of marketing any business or service online.
3. Email marketing. If you can obtain someone’s email address and get their permission to use it, you can open a long-term dialog that will allow you to constantly bring these people back to your website.
4. Video. I know that I listed “video” under content, but I think it’s so fundamental that it deserves it’s own pillar. You’ll see continued investment in video here at Spork as this medium is finally starting to generate real business.
5. Social media (pending). The fifth pillar is probably social media marketing on Facebook, Twitter, etc., but it’s status is pending. Will social be folded into search or email? Hard to say. Perhaps it’s a semantic argument. Still, I’m not ready to declare social as a separate pillar from content, email, or search until it’s proven that social can generate revenue all by itself.

These are the pillars. Unless something tremendous happens, they will be the pillars for the foreseeable future. However, to hear some people tell it, “email is dying.”

I say bullshit. Here’s why:

The studies that pronounce the death of email are all based on the behavior of teens. Facebook’s COO says that, because only 11% of teens are currently using email, it’s not likely to survive.

Seriously? Most teens don’t use email because they don’t need it. Last time I checked, most teens don’t have:

• jobs that require email (if they have a job at all – it’s hard for teens to find a gig right now)
• a social network outside of friends (no colleagues, no co-workers, no casual acquaintances, no meetings to schedule, etc.)

Teens don’t use wrinkle cream or Rogaine either, but that doesn’t mean the vanity industry is somehow in trouble. Email will survive because it’s still the only secure, simple, and easy platform for business communications. While it’s possible that some sort of mini corporate social network could replace a lot of inter-office communication, I don’t see this being an end-all solution for most businesses.

Now, will email use change? Sure – but that’s not news. Things are in constant change.

In fact, if I were on the staff at Facebook, I’d worry less about what unemployed teenagers think about email and a little more about what I could do to avoid the fate of MySpace. When I started working in the Internet marketing industry less than 4 years ago, MySpace was king and Facebook was a quirky network for college kids and Canadians. Now? MySpace is a dead zone and Facebook execs are running around bragging about how smart they are. While there will always be a need for a social network like Facebook, there’s no guarantee this network will be Facebook. It’s INFINITELY more likely that Facebook will be replaced by some new fad than it is to see email disappear.

No more email? Come on.