Marketing Trends 2022 From Another Angle.
Part 1: Is Email Dead (Again)?

In the first part of our interview series, we asked the experts to tell us about Apple Mail Privacy Protection, the future of messengers, and trending TikTok and Reels. In this article, we'll also answer the never-ending question: is email dead?

A few months ago we came up with an idea to interview the leading marketing experts (Avengers Assemble!) and discuss the future of email marketing. As a result, we had 9 interviews, each lasting 1 hour, gathered 14 pages of info from the experts, and turned them into 4 articles: there, we'll talk about the death of email (yes, again), data trends, UX design, and the one marketing metric that matters.

Let's start with the funeral of email that has become traditional recently… Or is it too early to say that email is dead?

Rumors about the death of email have become an annual tradition: if you open any TOP MARKETING TRENDS 20XX article, there's a 99,9% probability that you'll see something like "give up on email marketing, nobody needs it anymore" which is not exactly true. According to Hubspot, every email generates $42 while costing $1; in other words, the ROI of this channel is 4200%. Not bad for a deadman, is it?

Not only authors of blog articles try to bury email. In summer 2021, Apple announced iCloud Private Relay, which means the following:

• now all the user data (location, timezone, IP, etc.) are encrypted and cannot be analyzed;

• Open Rate doesn't matter anymore: now all the emails that get into iCloud inboxes open automatically.
  

Learn more about this feature and how the marketing community responded to it in our article: Apple Mail Privacy Protection: What's Next?

Of course, Open Rate is dead on iCloud only. However, marketers are worried about the future of email marketing when it comes to other mailbox providers: as Ivan Ilin, a co-founder of EmailSoldiers, said, "Apple is a company that can change people's patterns of behavior". Users are fascinated by slogans like "you have a right to control your data used by marketers". We'll talk more about people's right to control their data in another article. Now, we're interested in the community's opinions on the significance of Open Rate.

Omnisend launched the #OpensAreDead project, the whole marketing community started talking about the Pixelgeddon, and we couldn't help but give in to fear. Marketers' responses were even more interesting than the feature itself: according to Dr. Matthew Dunn (Ph.D., CEO of Campaign Genius), 2-3 years ago nobody cared about "spy" pixels. However, when Apple raised this topic and spiced it up with the security issue, users got worried about data privacy. It started just like this, with one Apple event. The announcement of iCloud Private Relay did something that experts couldn't do for years — it showed people that opens are not crucial.

Open Rate has never been a crucially important metric. It just shows that a user has received an email and opened it. Have they interacted with the email content? Have they read it or just looked through it? Actually, they might have closed it right after they opened it. Open Rate won't answer any of these questions. This metric depersonalizes the users. Do you want to improve the performance of your emails, do your job more effectively, and achieve your goals? Focus on people. Remember that subscribers come first. Just think about it: it was Apple who made the community remember that users are not mere digits and that marketers should work on the content quality. They should strive to increase conversions, deliverability, engagement, but not opens.

There's been talk that one day messengers will defeat email. It sounds reasonable enough: they are faster and more convenient, people use them more often than check email. After all, it's 2021 — we're more used to short texts than bulky emails. However, the devil is in the details, as always. Here's why marketing specialists don't trust messengers completely:

The cons are mostly important for marketers, but are they the same for users? We need to see why they find messenger marketing appealing. Do you still want to convince people their campaign doesn't need messengers? Maybe you should try looking at the messengers from their point of view and find counterarguments (who knows, you may even change your mind along the way). There's no use in being a big baby about it and turning a deaf ear to everything.

2. You risk being left behind if you ignore the latest trends

Don't be skeptical about trends. If they drive traffic and money, why not give them a go? You can always go back to being a square.

Don't be afraid to tap into several channels. By focusing only on email or only on messengers you may lose a substantial part of your audience. Keep your audience in mind and let them decide what they need. Flexibility is for the cool guys.

Najee Bartley, Expert Email Developer, CTO of BBVisions Multimedia points that social media is the current leader in bringing revenue.

Still, social media has a drawback that can be a gamechanger: as any other service owned by a private company, a social platform may shut down sooner or later resulting in tons of lost information. Does it matter that we should ignore the trending services because they won't stick around for long? No, and here's why.

Speaking of revenue, email has a couple of aces up its sleeve. Even though the second place is taken by websites and blogs, email is still in the top 3. Emails don't cost much to build, but they bring a lot of revenue encouraging B2B and B2C brands to continue utilizing this channel.

The list of advantages of email marketing in 2022 doesn't stop here - there are at least two more benefits to mention:

• The older generations aren't as enthusiastic about new things as the younger ones
  

This quote, as the whole text, leads us to the following:

Every year marketers say it's going to be the last one for email, but the channel's still going strong and it seems to keep its position as a useful marketing tool for years to come. Every week we see someone shoot their shot at defeating email, but half of them overshoot themselves. Even such business giants as Apple can't affect the way the channel functions, as email trends adapt to the new conditions. Here's what you should consider to ensure the bright future of your email marketing:

1. Open rate isn't a metric you should base serious business decisions upon. It's only a benchmark.
   
2. Messengers, as any other tool, need some time to become more stable and secure a spot in their own niche. It's too soon to say what's in store for them.
   
3. Don't go to extremes when it comes to trends: there's no point in jumping on the bandwagon, as well as in being skeptical about every new thing. Remember, omnichannel marketing and being open to new things is what makes us stronger, but don't forget about your roots.
   
4. Last, but certainly not least, focus on people. Analyze your audience, connect and communicate with them, and reach back to your clients and users. There won't be sweet numbers without people who want to engage with you and your content. Make people your top-priority metric (how cheesy).
   

Let's summarize everything said about the future of email marketing: as long as we're alive, email won't die. As long as humanity exists, marketers will continue to do their thing. Do you want your company to profit from email marketing? Contact us and we'll help you achieve your goals.