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Why Email Volume Won’t Decrease

There have been several blog posts and predictions recently (most notably this one from Ryan Holmes, the CEO of Hootsuite) prognosticating that email volume will diminish in 2013, as consumers make greater use of collaborative messaging tools like Chatter and Yammer.

I don’t buy it. See this week’s The Baer Facts (a weekly video rant series I do with ExactTarget) to find out why.

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About Jay Baer

Jay Baer is a hype-free social media and content strategist & speaker, and author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype. Jay is the founder of http://convinceandconvert.com and host of the Social Pros podcast.

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  • http://twitter.com/cksyme Chris Syme

    I don’t buy it either. Evolve is a better word than diminish.

  • http://michaeljbarber.com/ Michael Barber

    As you mention, Holmes has a point on the business side, especially within large-savvy organizations. You are seeing SO much more usage of internal comm tools such as Podio, Chatter, Yammer, Asana etc. Is it impacting email? Maybe internally, especially amongst IT, web, marcomm teams in those savvy companies. Beyond that, I’m not sure.

    Now on the consumer side, you couldn’t be more right. Email volume isn’t going down, especially in the near term. More organizations are creating more targeted, personalized campaigns leading to increased consumer engagement and, shockingly, consumers asking for more email (see Fab.com for a perfect example). Beyond the social hooks, there is a HUGE chunk of revenue being driven from email. Maybe Holmes needs to have a conversation or two with the ecomm guys at the top 20 shopping/retail sites. That may alter his thinking.

    Thanks for the post.

    • http://www.convinceandconvert.com/ jaybaer

      Thanks Michael. Fab.com (and Amazon’s new knockoff of it) are good examples. Email done right is email that people actually WANT.

  • http://twitter.com/serviceplease20 Andrew Maher

    Really? Email rules! Unfortunately. I see how other places or platforms could make this much easier but “email” is so an establishment. Only when the first companies begin to stop handling customer email will we see real change here. I am hopeful that will be sooner than later.

  • http://jephmaystruck.com/ Jeff Maystruck

    I get that a lot from people who “think” social is taking over and e-mail and all other communication will go the way of the dinosaurs. I didn’t believe them and according to yourself I believe I am correct. Great work Jay. Always get a stiff shot of reality when it comes to the Convince and convert blog.

    Cheers,
    Jeph