Believe it or not, email marketing has been around for nearly 40 years. But now – with all the new technology like AI, chatbots, automation software and new communication tools- are email marketing days numbered?
AI is dominating cyberspace and Americans are already feeling the pinch. Staggering figures reveal that over 1.2 million U.S. workers lost their jobs in just the past few months and many of these jobs were replaced by AI, robotics, and virtual assistants.
Already in 2023, more than 168,885 workers in U.S.- based tech companies have been laid off in mass job cuts, according to Crunchbase, the business research firm.
Yet tech and outsourcing companies continue to exploit the H-1B visa program
at a time of mass layoffs. The top 30 H-1B employers hired 34,000 new H-1B workers in 2022 and laid off at least 85,000 workers in early 2023.
The Power of Email Marketing
For the time being, email marketing is alive and well. In fact, marketers depend on it more than ever because it is still the best channel for generating a response. Nothing comes close, not even social media.
According to HubSpot’s Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2023, 77% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months. Email marketing revenue is estimated to reach almost $11 billion by the end of 2023, and 99% of email users check their inbox every day, with some checking up to 20 times a day.
Email will continue to be a favorite channel for marketers in 2024. Highly personalized, relevant, and authentic email content will continue to be tough to beat in terms of performance. Like it or not, it is still a top channel for consumer preference in taking care of business, says Tiffany Grinstead, Vice President of Nationwide Financial.
Don Markland at Forbes says when it comes to professional communication, especially with B2B, emails don’t just survive; they thrive. Despite the proliferation of emerging communication tools, email marketing continues to stand its ground, Its potency lies in the intimacy and specificity of its conversations, uncluttered by the cacophony of social media platforms.
Markland says AI has the potential to redefine email marketing, infusing it with a new level of engagement and accuracy. By 2030, AI could become an indispensable tool for marketers, mining through consumer behavior data to craft content that not only attracts attention but incites action.
Adding to this, Google just developed a tool that can detect human from AI generated content. They say AI writing platforms (ChatGPT) are against their Webmaster guidelines and that could lower your SEO results.
The Future of Marketing
With technology advancing so rapidly, the possibilities of new kinds of marketing are endless. Will we get chipped? Some experts say it’s just a matter of time. In the aftermath of a Wisconsin firm embedding microchips in employees to eliminate badges and corporate log-ons, marketers may be able to directly imbed their messages into your brain.
Will we return to more personalized, old fashioned human-to-human marketing? Will influencer marketing replace email marketing? What about telepathic marketing?
That may sound crazy but nothing is off limits these days. IoT (Internet of Things) could be a potential goldmine for digital marketing, with the ability to know exactly what a person wants exactly when they want it based on real thoughts and not guesswork based on previous interactions.
There’s no end to what a marketer will do in order to sell a product or service. But for now, email marketing is in good shape, and will survive and thrive in 2024 – and beyond.
