Not search, not video, not even ads can muscle email out of the top spot in the hearts and minds of US marketing executives, according to a recent McKinsey survey.

It’s not surprising, really, despite all the misinformation, misunderstanding and just plain myth surround email and spam and the like, it’s still the most direct and cost efficient means to get your message to your audience.

The Rankings
The McKinsey study corroborates findings in a study conducted earlier this year for PROMO Magazine where marketing professionals were asked to rank their online and mobile marketing tactics. The rankings were interesting:

Email marketing – 72.6%
Email newsletters – 60.8%
Banner ads – 44.5%
Online promotions – 36.9%
Blogs – 22.8%
Promotions on Social Networking sites – 17.9%
Viral Campaigns – 15.6%
SEO – 13.7%
Texting – 13.3%
Podcasts – 11%

Clearly there is more to say than can be contained in a mere banner ad with emails and enewletters commanding such majority presence in the online marketing mix. On the surface this looks overwhelming, but ask yourself why and you’ll see that maybe it isn’t.

Of all the items on the list, email and email newsletters are tactics that can be undertaken by smaller organizations with limited budgets and resources. Email isn’t just reserved for those with healthy marketing budgets or those with huge audiences. No, email works if you have a target of 100, or 100,000 or one-million. Why? Simple. They, the customers, get to choose.

That’s right. The target audience gets to choose whether they want to hear your spiel or not. They can turn you on, and they can turn you off. In a heartbeat, as it goes.

Send too much email, or forget what you promised to communicate in the first place, and the unsubs come rolling in. Throw everything and the kitchen sink into youe email, and they will run away screaming. But, if you stay on-target, doe your job and deliver what you promise, they will remain loyal and they will listen.

A Quick Checklist
We have lots of email experience, large and small, and the dynamics are similar. Here are some of the rules we advise our clients to follow:

1) Keep your messages brief and to the point — don’t throw 20 links up there because you can’t (or you’re too lazy to) figure out what to say – just deliver what you promised

2) Stay focused, say it quickly and give them a chance to click if they want more, or move on if they don’t. If there is much more to say, build jump pages for them to click to and read on. Let them make the choice, not you.

3) Don’t overload them, even if you think you have a lot to say. Don’t send too many emails in a short period or try to cram too much in each email. Both of these tactics will scare them off.

4) Don’t get too fancy — remember email is not a web page so don’t drag every little toy and trick into the poor email space. It won’t get delivered and it won’t be appreciated. Besides, many corporate email servers will just laugh and quietly trash your message because it appears to be spam.

Good emailing isn’t hard to do. It starts with two simple concepts — respect your customers and do your job (meaning, decide what you want to say and don’t throw everything at them).

Oh, and want to drive off all of your email subscribers — send them an ad. Unless that is what they signed up to received, getting your ad through their email is one of the quickest way for you to guarantee deletions and unsubscriptions.

Happy emailing.

steve

It’s not, actually! At a billion strong it’s growing steadily, especially in Europe and Asia.

But the tribal tendencies of humankind are starting to show. And they are changing everything!

The Internet was once this wildly teeming, freedom loving thing that seemed to have a life of it’s own. No one, and nothing seemed destined to tame it.

Entire industries sprang up, grew and matured in the embryonic Internet. The culture of shopping and selling changed entirely because of it and now the fabric of social communications has fallen under it’s allure. That’s right. Millions are using the Internet to keep in touch, even daily.

Blogs Led the Change

It began with blogging. That odd little, geeky thing where people talked (typed) a lot about what they were doing, how they were thinking and what they wanted.

At the time, most of the Internet was about being big, no, huge. Measured in millions of this and millions of that. But, oddly, ecommerce hadn’t really taken off, online comparison wasn’t entrenched and spam was uncontrolled. So what we were really doing is just replacing our traditional news and information sources with Internet-based sources. Often, these information sources were the same, only the channel had changed.

But blogs were different. Ravenous beasts that expected to be fed often with short little sound-bites of information. Something quick and uncomplicated.

Corporations tried to figure out how to use the new little techno creatures, but to no avail. Then politics and the elections came along and bloggers and their political tastes were all the rage. All of a sudden, we, the uninformed, the small and insignificant, the unwashed, had a venue to say how we felt, whenever we wanted. Those on the left openly debated those on the right, and those in the middle went both ways (sounds kinky).

From that launching pad, blogs took off and proliferated wildly. The numbers were astounding, 40, 50, then 70 million blogs (only a fraction actually active, though). Suddenly it didn’t matter your tastes or your interests, there was someone, somewhere blogging on the subject and willing to let you chime in.

What About the Shrinking?
Oh, yea. the Internet is shrinking. I almost forgot.

The point is that in this huge, wild wasteland where millions upon millions tread, little communities began to form. First, these social units clustered around interests like parenting, or cars or sports. Then homogeneous groups began to come together. Banding together by age, sex, nationality, belief, and a thousand other traits.

In no time everybody could have a blog and could write and share to their heart’s content. Some were serious, some were funny and many were downright weird, but in the end it was all fascinating.

Research showed that audiences saw blogging as therapeutic, entertaining and enlightening. They said they blogged to hear other points of view and to learn what was going on (so what happened to newspapers, magazines, radio and TV?). What a breath of fresh air to hear humans actually looking for dissimilar points of view and claiming to be open to learn. Can there be hope?

By the thousands, young people flocked to platforms called MySpace, FaceBook and Xanga, where they share intimate details of themselves and began to upload photos and graphics. In another area of the Internet another group of sharing devices sprang up to let you show off your video and photographic skills. Flickr, YouTube, Guba and others quickly became the Mecca to which aspiring talent would pilgrimage. The content grew from coarse and immature to thoughtful, fun and inspiring. Sure, the gross and weird remained, but now there was a whirlwind of growth in user generated content, some original and some reproduced.

As the category matured, attorneys sued, companies bought and sold and consolidation occurred, but the steady march of user devised content continued.

“Fascinating.” As Mister Spock would say.

So What?

As a business person, a marketer and especially as a communicator, all this boils down to one thing. People like to hear and see things that relate directly to them. And blogs are a perfect way for people to see, learn, communicate. The small bites of information perfectly match our fast-paced, no seconds to spare lifestyles. We can absorb only small chunks of information, and rarely take the time to sit down and read anymore.

It’s called social media for a reason. It’s a way for us to flock together with other like souls or periodically look over the fence at another flock and throw a few stones their way.

It’ quick, it’s easy, and everyone can have a say. But will it work for business. Yes. But that’s another article.

As the Internet fractures into numerous communications vehicles and methods, it is natural for groups to cluster. Sure, we can still see, hear and read the day’s news, or a candidates latest spin or research a products attributes compared to a competing product. But now we can whine and vent and share our experiences and feelings. Messy divorce, put it on YouTube (like that will help you get another date).

Like all major influences in our lives, the Internet is living and breathing. It changes constantly, bending to the whims and needs of its vast audience.

The trick is to figure how to make this power and access work for you, your organization or your clients.

I love a good challenge.