E-mail Not Dead Yet: Study

Amid all the talk that social media will kill e-mail comes a survey saying people apparently aren’t quite ready to let it die just yet.

Sixty two percent of respondents to a recent survey commission by marketing software firm smartFOCUS reportedly said e-mail was their preferred channel for receiving marketing messages.

Direct mail—another marketing medium that’s supposedly gasping for air—came in at No. 2, with 23% of respondents saying it was their preferred channel for receiving marketing messages.

Just 13% said they preferred receiving marketing messages via social media, according to smartFOCUS.

Moreover, three quarters of those surveyed said they have made purchases as a direct result of receiving commercial e-mail, according to smartFOCUS.

Of those who said they made purchases as a result of receiving commercial e-mail, 82% said they bought clothing and accessories, 49% said they bought from restaurants and coffee shops, 40% said they bought groceries and 38% said they bought personal electronics, smartFOCUS reported.

However, in a statement announcing the results, Curt Bloom, president of smartFOCUS International cautioned businesses not to ignore social media.

“Although some of the indications of the uptake and interest in social media may seem low, this is a new communication channel that businesses are tackling,” he said. “In our survey, quite predictably, the age ranges that said they preferred contact via social media platforms were the 18 to 25 year olds. With platforms such as Facebook reaching 300 million active users, we continue to see that businesses and retailers who ignore the potential of social media do so at their own peril."