I’ll give you the short and the long answer…

The short answer:

No, not really.

The long answer:

Email marketing used to be THE staple of the web marketers tool box.  Everyone had email.  Everyone used email.  Everyone was reachable via the medium, and things were great.  This went on until about 2 years ago when a combination of events knocked email off track:

1 – Spam became far too overwhelming.  Folks just got tired of having to sort through it and responded by simply checking their email less frequently and cranking up the spam filters.

2 – Free, online-based email accounts gave everyone massive amounts of space.  Gmail started with a whole gig and is already up to seven.  Teens and young adults are now using these accounts to store and swap large files and media content.  Messaging has no place among that practice.

3 – Its easier and quicker to text someone than to email them.  What teens were emailing in 1999, the teens of today are saying in less words via a text message.

4 – Facebook, twitter and myspace are better at direct communication.  I’ve observed countless people, young and old, who do all of their communicating EXCLUSIVELY via their social network of choice.  If you spend all your time there, why leave to email someone?  You can simply “message” them there.  Also, it’s much more fun to share photos, videos and hilarious links in a social setting where others can see and comment.

Remember those stupid surveys of 100 questions that used to get circulated via email?  Those mysteriously stopped as soon as facebook came of age.  You can now learn everything you need to by checking out someone’s profile page or take even better quizzes via a cool new app.

If you still base your business or marketing model on email, you are being left behind.

I don’t care if your email list enjoys a 60% open rate (God help you if it’s 20%).  Why isn’t it 100%? Why are the other 40% NOT opening?  If anyone does open, what are they actually responding to?  How many click on a banner or links you include?  How many return to the site to engage your brand further?  The truth is in the aggregate trends and it’s never pretty.  Over the last 2 years I’ve watched countless brands think that just because they have 25,000 people on their email list – that they can communicate with all 25k.  So many communities and so many businesses continue to base their models on email when the tide has already turned.

The folks over at hypebot have a short post about a recent artist email blast. They lament the fact that fans can’t “comment” or “interact” with the email, and suggest that responding to fan questions is somehow a revolutionary activity.

Please…this sounds like an idea that was revolutionary in 1994, not 2009.  Instead of using a traditional email blast this artist in question should have turned their email signup box into an RSS subscription button.  This way all of their fresh posts take the place of emails – the content is relevant, the messaging is unified and as a bonus your fans can actually COMMENT back and have a conversation over the message in real time.  ON THE WEBSITE.  What a concept eh?

The truth is email has become marginalized and is now a small player among a dozen possible communication channels.  Sure, many people still do open their email and enjoy receiving messages that way.  However, we’re a far cry from the days when that was EVERYBODY and we may be close to a day when email isn’t even used at all.