Death Knell of Email?

I was reading an interesting email this morning from Google Adwords guru Perry Marshall about whether email is obsolete given the social media revolution.  If you believe the hype, email is taking its final breaths because social media is sucking up all of the air.

I know that for me, email is where I get things done.  It's how I stay organized.  And, checking for email is what I do when I'm procrastinating or bored.  I admit it — I'll check my email when I have no business doing so simply to be entertained — I'm looking for something interesting.

As Perry pointed out in his post, your goal is for your emails to be more interesting to read than most of the other emails in your customer's box. That's it.  People can always make time for something interesting, and people will always multi-task and check email while they're on the phone or when they SHOULD be doing something else.

So, that where the opportunity comes in for anyone who markets online.  Perry claims that all that needs to happen is for them to get FIVE emails from you in a row, that they liked – and your relationship is set.

I have to qualify that statement — I think it should be 5 emails in a row that they liked AND that they found useful and valuable — particularly important if you are selling your services online.

Your prospects are busy, and while they may like the joke email that you sent, they probably won't tolerate 5 of them because at some point, they have to get back to their tasks at hand.

So, when's the last time you sent out an interesting email?