There’s been a lot of debate recently about the future of email: is it pushing forward stronger than ever or on the verge of extinction, about to be overrun by all-inclusive social networks?

As an e-marketing specialist, I find it hard to imagine the internet without email. No matter what you use email for, I believe that we, as online content consumers, will always need our inboxes to aggregate, create, organize, and search the hundreds of online data points we create daily as we navigate the web. Email is the only private online location where users can store and create content with very few limitations or restrictions. Where else can you manage your social networks, businesses, bills, family, friends, banks, job searches, and more in one location?

At ListEngage, we help our clients with email and social media marketing daily, so we see the benefits and drawbacks of each: email is a great relationship building tool but not a great prospect acquisition channel, while social media, if used intelligently, is ideal for prospect acquisition and qualification but lacks the “direct contact” that opt-in email does.

I’ve been really impressed with a company called Groupon lately, that seems to be using email and social media as a dynamic 1-2 punch for spreading their daily deals and messages. Click here to read more about the union of email and social media, and how Groupon is delivering a winning e-marketing TKO.

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The further we venture into the 21st century, the more we’ll see not only just how important email marketing and online presence will become – but we’ll also begin to see how essential it is to get your message across in the right language as well. We live in a global economy – and it’s hard to sell a product when users can’t understand the language that you’re speaking to them in.

A client of ours, Parametric Technology Corporation, or PTC, is one shining example of how to cater to multiple audiences the right way, by using email marketing. Several years ago, PTC approached ListEngage with a problem: they wanted to send a monthly newsletter to customers around the world, but they didn’t necessarily have a language of choice database for each subscriber. Here’s where we came in: ListEngage helped PTC to design a process that allowed the creation of one newsletter in 10 different languages that would be emailed to subscribers by country. People in Italy would receive the Italian version and their audience in China would receive the Chinese version .

But what if a reader in China received the email in Chinese and wanted to view its content in English? ListEngage helped PTC streamline this problem by creating a “language bar” at the very  top of each email which links  a specific language to a web page version of the newsletter that is posted as a HTML document  in that particular language. So, if a reader in Italy wants to read the newsletter in Spanish, all they have to do is click on “Español” and their  newsletter will pop up for reading right there. The multi-language emails are great for readers and even better for PTC who can connect with more prospects and possible customers with just one click of a button.

PTC “Maintenance Minute” readers can currently enjoy their emails in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Russian.  And though ListEngage doesn’t have the talent to read and translate in 10 different languages, our platform and employees certainly have the expertise to coordinate the “heavy lifting” of getting emails like these out the door in a timely fashion.

James Winokur, Director, Business Development Global Maintenance Support had this to say about the email creation process and ListEngage’s efforts: “[ListEngage] now helps us with all aspects of the 10 language versions of the Maintenance Minute that we send out world-wide on a monthly basis. ListEngage has had a huge impact in our monthly production of this newsletter endeavor and has made this… a success for us.”

Email continues to be the "Great Organizer" for users

According to a new survey published by Merkle, 71% of online consumers spent 20 minutes or more weekly exchanging email with friends and family in 2009, the same level recorded in the previous year.

With plenty of speculation that social networking sites were going to trample email out of the picture, some of the numbers in the report are truly powerful examples of how important email communication is in the average online user’s day-to-day. In fact, with the increased usage of Mobile Email and with most users linking their social networking updates to their personal emails—social networking is actually “breeding” a new brand of “Hyper Email Checkers”!

Here are some other great findings from the study:

– Nearly two-thirds (63%) of social networking consumers use the same email account for their social networking alerts and messages as they do for the majority of their permission, or opt-in email.

– Over 42% of social networking consumers are “hyper email checkers”– those who check their personal email account at least four times daily –compared with 27% of those not socially networked.

– 48% of social networking consumers spend 45+ minutes weekly with personal email, compared with 40% of those not socially networked.

and Mobile users with internet on their phone are even more likely to check their emails constantly:

– 50% of mobile email consumers are “hyper email checkers” too–compared with 32% of traditional email users.

FYI – Data was collected through Merkle’s annual “View from the Inbox” study, an online survey of 3,281 US adults age 18+ conducted during fall 2009.

Image was adapted from an original image by: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Shall I compare thee to a great email list-growth strategy?
You bet!

The two of you “art” fairly similar, I must say.
Our love and my list both started out small, like the darling buds of May.

Then over time, as our love organically grew,
So did my lists-in quality and quantity too!

Like a good little prospect, I subscribed to your love,
And just like the email capture on my website, it fit like a glove.

So on the horizon, what do I see?
Well, more chances to grow us all social-ly,
We can take dance classes, or have dinner with friends,
While my lists will use Twitter as a means to an ends.

Remember my love, thy eternal beauty doth brightly gleam.
And like my list growth strategies, the ROI on your love is Supreme.

Ok, so maybe you’d get backhanded if you actually delivered this sonnet to your True Love this Valentine’s Day– but after you read  ”Why Growing Great Lists is just like Growing Great Love” you might actually agree that the two share some pretty stark  similarities. Could it be that growing any good relationship–whether it’s two people “feeling sparks fly” for the first time or a web visitor signing up for a newsletter for the first time-always begins with a few simple steps?

Imagine it’s December 31, 2010…

Has your business done better than you had hoped? Worse? Held steady for the last 11 months or so? Have you achieved everything that you wanted to? Do you even have the right tools to measure your successes tangibly?

Whether you’re just getting started with an e-marketing plan in 2010, or you’re well on your way to launching the next viral marketing campaign on YouTube– well, there are still several things every business should keep sight of from Jan. 1 to Dec 31 every year! And if you “keep your eye on the prize”, measure, and follow the 10 easy steps we offer below, it’ll be quite easy to look back on Dec. 31, 2010 and be 100% Regret Free!

If you’re looking for measurable returns on your e-marketing in 2010 (and beyond!) then keep reading, as we unfold the:

Top 10 e-marketing Tips for a Regret-Free 2010

1) Listen: Get in the conversation with customers, prospects, and competitors, and actually incorporate their ideas.

2) Define your social media goals: and get moving! Or pretty soon the social media train will have left the station!

3) Stay on top of your Data: 27 – 30% of your list goes bad every year. It’s your most important resource so stay on top of it. If your data is bad nothing else really matters.

Read All 10 e-marketing Tips for a Regret Free 2010

With businesses looking to expand their eMarketing and social media budgets in 2010 — on everything from email marketing design and services to developing niche followers on Twitter — List Engage has something to offer any business, big or small. Why not make one of your resolutions to join us on the cutting edge of eMarketing success in 2010!

2009 has been a dark year for marketing budgets. As the economy tanked, so did every big company’s dreams of plastering market campaigns across every medium available.

Fortunately for e-marketers, email and social media marketing budgets defied the odds, and most actually grew in ‘09.

Take a look at the Marketing Sherpa chart, to see the average email marketing budget decreases versus increases across 8 financial sectors.

To read the entire article, go here.

In email’s defense, there are plenty of reasons to use it over social networking sites: privacy, certainty of delivery,  no length restrictions… to name a few. In the words of Marketing Sherpa, “When we look at media use over the last 15 years, we see a pattern of aggregation and adoption rather than replacement. Some media suffer in the exchange, but none are eliminated entirely. More commonly, their uses become more refined.”

So, while we may find a Facebook status update good for conveying a one-liner, or Twitter for “tweeting” our location it’s a lot less likely that social media will replace email for getting in touch with Nana, keeping updated on your bank’s latest policies, or interacting with potential clients.

To read the complete Marketing Sherpa study, click here.

When the researchers sorted the brands into groups with similar profiles, the ’social media mavens’ (those with the most social media breadth and depth) on average grew 18% in revenues over the last year. The least engaged companies saw an average decline in revenue of 6% over the same period.

The report’s author, Charlene Li, is quick to point out that “We are not claiming a causal relationship — but there is clearly a correlation and connection. For example”, she continues, “a company mindset that allows a company to be broadly engaged with customers on the whole probably performs better because the company is more focused on customers than the competition.”

The study found that companies that scored well generally have dedicated teams, however small, active in the social media channels they utilise, and that the most successful teams evangelise social media across the entire organization to pull in a broad range of stakeholders. These companies view social media as an indispensable tool to help them achieve results, and their approach is conversational. This differs from the approach of traditional communications and early corporate blog experimentation, says the report, which emphasises messaging and talking points.

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(Excerpt taken from Internet Retailing. To read more: follow this link for the entire article on the link between social media use and firms’ profits)