| Last updated: August 2010
Email facts
There are 1.4 billion email users. This figure is predicted to reach 1.9 billion by 2013 (source).
The three largest webmail services attract 190 million unique visitors per month in the US alone. Between them, they have over 600 million global users (source).
57% of adult US Internet users check or send email on a daily basis (source).
New research indicates that email use is growing, encouraged by smartphone sales and increased use of social media. See:
- Email dominates mobile web time by eMarketer
- Social not a threat to e-mail by eMarketer
- Real vs. Perceived Threats to Email: Addressing Misperceptions by Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget
- Is Social Media Impacting How Much We Email? by Jon Gibs, Nielsen
- Email and Texting Top Social Media in Gen Y by Jennifer Van Grove, Mashable
- Email is Social, and it's not Going Anywhere by MarketingSherpa
- Email Use Increasing, Despite What WSJ Says by Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget
"Email is not dead because people want to write to one another, using their email accounts, in more than 140-character bursts," says Neil Schwartzman, Executive Director, CAUCE
"Email is not going to disappear. Possibly ever. Until the robots kill us all," says Paul Buchheit, a founder of FriendFeed
Email arguments
Media hype often leads to "email is dead" headlines, followed by praise for whichever new technology killed email this time. It never happens.
However, new developments mean the way people use email is changing. Numerous authors have addressed the issue of email's longevity and use. Here a selection:
- Why Twitter and Facebook Will Never Kill E-mail by Kit Eaton, Fast Company
- Why Facebook and Twitter Won't Kill E-Mail by Anna Maria Virzi, ClickZ
- 10 Reasons Social Media isn't Replacing Email by Chris Crum, WebProNews
- Email isn't dying, it's just turning into social media glue by Chris Lake, Econsultancy
- Don't ask "Is email dead?" – ask this instead... by Mark Brownlow, Email Marketing Reports
- Email marketing: warts and all by Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget
- Email's Demise Has Been Greatly Exaggerated...Again by Martin Lieberman, Constant Contact
- A Deluge is Underway; is Email Waterproof? by J.D. Falk, Return Path
- Why Social, Mobile, and Email Are BFFs (Not Archenemies) by Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget
- Email: In Transition, Not Fading Away by Loren McDonald, Silverpop
- The End of Email Predicted, Wrong as Usual by Alexander Ljungberg, Email Service Guide
- Email is dead... by Laura Atkins, Deliverability Consultant
- Three years on and still going strong by Mark Brownlow, Email Marketing Reports
- Why Everything is Better than Email by Jordan Cohen, Food for Naught
- 10 More Reasons Why Social Media Won't Replace Email by Janine Popick, VerticalResponse
- Email marketing still works by Gail Goodman, Constant Contact
- Why email still rules... by Jordan Cohen, Pivotal Veracity
- The threat of social media? by Jerry Flay, All About Email
- The demise of email by Anna Billstrom, CRM consultant
- Getting Social in E-Mail Marketing by Bill McCloskey, Email Data Source
- Email Is Still The Killer App by George Bilbrey, Return Path
And email marketing?
DMA research puts the ROI of email marketing at US$43.62, almost double that of search advertising and better than any other direct marketing channel (source).
A survey of almost 2,000 subscribers to MediaPost revealed that the most popular media for marketing investment in 2010 will be....email (source).
The State of Retailing Online 2009 survey reported that email was cited most often as a successful tactic (source).
A 2009 survey of over 5000 senior US executives found that email was the channel they were most likely to invest more in (source).
...find more stats: Why do email marketing? | EmailStatCenter | 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide