Say what you want, but plain old email is still one of the stickiest channels to communicate with your users … it’s important to spend a few hours every week, leveling up the email skillsets, to email better with different marketing tools, which tend to continually improve because a lot of businesses depend upon their email marketing systems to really understand and communicate with users.

Compared to:

Slack/Discord/Chats: Email offers asynchronous communication, freeing users from any sort of pressure of immediate response and allowing them to engage when it’s convenient for them and ONLY when they want to respond. Email’s conventionally structured format also facilitates much better organization for things like indexed searching as well as tailored information retention policies compared to wild and unruly chat logs of people more or less just winging it comes to their response.

Social media quasi-private direct messages [DMs]: Email provides more privacy and control over communication compared to public-facing platforms. Threading conversations and search functions, particularly on advanced email frameworks like Thunderbird, make it easier to find past information, unlike fleeting DMs.

SMS messages: Busy people cannot read or even tolerate having to scroll through long texts. Email offers richer formatting options and allows for longer, more nuanced communication than text messages. Additionally, it avoids concerns about data limits, because many people have gotten much more shrewd about not answering robo calls and, in general, they learned why they should dramatically downscale their phone/data/SMS use. Smarter email tools can do much more to ensure that messages actually reach inboxes, rather than spam folders.

Phone calls: Robo callers have made people much less likely to answer a call from an unknown caller with anything that could be described as a positive attitude. Many now dread answering their phone, so unless the caller is in their contacts already, they will opt for more control by responding to voicemail. Even with ice bucket shower that robo calls have given the whole activity of telephone calls, Email eliminates the time-sensitive nature of cold calls which can anger people who take calls because their phones are from THEIR incoming customers not someone selling them something. By moving toward an asynchronous culture of workflow, email caters to diverse schedules, communication styles, language barriers and even the ability to hear a caller. Introverted users or those in noisy environments can engage comfortably, with greater attention to the response when the written email [and that data in their email logs] offer important reference points to be more certain of being on the same page. Email exchanges CAN open the door to a DESIRED phone call, when people are interest and just want to get to that point where get things resolved and move forward with business, but it’s important to remember that email is a much more efficient way to start communication than unsolicited phone calls. It comes down to who’s in the driver seat … the caller or the callee … and email puts the callee in the driver seat.

Twitter Spaces/Skype or virtual conferences like HopIn or Zoom or Google Meet: Unlike live events and virtual conferences with limited reach and temporary access, email provides evergreen content that users can access and revisit at their own pace. As opposed to optional-attention of broader forums, emails allows for much more targeted communication, even in the case of form letter emails blasted out to particular user segments. Email allows for users to avoid information overload or that feeling of getting lost in the crowd so users just silently check out attention-wise … when reciepients are no longer interested in an email topic, they will tend to unsubscribe which, at least, is not just a quiet quit where speakers are talking to themselves in an open virtual room. Additionally, many people are not comfortable with having to learn yet another interface or download another app [even if it’s free, their time isn’t]. Except for the few rabble rousers who love getting things off their chests speaking to a large group … the kind who nobody wants to listen … most people, particularly professionals, naturally tend to resist the idea of being recorded in an environment where they can’t be give a proper introduction, so those who have something valuable to contribute often will less likely to engage in a live event. Email allows for more control over the information that users bother reading or responses that they share or exactly how/when they share it.