Email Isn’t Dead Yet 25 Jan / 2018 | By TMA World For some years, I’ve heard that communication via email is dying. Someone should tell my inbox! Email is a long way from dying which is surprising given the common perception that Millennials and Gen Z are fully committed to social media. In July 2017, SendGrid, a Cloud-based email delivery system commissioned Egg Strategy – a Boulder, Colorado consultancy – to carry out a study into how Gen Z, Millennial, and Gen X were using email. The number of respondents was 1,200. They were a representative mix of gender, ethnicity, and age. Given that the study was commissioned by an email delivery company we might be somewhat skeptical of the results. They do, however, resonate with my current experiences, and perhaps yours as well. Some Findings 67% of people view email as essential and/or important to their lives. 89% of people have used email at least once in the past month versus 83% of all social media tools together, including Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. 83% of Gen Z (those born between the mid 1990’s to the early 2010’s) believes their email usage will stay the same or increase in the next 5 years. 74% of people chose email as their preferred communication method for companies or brands to interact with them. 79% of consumers report that their email usage stayed steady or increased over the past 5 years. Email usage is even higher for younger generations. The Purpose of Emails Email is primarily a vehicle for work exchanges, particularly for sharing documents, scheduling meetings, and communicating. For consumer-to-company interactions, people prefer to follow companies on social media, receive newsletters, or email them directly. Follow or “like” on social media – 39% Sign up for company newsletter – 32% Email company – 32% Download company’s app – 24% The Future of Email Email usage is expected to continue to increase the most among Gen Z, while email usage among Millennials and Gen X appears to approach saturation. In terms of longevity, Voice/Video Chat, Email, and Text are thought to be Important and Constant. Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram are considered Fun and Fleeting. Facebook sits in the middle. Tim Platt, VP IT Business Services at Florida-based Virtual Operations says that email isn’t going anywhere: “Everyone has an email address. Email has 99% market penetration. There are many people that haven’t heard of Slack (or [Microsoft] Teams. Nobody is onboarding a new employee tomorrow and not giving them email. They might get a Slack or Teams account or they might not, but they will certainly will have an email. More to the point, email is a vendor neutral interoperable standard. No single company is in charge. You can exchange email with anyone on the planet, through a variety of mechanisms.” ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ If you enjoyed reading this article you might be interested to explore our e-book series on the Borderless Workplace. Our Borderless Workplace series of e-books is aimed at providing people at all organizational levels with a map for navigating the changing world of work. The first e-book in the series – The Borderless Workplace: The critical4 capabilities for the new world of work presents an overview of how globalization and digital technologies are transforming where, when and how work gets done. The remaining e-books are practical guides to the people capabilities needed for achieving high performance: Borderless Collaboration, Cultural Intelligence and Matrix Working. Click here to download a free version of our new e-book Borderless Workplace. Interested in how introducing a cultural intelligence tool in your business could help to create a more borderless workforce? We’d love to show you our groundbreaking platform. Share this