In the past, corporate email was used to disseminate information.  If you needed to get a message to a group of people, an email was generated and sent to the list of recipients.  The email would contain the full text of the message and that would be the end of the communication.  In the cases of promotional emails, there might be a link to click that would take you to an ordering website.  If the email were a newsletter, the full text of the message would be in the email.  Alternatively, an attachment might be included with a more styled version of the message.

Over time, there has been a shift in the content of messages being sent.  The purpose hasn’t changed; disseminating information or promoting a product are still the message.  The way that message is delivered to the recipient has changed though.  Information is now sent in smaller bits with links to full stories.  Large attachments are now mostly a thing of the past. Content is personalized based on the recipient to whom it is being sent.  More thought is being put into the message.  What interests a person?  What content will they care about?  These are questions that are now being asked that were not asked in the past.

Today, however, another shift is taking place.  The messages are not just going to the recipients.  If you send someone content they find interesting, they will share that content with their network.  You will find that content scattered about through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks.  A message sent to a list of 1,000 recipients, assuming the content is relevant, will likely end up in front of far more than those original 1,000 individuals.  According to Facebook, the average user has 130 friends.  If even 1% of the original list posts to their Facebook page, that’s an additional 1,300 people receiving the message.  That’s 30% more than the total it was sent to originally!  If you put the content people want in front of them, social networks are an amazing complement.  There are downsides to this as well though.  Those same social networks that will increase your reach can also create bad press.  It is more important than ever to make the content relevant and ensure that the list it is being sent to contains the appropriate people.

So, to answer the question of whether email is dead from a corporate marketing perspective, the answer is definitely no.  Its use, however has changed.  It is still a channel for getting information to the people who are interested.  The reach of that email has been extended by the social networks.  Social networks have the ability to exponentially increase the reach of the email.  It all starts with getting the information in front of people though and email is still the leader at that.