Email the (Really Big) Long Tail of Social Media

In an effort to prove email is more than a medium for spam, eHarmony and Datran Media, next Wednesday, will release a Dynamic Logic study highlighting the branding benefits of email...dubbed "inbox advertising" by some so as to, apparently, leave behind all the baggage the word "email" carries.

The study reveled "inbox advertising" made more than one third of people surveyed aware of a particular eHarmony campaign. The study also found, nebulously stated, "unaided brand awareness and brand favorability increased by significant percentage points as well." I guess we'll all have to wait until the study is released to find out exactly what that means.

Despite the proliferation of social media and all the communication platforms that come with it, according to Forrester, email marketing will become a $4 billion industry by 2011. With services like Pownce incorporating elements of both the new forms of social media communication and elements of email (sending attachments), some social media experts believe emails days are numbered.

That may be so for the geeks among us but, more likely, email will be around forever. It was the first form of online communication, excepting, perhaps some early uber-geek methods, and is, by default, on just about every computer in use. Email's ubiquitous position gives it a serious advantage over any other forms of online communication. The geeks may inherit the earth but the masses will cling to their inboxes until death do they part. And Datran Media is very happy about that.