Writings – 1
Over the past three years, I have written many essays about the future of email and how a wide range of innovations can make it the channel of choice for marketers.
AMP’s Magic: Coming Soon to Your Email Inbox: “Email’s obituary has been written for many years. It has also been said that the younger generation has moved on from email. Social was the first ‘killer’, then push notifications, then messaging apps. And yet email is very much alive and kicking. Brands continue to send emails, and consumers continue to open, read and act. Yes, some of our interactions have moved away from email to other messaging channels, but that has not reduced the importance of email in our lives. Just in the past [18 months], email companies saw multiple acquisitions amounting to over $13 billion – not bad for a ‘dying’ technology.”
AMP’s Magic: “Email 2.0 is the Tesla-like innovation, changing the customer mindset from delete to delight, driving engagement and habit creation, and powering exponential forever profitable growth. It is the only antidote to brand extinction because if customers are not listening, there is no point for a brand to keep speaking. Email 2.0 creates habits by making the sent seen and the seen actioned. It drives mental availability for the brand by becoming a utility in the lives of customers. The power and value of Email 2.0 can transform CMOs into Chief Profitability Officers of their businesses, and perhaps into future CEOs. Email 2.0, like Tesla, can truly make tomorrow’s world a better place for all of us as custodians of brands and customers of products.”
Can B2C Email Become Free?: “Email is the crucial link in the global media and ecommerce industries. Imagine a world without email, and many industries will collapse. Without the power of push messaging via email, how will they bring customers back to their properties (website or app)? Brands with apps can send push notifications, but even these are now blocked by many. Utility brands have an advantage because their apps become a habit. But for most others, either they have to spend a lot of money connecting a category with their brand name, or its push messaging. And that is what has kept email alive through the years; there simply is no better push channel in terms of RoI than email. It is the humble email that still works as the lynchpin for trillions in consumer spending decisions.”
Can B2C Email Become Free?: “Five innovations can transform email as we know it, open up a much larger TAM (total addressable market) for email service providers, and make email central to a brand’s marketing strategy. These innovations are: AMP, Atomic Rewards, Email Footer, Email Ads, and Micronbox… Taken together, these five innovations usher in an upgrade to Email. They make email cool (again). The 1-way broadcast channel becomes a 2-way hotline with interactive, dynamic and real-time content. The promise of gamification and asset appreciation will also drive greater engagement, which should lead to better brand-customer relationships. The better the retention, the less will be the need for new acquisition to plug the gap – thus reducing AdWaste and helping improve profitability at brands.”
ProfitXL: Supersize Profits with the SHUVAM Framework: “AMP, because of its underlying email base, costs a fraction of that of WhatsApp (which is controlled by Meta). While still in its infancy in terms of use cases being deployed, AMP will enable what I call “All-in-Mails”. From filling forms to lead generation, from spinning wheels for offers to using calculators for answers, from getting additional product information to acting on abandoned shopping carts, from searching to paying – AMP is the future of email. Think of it as Email 2.0 – email without the need for clickthroughs and landing pages, a world without redirects.”
ProfitXL: “Atomic Rewards is the icing on the cake. Instead of paying Badtech, brands can pay their customers. This is Loyalty 2.0, moving beyond the transaction to incentivising and gamifying the upstream (attention and data) and the downstream (ratings, reviews and referrals). This manifestation as Web3 tokens will ensure no single entity will be able to devalue the points earned. Atomic Rewards can drive a circular economy between brands and customers: more actions lead to more tokens for customers, which in turn makes brands value them even more. These rewards can then be exchanged for unique experiences or fiat currency.”
