Ask the Expert: Mark Brownlow, author of Email Marketing Reports (Part 3 of 3)

We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Brownlow, writer, editor and owner of Email Marketing Reports, to pick his brain and tap into his unique perspective on the industry. In part 1 of our interview, we asked Mark to recollect how email marketing has changed over the years, and to share his most memorable moments from the past decade. In part 2, we got his thoughts on the industry’s biggest successes and failures.

For today’s final post, we asked Mark to predict the future of email marketing in a world that’s gone through multiple evolutions since he first launched his publication nearly 10 years ago.

PV: How do you see the next 10 years shaping up for email marketing?

MB: When I sent my first "broadcast" email in 1998, Google was a two-man project, the word "blog" did not exist and social media meant a journalist you could go for a beer with. So I hesitate to make any predictions.

The whole history of the Internet tells us we have to keep pushing, stay alive to what's going on around us, adapt and always keep a Plan B handy. In that context, I think email marketers should not rest on any laurels gained through 2009. Accepting the status quo means going backwards.

People's use of media and expectations of media are related challenges we definitely face. The number of ways people can receive information and access the Internet continues to increase. Email marketers will need to adapt in terms of email functionality (e.g. the mobile email experience) and changing user patterns.

It makes little sense to smugly state that email is not dead, because email use is changing. Think of the growth of mobile email and smartphone use alone.

At the end of the day, people are looking for meaningful communication and value online. And emails are just one of many alternatives they might use to get that. So the future challenge is finding the right place for email in a mutually supportive mix of channels and focusing on what content/offers you distribute: making sure that what you send and when you send it sustains a beneficial 2-way relationship.

You give them value, they give you their attention and business.

PV: Last but not least, why do you write about email marketing? What is it about the topic that inspires you?

MB: I'm too old to start a professional soccer career now, so I have to stick with the only other topic I know enough about to live on.

I don't see myself as an expert but have been around the discipline long enough to be an enabler, which gives me great pleasure. By that I mean it's a joy to be able to point people to useful information or get them to think in a more nuanced way about what they do with email. It improves their success and means their subscribers benefit too.

That last point is very important for me: I strongly believe that what's good for subscribers is ultimately good for marketers too. Especially in a world where trust, engagement and two-way respect increasingly drive business success. So, yes, basically I'm just an ivory-tower idealist...

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This concludes our 3-part “Ask the Expert” series with Mark Brownlow. We want to thank Mark for sharing his deep reservoir of knowledge with our readers. And we look forward to reading his insightful posts at Email Marketing Reports for many years to come!

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