The Inbox 2012: Surf the Wave

Author:

Ed Henrich

Source:

This is one of six "The 2012 Inbox" columns this month, as the e-mail columnists of ClickZ examine the near future of email marketing.

A lot will change in the next two years: the type of "inboxes" used for communication, how information gets combined, how information gets filtered, and how consumers (and their proxies) decide to control access. The key to success will be surfing this wave of change - control yourself, you can't control the wave.

Inbox Proliferation

As time marches on, people are finding more ways to connect with each other. In each case, the emergence of a new channel is driven by individual needs, and marketers arrive on the scene once the channel is big enough to be considered an "audience."

I've written on the importance of mobile and social to the ongoing development of one-to-one marketing. Stephanie Miller did a great job kicking off this Inbox 2012 series, noting that the inbox of 2012 would be social and cluttered. Facebook, Twitter, and SMS mobile all present themselves as new marketing channels that are now at a critical mass and worthy of investment by most marketers.

Inbox Consolidation

Stephanie looks at these emerging channels creating fragmentation. I think that is true today, but by 2012 it may be different....