Teens Don’t Use Email?

comScore was the most recent source to jump on the “Email is Dead” bandwagon, reporting Monday that email usage has declined 59% among teens.

To campaigns and nonprofit organizations, these reports can be alarming – and our clients often come to us and say, “What does this mean for our email programs? Are we doomed?”

In the work and research that Blue State Digital has conducted, we agree with comScore's conclusion that teenagers don’t use email; they are primarily reliant on Facebook and text messaging. Technology is a means of talking to people they see every day – their friends and their parents. What used to be passed around in notes in the back of classrooms has moved to SMS – “Want to go to the movies?” or “OMG – ____ likes you.”

But we also see that email use substantially picks up when teens hit college. People move away. Relationships become more complex. People have bills and official correspondences. They can't talk to their boss on Twitter, and they can't send over a PDF file to their clients on Facebook. Yes, social media and SMS are replacing elements of local connection between people, but it’s far from replacing all online communications (at least for now).

For campaigns and organizations, the fact remains: people don't donate substantial amounts of money on Facebook. Many don’t want their news feed clogged with information about campaigns and nonprofits – nor do they want to announce their political preferences to all their friends. And they don't want to leave social networking sites to take action. The term “slacktivists” has been coined to refer to a new generation of web activists who are only willing to click a “like” button but nothing else.

What’s more, you can't segment your messages in nearly as many meaningful ways to build relationships and move people up a ladder of engagement. You don't own your data, and you're subject to the redesign whims of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

That said, we know that times are changing. We need to adapt to the fact that people are spending less times at desktops and more time on handheld devices. We need to make our messages more timely and personal, regardless of the channel used. And we need to make it easier for our supporters to share content in places that they are spending time themselves.

Our design, production, and analytics teams are busy working on improvements to optimize websites for mobile devices – with a particular focus on signup and donation conversions. Our social media and online advertising teams are constantly testing ways to better convert Facebook supporters into email list members. And our email team isn’t just working on email plans – but “outbound communications” plans that integrate email with social media, text messaging, blogging and more.

As new technologies develop, our programs are becoming more sophisticated. That doesn’t mean any one element of the programs is dead – it means we have new and interesting ways to reach our supporters at different touchpoints. I, for one, welcome this so-called “death of email” for the incredible integrated programs we can create.

Lauren Miller is Blue State Digital's Director of Email Programs. 

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