We are barely in the second half of 2023, and the renowned digital marketing guru, Max Buzzworthy has already proclaimed that email marketing will be dead in the upcoming year, a claim he’s been inaccurately making year after year with full conviction for the past 13 years.
Buzzworthy made this bold declaration in the recent episode of his podcast titled Decrypting Digital With Buzzworthy. He said, “Hear me out. I know I’ve been saying this every year for over a decade, and I haven’t been right. But now that I see the upcoming trends, I definitely sense my prophecy manifesting. I’ve been in the trenches of this industry for over 15 years, so I have it on good authority that email marketing will breathe its final breath in 2024.”
“The last time email marketing worked was when Myspace* was more famous than Facebook,” he further quipped.
* For our Gen Z readers: Myspace used to be a popular social media platform in the early 2000s.
The 42-year-old digital marketer went viral after he made this claim for the first time in 2010. Having such contrarian views on marketing allowed Buzzworthy to amass a large following. However, over the years, the following has dwindled down and gained a cultlike status as Buzzworthy never grew out of his schtick. One of the reasons for the steep plummet was Buzzworthy’s display of marketing naivete through the usage of terms like SEO optimization.
The podcast episode generated quite a chatter on The Digital Den, Buzzworthy’s Discord server, but industry practitioners couldn’t care less about it. While Buzzworthy’s claims would rile up digital marketers in the past, at this point, they just marvel at his talent of being so consistently wide off the mark for over a decade.
However, a few marketers expressed their cynical perspective on this claim. Seasoned email marketer, Emma Listman said, “Email marketing has always been our primary growth driver. Plus it’s the most effective channel to retain and engage our use base while personalizing the entire experience. Honestly, it’s baffling to hear such a strange take. I don’t think email will go away anytime soon!”
To which Buzzworthy remarked, “Well, that’s how the likes of BlackBerrys and Nokias must have thought. And look where they’re now! If you don’t adapt to what new the digital landscape has to offer, your marketing would go obsolete in no time. Adapt or perish.”
Listman didn’t look convinced by his response.
Toward the end of the podcast, Buzzworthy announced the launch of a new marketing service, something he’s also done along with inaccurate predictions every year. Offered exclusively through his digital marketing agency, the service will be called Chakra Marketing.
As the name suggests, Chakra Marketing is based on the idea that like a human being, a brand also has seven chakras. Buzzworthy calls them brand message, clarity, positioning, awareness, personalization, community, and ascension (a state akin to customer advocacy). Buzzworthy claims that balancing these seven chakras will take a brand to Nirvana, a state where the brand purpose perfectly aligns with each stage of the customer journey.
While Buzzworthy looks confident about the success of his new service, marketers are quite sure that email marketing will easily outlast this new-age, woo-woo-sounding marketing service.
Thank you so much for reading the post! If you think I should write more frequently, you can click on the Buy Me a Coffee Button to show your support. (It’s also cool if you don’t tho. No pressure hehe🔪🔫)
Featured Photo by Mariia Shalabaieva on Unsplash