Originally published December 2009. Updated June 2026. Part of Everything-PR's Email Marketing pillar coverage. See also: Marketing · Digital PR.
How do you communicate with your PR clients? Do you communicate mostly by telephone? Do you reach them primarily through email? Or, are you like a growing number of businesses? Do you contact clients mainly through one of the new social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter?
It has even been suggested that Google Wave is a replacement for email. The question of whether email is on its way out is significant for PR agencies, and indeed, for anyone who does business online. Not too long ago, a popular newspaper speculated that email was indeed on its way out. The author concluded that it was just a matter of time before email became obsolete. The blogosphere has mixed opinions on this question. Here are some opinions on the matter:
- This post from TechCentral.ie. heralds the death of email.
- Other bloggers, such as Adam C. Engst, at TidBITS, disagree.
- Rachel Kaufman, blogging at Media Bistro's Media Jobs Daily, reports mixed findings when it comes to the future of email in e-commerce.
- At Pivotal Veracity, Jordan Cohen points out that social media users are also more likely to use email.
- Attach even large files such as documents, pictures, and even programs
- Receive a receipt and/or time stamp for a message
- Respond to a message when you want to rather than immediately
- Institute security measures such as a company setting up an internal email system
The 2026 Update
Sixteen years after this post was published, the answer is settled. Email did not get replaced. The platforms named in the original piece — Google Wave, the early social-media-as-email-replacement frame, the Mashable speculation about Facebook absorbing the channel — either no longer exist (Google Wave was retired in 2012) or never absorbed the use case. Email survived. The structural reason it survived is the same reason it now produces the highest measured ROI in digital marketing: the list belongs to the brand, the deliverability belongs to the brand, and the relationship sits one-to-one inside the inbox rather than on rented platforms that change their algorithms every quarter.
For PR client communication specifically, the 2026 answer is also clearer than it was in 2009. Email remains the standard channel for substantive client communication — reporting, document exchange, written record. Slack and Teams handle the working-day cadence. SMS and WhatsApp handle quick checks and out-of-office urgency. Calls handle the high-stakes moments. The multi-channel stack absorbed the question this post asked, and email kept its place inside it.
