{"id":19909,"date":"2019-10-24T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=19909"},"modified":"2024-09-16T14:51:49","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T21:51:49","slug":"how-salesforce-innovates-in-an-unlikely-place-the-inbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/how-salesforce-innovates-in-an-unlikely-place-the-inbox\/","title":{"rendered":"How Salesforce Innovates in an Unlikely Place: The Inbox"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a world of TikToks and Snapchats, email rarely makes headlines. But email, one could argue, is the parent of every social media platform \u2014 and like most parents, it doesn\u2019t get enough credit for all the work it does. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years we\u2019ve heard the \u201cemail is dead\u201d refrain again and again. \u201cCompared to many other communication channels, email hasn\u2019t changed a lot in the last five years,\u201d says Joe Teplow, co-founder of Rebel, now a Salesforce Company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet email continues to be the heavyweight for marketing return on investment. Research from earlier this year shows email has a staggering $42 average earned for every $1 spent<\/a>. Salesforce research among marketing leaders<\/a> puts email in the top-three channels for ROI when it comes to acquiring, retaining, and upselling customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, email still gets a winning vote from consumers themselves. Sixty-four percent<\/a> of consumers rank email as their preferred channel for communicating with companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If email has such a strong pulse, the question becomes \u2014 why do some keep trying to dig it an early grave?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If email has such a strong pulse, the question becomes \u2014 why do some keep trying to dig it an early grave?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The \u201clast static frontier\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEmail has its limitations,\u201d says Teplow. Founded in 2014 and acquired by Salesforce in 2018, Rebel started with a mustard-seed of an idea, which was this: If you can remove friction from the email experience, customers will be more likely to take an action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, removing customer friction has proven to be a worthy pursuit \u2014 take Amazon\u2019s Alexa (cutting the extra steps of grabbing your device and typing) or Instacart\u2019s grocery delivery (cutting driving to the store and pushing a cart). But the concept of removing friction in emails wasn\u2019t something that\u2019d been widely applied yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere’s something so stable about email that allows it to be this ubiquitous channel for reaching customers,\u201d says Teplow. \u201cBut email is one of the last static things on your phone. Think about it \u2014 it\u2019s the last frontier of static content.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But two forces are hitting refresh on email \u2014 interactivity and artificial intelligence \u2014 which are part of the new Salesforce innovations announced today<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two forces are hitting refresh on email \u2014 interactivity and artificial intelligence \u2014 which are part of the new Salesforce innovations announced today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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