I noticed this maybe 6 or 7 years ago through my employer that responses and clicks are both down via e-mail marketing.

Now I am sure in certain areas it still works fine, but with better spam filters and people having more control over what they do and don't see, I feel like a lot of marketing via e-mail has died.

I am sure there are better more nuance approaches to it today than there was 10 or even 20 years ago. I am just not sure what they even are.

Is e-mail marketing still worth investing time into?

I actually wondered this myself. I know it was some sort of tried and true method but I seldom see people recommending it anymore so it made me thing it was dated. I am sure there is still a purpose for it and it can still work for some people but the handful of times I tried it, I saw very little feedback. People didn't open the emails at all and if they did, such a low percentage clicked it wasn't worth my time!

I wouldn’t say email marketing is dead, it's still working great for the clients I work with. But it's true that lazy email marketing is dead, if you aren't providing value to them first and just sending out promo emails they are going to land in the Promotions tab or spam folder.

I'd recommend using email marketing for:

1) Retaining existing customers

Email is often better for retention than cold acquisition. People who already bought from you are much more likely to engage with the emails. Send them valuable info that relates to the product(s) they purchased, so you stay top of mind, and then when your next product launches you can notify them about it and the email open rate will stay high.

2) Nurture sequences

Instead of one-off promotional blasts, value-driven automated sequences work best. Start with useful/interesting information, then you can always include a sales CTA in the P.S. or at the bottom of the email. Just make sure the first few emails are super helpful, give away a downloadable resource for free that they didn't expect, surprize them with something high value. If every email is “buy now” people tune it out. But if the emails are useful, timely, or genuinely relevant, they can build trust over time.

I find that e-mail marketing works best when you have an established base to build off from or if you offer actual products through your site. Think of all the e-mails you get from stores on a daily basis. Those still generate traffic, clicks, and sales for thousands of businesses.

So it is more useful once you have a flow of content, consumers/customers, or just general readers depending on which niche you are under?

I know I have used it in the past with success but I haven't used it in so many years at this point I didn't know if it was worth putting time into or not.