Ask almost anyone what their biggest time-suck is these days and they’ll probably respond with the same answer… Email. The average professional spends 28% of their day checking and replying to emails, according to this McKinsey report. When it comes to group emails, time isn’t the only factor that makes them unattractive.

There are many reasons that group email lists such as Listserv are quickly becoming obsolete as a way of communicating within a business. Let's explore some of the main reasons, businesses are ditching group email lists.

1. Unreliability of group email lists or Listserv

Sending out a group email doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to get read or even seen.  Spam filters can be oversensitive these days, placing anything that looks like it has been sent from a Listserv source into the junk folder.  Even if your message does end up in the recipient’s inbox, there’s no guarantee that they will read it. With the average professional receiving 120 messages per day, it’s inevitable that some of these will get overlooked or pushed to one side.

2. Emails are difficult to organise

If you are using emails for collaborative working, such as replying to customer support enquiries or managing sales leads, by sharing an inbox, things can get confusing quite quickly. Especially when sending group emails.  Most email providers don’t show messages sequentially, or in a thread. This means that group emails that provoke a lot of responses can quickly become unmanageable.

3. Group email lists need regular maintenance

Businesses are dynamic organisations. They can grow or shrink, and even at the best companies, there will be a substantial turnover of staff.  If you’re using group email lists to manage team communications, you need to make sure that everything is kept up-to-date and lists are regularly maintained. This can be a time-consuming process that can’t be automated very easily, if at all.

4. The problem of irrelevant email

No matter how well you segment and manage your group email lists, there are going to be times when you send people an email that is irrelevant to them. The problem with this is that it both annoys people and wears them down, making them less likely to pay attention to future group emails.

What can be used instead of group email lists?

Fortunately, in recent years, a new breed of communication tool has evolved. Community platforms have quickly become the ideal replacement for group email lists and collaborative messaging.  Businesses prefer community platforms as they offer:

• Easy-to-use communication tools that are intuitive and easily learned.
• Familiar, social media-like appearance and layout, for greater engagement
• Fast, effective collaborative working
• Easier to manage, with segmented Groups that retain the ability to communicate freely
• Access to data and enhanced group analytics
• Mobile compatibility and Push Notifications
• Greater customisability, allowing businesses to include their own branding.

In other words, community platforms offer all the advantages of group email lists, without the downsides. They also offer a lot more features and functionality, as well as being more popular with employees. That’s why businesses are choosing online community platforms such as Disciple to manage their communications, share information, and collaborate on projects.

Disciple has a very intuitive interface that feels like social media. An average user can jump straight in and access everything they need to through the dashboard. There are Newsfeeds, private messaging functions, content libraries, Push Notifications, plus much more. These features allow businesses to create a collaborative community, rather than just firing off emails to different groups or individuals, with little or no plan or strategy for managing them.

Final words

Group email lists have had their day. In today’s super-fast, hyper-connected world, businesses are turning to solutions that make things simpler and more effective. Community platforms achieve this by providing an all-in-one collaborative working atmosphere, communication tool, and management console.  Disciple has everything you need to create a customised community platform that will cover all your communication needs.