Email is king for communicators. Is it being overused?

Diving deep into the data of Ragan’s exclusive 2022 Communications Benchmark Report, one thing becomes clear: Communicators love email.

Again and again, we see email listed as a top tool, according to responses from nearly 1,000 communicators:

For internal communications, few other tools even come close to email’s dominance — the next most-favored tool for internal comms was town halls, with just 56% saying it was a top tool. Intranets came in at 40%, while no other answer broached 20%.

While email is undoubtedly a strong tool for communicating within an organization, the data raises a question: Are we leaning too much on email?

One respondent said that “over reliance on broadcast email” is an obstacle to better communications, a feeling anyone with a bursting email inbox can relate to. Email is also decidedly not a strong tool for communicating with deskless workers.

But email can feel like the path of least resistance. It can be faster to bang out an email than to organize a town hall or produce a video. And despite the growth of messaging programs like Teams or Slack, not all workers are comfortable with the tool yet.