Friday, January 12, 2007

Study: 81% to Increase Email Marketing

January 12, 2007

Study: 81% to Increase Email Marketing

More marketers are turning to the Internet to make a buck. According to a new study, 94% of marketers who said they will decrease offline ads in 2007 said they will increase online advertising. And if you thought email was dead, think again. More than half of the respondents said email was at the top of the list.

by Kristina Knight

In October Alterian, a marketing software provider, polled 500 online marketers, ad agencies and service providers. 81% of respondents said they would increase email spending, 50% will increase direct marketing and 45% will increase spending on their landing pages.

“. . .These results certainly indicate tremendous opportunities for marketers to use email and online marketing techniques linked with traditional direct marketing tactics to establish competitive advantages and serve customers better than ever,” said David Eldridge, Alterian’s chief executive officer (in a prepared statement).

Email is becoming integrated with all of the other advertising channels according to the survey. Most (35%) are using email now in coordination with other advertising or in coordination with other online offerings (25%) instead of as a standalone channel (18%).

The biggest challenge for these marketers is segmenting the different sales forces. According to 36% their online and offline ad forces are run by separate departments, and 32% say they have had problems “integrating email marketing activity with the customer database”.

Another interesting finding is that 71% of respondents send less than one million emails per average month. Who is handling the bulk of these campaigns? The bulk of the campaigns are being managed in-house for both small (less than 1 million emails/month) and large (more than 10 million emails/month) campaigns. The mid-size campaigns (between 1-10 million emails/month) are being outsourced.

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