Email marketing. The Godfather of direct marketing communication.

Although email predates the Internet itself, it is still one of the most effective marketing tools. With opt-in processes and increased personalisation, email evolves and matures with age- like a fine wine or a Steve Hofmeyr album. Highly targeted, cost-effective and completely measurable, a well executed email campaign provides a healthy ROI. If you don’t believe me, here are the latest stats courtesy of http://www.emailstatcenter.com/.

• 62% of marketing executives surveyed say that email newsletters are tactics that are a part of their 2009 marketing strategy. - Datran Media "3rd Annual Marketing & Media Survey Results" (2008)
• More than 90% of Internet users between 18 and 72 said they send and receive email, making it the top online activity just ahead of search engines, according to the non-profit research group. - Pew Internet and American Life Project (Feb 2009)
• 44% of email users said email inspired at least one online purchase and 41% said it prompted at least one offline purchase. - JupiterResearch's The Social and Portable Inbox (2008)
• 66% of those surveyed said they had made a purchase because of a marketing message received through email. - ExactTarget, "2008 Channel Preference Survey" (2008)
• Commercial email servers achieved average delivery rates of 88%, with 9% rejected and 0.71% filtered. - Return Path (2008)
• Median order size for email remained constant (compared to Q4), meaning that email can deliver a healthy return even in an economy in a downturn. - Epsilon "Q1 2008 U.S. Email Trends and Benchmark Results" (2008)
• Open rates were highest on Mondays, Tuesdays, and the weekends. - MailerMailer (2008) 

Image Credit: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/stats/email-clients/

• Subject lines under 60 or more than 70 characters generate the highest response. - Alchemy Worx (2008)
• As a direct result of receiving email, 82% of respondents accessed their account via online customer service. - Epsilon (Oct 2008)
• 57% of consumers feel they have a more positive impression of companies when they receive email from them. - Epsilon "Branding Survey" (Feb 2009)
• For advertising-oriented lists, 57% of marketers surveyed said that "emailing unique content by segment" produced routinely justifiable results. - MarketingSherpa "Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008" (2008)
• 30% of marketers rated Welcome message/campaign sent to recent subscribers tests "very effective". - MarketingSherpa "2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide" (Oct 2008)
• 29% of marketers rated Personalization by product profile/user details tests "very effective". - MarketingSherpa "2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide" (Oct 2008)
• 24%% of marketers rated sending one newsletter to customers and another to prospects tests "very effective". - MarketingSherpa "2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide" (Oct 2008)
• Email's ROI in 2009 was $43.52 for every dollar spent on it. - DMA (2008)

If you would like to see more stats, you can visit http://www.emailstatcenter.com/ and http://www.campaignmonitor.com/stats/email-clients/ for great resources on email marketing. 

Also check out:

• Friday Fact Box - Email Marketing
• Email Marketing Basics
• When Email Marketing Goes Bad