A study by outsourced e-mail marketing services firm e-Dialog said 32 percent of respondents ranked e-mail as their most effective marketing vehicle and 82 percent placed it in the top three.
In a sign of broader acceptance, 48 percent of those surveyed hold e-mail to be a mainstream marketing vehicle for their firm, according to e-Dialog's 2002 E-Mail Marketing Benchmarking Study, a 22-page report based on responses from 300 marketers across industries. The study was released yesterday.
“We have seen the marketing budgets of our clients steadily shift toward e-mail, and this study further substantiates that trend,” John Rizzi, president/CEO of Lexington, MA-based e-Dialog, said in a prepared statement.
The survey found that 55 percent of respondents increased the percentage of marketing dollars they allocated to e-mail this year versus last, and only 5 percent decreased it. By contrast, 16 percent boosted the budget for traditional direct mail while 33 percent decreased it.
According to the study, e-mail was the only marketing discipline whose average percentage of budget grew in 2002 from 2001.
Also, 54 percent of marketers surveyed increased their use of e-mail because of the economic slowdown.
