Impressive Fourth Quarter Report for Email Marketing in 2008

Email marketing has come top of the rankings for return on investment (ROI) and usage by consumer marketers, a recent Marketing Sherpa report has shown.

Along with search engine optimisation (SEO) and search marketing, email marketing emerged favourably from the report with an average usage rate of around 95% and an ROI pushing the 50% mark. These channels were ranked by consumer marketers for Q4 of 2008. Based on this information, the percentage of overall budget spend on email marketing is predicted to grow over the coming months.

It's worth pointing out that rich media and video is another area enjoying growth, albeit on a much more modest scale, with usage averaging between 50-60% and the ROI creeping towards 30%. Marketers should remember that email marketing is well-suited to promoting rich media and video content. Email campaigns can include links that take subscribers directly to landing pages where content of this kind is posted - so marketers that want to combine Web 2.0 marketing strategies should take a look at the opportunities this approach can bring. For the time being, we'll be keeping a close eye on how email marketing spend grows over the coming months.