Research Shows a Direct Marketing Channel is What Email Consumers' Prefer

When a consumer signs up or subscribes to a page, blog or service, research is now showing that they prefer contact through a direct channel like email. It makes it easy to reference and also turns it into something they can access solely on their own schedule with no pressure to be available for or miss a phone call or webinar. Smart phone users are definitely adding to these new statistics.

Below is some insight into why people think email is a dying market and what it is actually evolving into:

There is, however, one place where email channel preference has declined significantly. Consumers' preference for email as a personal communications channel has dropped 21% since 2008 while their preference for text messaging and social media have grown 20% and 10%, respectively. Overall, email still tops both text and social as the preferred channel for personal communications—45% for email to text's 36% and social's 13%—but email's decline points to the fact that personal communications are shifting toward text and social networks—especially for frequent, short-burst communications.

This shift would be worrisome to marketers were it not for the fact that consumers' preference to receive permission-based marketing through email has actually increased 5% since 2008. A staggering 77% of consumers told us that they prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications through email.

In fact, email is the top channel in terms of acceptability across all types of marketing message we asked about in the survey. From travel alerts and purchase receipts to promotional messages and polls, email is viewed as the most appropriate direct channel for brands to communicate with consumers. Looking across all messaging communications studied, we find 94% of consumers prefer at least one form of marketing communication come through email.

This study also shows that there is still no tolerance for spam. So as long as you take the time to build up a legitimate email subscription list, email marketing is still one of the best and most affordable channels you can invest in.

Do you agree with the information provided above? Why or why not?

Article Source: Exact Target

Image Source: Annette Schwindt on Flickr