Forrester research is predicting email spend to "balloon" to $2bn (£1.2bn) by 2014, a nearly 11% compound annual growth rate.
Falling CPMs, a high return on investment, and growing consumer use of social email accounts will fuel the use of email by direct marketing professionals, the company said in its annual Email Marketing Forecast.
David Daniels, Forrester analyst, said: "By 2014 direct marketers will waste $144m on emails that never reach their primary target. Successful direct marketing pros will alter their tactics to overcome inbox clutter and increase relevancy."
The study also found that retention email - email that recipients have "blessed" with their permission - will continue to replace paper communications and will make up the largest share of marketing messages.
Retention emails will account for more than one-third of all marketing messages in consumers' inboxes by 2014, representing increased competition for marketers.
While the bulk of the market will continue to deploy email marketing on a self-service basis, the growing complexity associated with data integration and new tactics to increase relevancy will drive healthy grow in use of email service providers, research found.
Spending on ad-sponsored newsletters will also double over the next five years as traditional print publishers face falling circulation and ad revenue.
Daniels said: "The use of email in social networks will be one of the biggest challenges for direct marketers. Over the next five years, marketers must bridge the gap between social and traditional inboxes with social sharing tools."
Comments
The eternal challenge faced by marketers is in ensuring their communications are well targeted and relevant. Deviation from this focus will risk an explosion in unsolicited email – so we must learn from our past and current experiences when it comes to disrespectful use of a delivery channel.
To combat this, permission statements need to be clear, and adhered to, to ensure customers and prospects only receive the communication and information they choose; any confusion or failure here and we'll end up returning to the 'junk mail' culture we've tried so hard to put behind us. Moving to the digital age offers us never before available opportunities to connect with a wide audience in a personal manner; but success is reliant on mutual respect and a considered approach.
Brands and retailers also need to maximise the return on their digital investment and measurably convert this channel of consumer engagement into purchase.
One of the key tools to achieve this is to provide consumers with vouchers and coupons with the email that can be distributed securely for consumers to print at home or at work that are redeemable in offline "bricks & mortar" stores.
Doing this can enable a brand or retailer to enhance the engagement with the consumer but ultimately understand more about consumer habits by tracking the voucher distribution right through to redemption in-store, therefore delivering a measurable ROI.
The use of secure printable voucher technology can enable marketers to leverage the reach of a viral campaign without losing control of its promotional exposure by limiting the number of vouchers printed by each individual as well as in total across all their online media. It can also prevent the voucher from being viewed on screen and saved as a file, reducing the potential for opportunistic consumers to upload and "edit" the voucher in graphic applications such as Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.
Stuart Sankey
Sales & Relationship Manager
Couponstar Ltd
0208 996 5068
I agree with David Gurney that this increase must be even more targeted than ever to protect against spam that is not targeted to the individual.
Something interesting might be happening here. People are writing off print communications because it is so much cheaper to send an email. However, in a world where you receive 25 commercial emails per day how much impact will your beautifully crafted email really have? The comment in the article that dm pros will 'alter their tactics to overcome inbox clutter' sounds fine, but if you come back to your desk after a day out of the office and find 50 commercial emails, how much time are you really going to spend on each one? In this scenario a print communication might well have 20 times the impact of an email and therefore deliver a better ROI. Email communications have great potential, but not if the tide rises so high that we all drown in them.
Comments
David Gurney, Operations Director, Alchemetrics - 19/06/2009
The eternal challenge faced by marketers is in ensuring their communications are well targeted and relevant. Deviation from this focus will risk an explosion in unsolicited email – so we must learn from our past and current experiences when it comes to disrespectful use of a delivery channel. To combat this, permission statements need to be clear, and adhered to, to ensure customers and prospects only receive the communication and information they choose; any confusion or failure here and we'll end up returning to the 'junk mail' culture we've tried so hard to put behind us. Moving to the digital age offers us never before available opportunities to connect with a wide audience in a personal manner; but success is reliant on mutual respect and a considered approach.
Stuart Sankey - 19/06/2009
Brands and retailers also need to maximise the return on their digital investment and measurably convert this channel of consumer engagement into purchase. One of the key tools to achieve this is to provide consumers with vouchers and coupons with the email that can be distributed securely for consumers to print at home or at work that are redeemable in offline "bricks & mortar" stores. Doing this can enable a brand or retailer to enhance the engagement with the consumer but ultimately understand more about consumer habits by tracking the voucher distribution right through to redemption in-store, therefore delivering a measurable ROI. The use of secure printable voucher technology can enable marketers to leverage the reach of a viral campaign without losing control of its promotional exposure by limiting the number of vouchers printed by each individual as well as in total across all their online media. It can also prevent the voucher from being viewed on screen and saved as a file, reducing the potential for opportunistic consumers to upload and "edit" the voucher in graphic applications such as Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. Stuart Sankey Sales & Relationship Manager Couponstar Ltd 0208 996 5068
Nigel Triggs, Sales Manager Corpdata Ltd - 19/06/2009
I agree with David Gurney that this increase must be even more targeted than ever to protect against spam that is not targeted to the individual.
David Burrows, TDA - 22/06/2009
Something interesting might be happening here. People are writing off print communications because it is so much cheaper to send an email. However, in a world where you receive 25 commercial emails per day how much impact will your beautifully crafted email really have? The comment in the article that dm pros will 'alter their tactics to overcome inbox clutter' sounds fine, but if you come back to your desk after a day out of the office and find 50 commercial emails, how much time are you really going to spend on each one? In this scenario a print communication might well have 20 times the impact of an email and therefore deliver a better ROI. Email communications have great potential, but not if the tide rises so high that we all drown in them.