Marketers who think they should be focusing on RSS and blogs at the expense of e-mail should think again, according to a study by online marketing services provider Bluestreak.

Consumers who are embracing emerging communications technologies — such as RSS, podcasts, text messaging and blogs — still say e-mail is the digital communication tool they consider most necessary to their daily lives, according to Bluestreak’s Emerging Digital Channels study released today.

Also, e-mail is remains a critical marketing channel for reaching early adopters, even as they increasingly use other emerging technology.

Thirty one percent of those surveyed who use e-mail at least once per day said they open permission-based marketing e-mail 91% to 100% of the time, according to Bluestreak. Forty one percent said they open permission-based e-mail 61% to 90% of the time, according to Bluestreak.

“The message we want to get across is e-mail is still king and anyone who thinks that things like RSS or blogs are somehow marginalizing e-mail is way off,” said Leah Holzman, director of marketing for Bluestreak.

For example, 83% of respondents said that after opening a permission-based e-mail, they have clicked through to the Web site, and 69% said they have made an online purchase.

Fifty six percent of respondents said they made an offline purchase after opening a permission-based e-mail.

Also, people 35 or older are apparently more responsive to commercial e-mail than those younger than 35, according to Bluestreak.

For example, 76% of respondents 35 or older said they made an online purchase after opening a permission-based e-mail, compared to 67% of those under 35, according to Bluestreak.

Also, 51% of those over 35 said they signed up for more information after opening a commercial e-mail compared to 42% of those under 35. And 23% said they made a purchase over the phone after opening a permission-based commercial e-mail compared to 14% under 35, according to Bluestreak.

One striking finding from the panel is that it was not made up primarily of the technology early-adopter stereotype, which is usually young males, according to Holzman.

“We found that when you look at the demographics using message boards, text messaging and RSS, you don’t really see the skewed demographics that you have in the past,” said Holzman. “For example, women are strong on message boards. We think this means that the adoption of these channels will be a lot more mainstream and will be a broader group of people who cut across demographics.”

Marketers who think they should be focusing on RSS and blogs at the expense of e-mail should think again, according to a study by online marketing services provider Bluestreak.

Consumers who are embracing emerging communications technologies