E-mail leads all other channels by a wide margin in terms of performance, according to a survey of marketing executives released by Datran Media today.
When asked which advertising channels perform strongly for their companies, 80.4% of the more than 3,000 executives surveyed chose e-mail, compared to 56.8% who chose search, the second leading performer, according to Datran.
Also, 42.1% chose online display advertising as a strong performer, 32.8% selected offline media, such as television and print, 32.1% chose direct mail, 22.9% selected social media and 9.2% chose mobile marketing, according to Datran.
E-mail also was the most-cited channel for an increase in budgets in 2009, according to Datran.
More than 58% of those surveyed said they plan to increase their e-mail budgets in 2009, while 54.4% said they plan to do so with search, according to the performance-based marketing services firm.
Just 5.7% and 3.6% said they plan to reduce their e-mail and search budgets respectively this year, according to Datran.
Social media is also apparently getting significantly marketing-budget attention in 2009, as 43.9% said they will increase dollars spent against the channel this year, according to the survey.
Meanwhile, not surprisingly, offline media continues to suffer.
Of those surveyed, 34.9% said they plan to reduce their spending on TV and print while just 13.8% said they plan to increase it.
New customer acquisition was by far the most cited as marketers’ No. 1 goal this year with 63.2% selecting it. Almost 44% chose customer retention as a top goal, while 14% and 14.1% selected increased brand awareness and increased brand favorability, respectively.
Sixty two percent of survey respondents chose newsletter as a marketing tactic to be included in their plans for 2009, making it the most popular activity. The second most popular marketing tactic cited was list growth at 54.2%. Just behind list growth was behavioral targeting at 53.9%, according to Datran.
