If "Lost" were about interactive marketing, Kate would be display: glowingly attractive but highly unpredictable. Sawyer would be social media: sexy and dangerous. And stalwart, competent, true-blue Juliet? She'd be email marketing.
"All these new technologies are very sexy and get a lot of press," says Jeanne S. Jennings, an interactive marketing strategy and product development consultant. "But email is still the workhorse of the online marketing world."
To get a sense of email's relative clout, take a look at Forrester Research's U.S. Interactive Advertising Forecast: In 2010, Forrester expects email marketing to come in a distant third, garnering $1.355 billion marketing dollars. Search marketing ranks first, with a $17.765 billion price tag, followed by online display ad spending at $8.395 billion. (Social media spending is expected to surpass email spending in 2013.)
Its relative inexpensiveness may be part of email's charm. Aficionados say that email is the most cost-efficient medium, with the best ROI. But in these changing times, the channel faces new challenges, while a couple of the familiar ones have a new look.
Email marketers, get ready to leap over these hurdles.
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