2006 Top Email Trends Shows Growing Sophistication in Email Marketing

Exact Target released its annual email marketing trends for the upcoming year. A year ago, the trends involved relevancy and frequency of e-mails, ExactTarget said. Those are now the industry basics, and the future is to focus on deliverability, analytics and multichannel marketing.

The top trends for 2006 are:

1. Deliverability will drive email success.
2. Open rate is over rated.
3. Email metrics and web analytics will be integrated.
4. Multi-channel marketing will deliver winning results.
5. List growth will be healthy, but takes work.
6. RSS will start to make an impact on email marketing.
7. Email will get more personalized.
8. Look for rich media in email.
9. Email as a carrier for third party advertising.
10. The new metric: return on subscriber.

The trends are available as a white paper with graphics and real-life examples here.