GetResponse just published their latest “The State Of Email Marketing In SMBs. 2011 Report”.

The study analyzes the implementation of the most popular email marketing practices, strategies and trends amongst the SMB marketers.

Key findings

• The majority of respondents follow best practices and legal compliance regarding the subscription-based lead generation (79% respondents use sign up forms to build lists). 
• Large number of respondents declare high deliverability rates (62% claim deliverability at 95%), low complaint ratio (69% claim complaints ratio below 0.02%) and effective delivery to major client inboxes (68%). 
• Most respondents realize the importance of regular mailings (70%), personalization (58%), compelling subject line (68%), and stats analysis (61%). 
• Only 50% of the researched marketers integrate email with social media channel – a surprisingly low result, given the recent interest in the multi-channel marketing. 

Results by Size  

• Companies with 0-10 employees 
  This segment got the weakest results in the area of segmentation (32%) and reactivation campaigns (25%). Only 41% include social sharing icons in their newsletters.
• Companies with 11-250 employees 
  This segment performs best against other companies in contact acquisition via Facebook (82%). However this group has the lowest percentage in delivering newsletters in all major clients inbox (66%)
• Companies with 250-500 employees 
  This group stands out in using advanced segmentation techniques (72%) and split tests the most (78%). They performed worst, compared to the other groups, in getting their average complaint ratio below 0.2% (only 64%).
• Companies with more than 500 employees 
  This group definitely stands out in collecting contacts offline, e.g. at tradeshows, stores, using paper sign-up forms (above 75%). Also almost 90% of respondents check and analyze stats on the newsletters they send.

Results by Industry

Publishing and hi-tech are the top-ranking sectors. They are the most advanced in email marketing and in using best practices in their email campaigns. The lowest-ranking are non-profit organizations.

The study was conducted over a period of two weeks: November 14-28, 2011 and researched 600 respondents classified in 4 groups based on the business unit size and in 13 groups based on industry type.

Get the full report.