This report reveals the results of the survey of 1,829 sales and marketing executives, with questions relative to their company’s use of email for sales and marketing, as well as campaign results and budgets.

Email is budget’s ugly step-child, yet Cinderalla for leads and sales results, with top ROI
In answers pertaining to marketing budgets, allocations for email
marketing software and services remained at the very bottom, under 5%
for large businesses and under 10% for small and medium businesses. In
sharp contrast, email marketing was consistently a top performer in
answers rating marketing campaign success (in terms of sales and lead
generation) as well as answers rating the importance of marketing
mediums. From participants who answered all related questions, a
relative value index was derived which clearly illuminates email at the
top for ROI.

Nearly 84% of businesses have plans to increase use of email for sales and marketing
The vast majority of businesses have plans to increase their use of
sales and marketing email, despite prevalence of spam. Nearly 84% of
businesses indicated they had plans to increase their use of email for
sales, marketing and customer service.

1to1 email follow-up and campaigns to small groups outperforms broadcast email.
Another surprise finding revealed the broadcast marketing mentality and
most common email marketing approach, is not the best strategy for
producing leads and sales results via email marketing. These survey
results highlight the value of putting email marketing technology,
including 1to1 personalization and email tracking tools, into the
field, including divisional offices, field representatives and sales
people.

Additional findings and complete survey results are available by downloading the full report here.