Four Out Of Five Marketers Use Email

According to a new McKinsey Quarterly study of over 300 marketing executives, 83 percent use email in their marketing efforts. Email is even older than banners, and not nearly so sexy as online video, but it remains a go-to staple in most marketers' toolkits. The second most popular online tactic is display advertising. Video came in a distant seventh with only one-third of the marketers employing it. But video's hard to do well -- maybe that's why some are so slow to give it a try.

eMarketer: September 24, 2007

E-Mail Top Digital Marketing Tool

More popular than search, display or online video.

Major marketers worldwide use e-mail in their campaigns, according to The McKinsey Quarterly.

In a survey of 311 marketing executives, McKinsey found that 83% used e-mail, ahead of display ads, paid search and online video.

McKinsey also asked about the future of online marketing. By 2010, respondents generally thought the Web would be part of the first two stages of the buyer decision-making process — product awareness and information gathering — for a majority of all consumers.

Over one-half of respondents said they planned to increase their e-mail spending in the next three years, but plans to increase spending could mean that e-mail would lose some budget to paid search and other tactics.

E-mail marketing is similarly prevalent in the United States. More than seven in 10 US marketers in a Penton Media Custom Research study commissioned by PROMO Magazine said that e-mail was one of their online and mobile tactics.

Learn what mistakes marketers make with e-mail. Please read eMarketer's E-Mail Marketing: Getting Through to Customers report.