Datran Media Announces Results of 2nd Annual Marketing & Media Survey

In December 2007, Datran Media conducted its second annual marketing and media survey by reaching out to over 2,000 industry leaders. With the New Year rapidly approaching, we asked marketers to reflect on the year that was and share their 2008 marketing plans with us and the rest of the industry.

Datran Media received a record number of responses and gained some very interesting insight from many of the industry's leading marketers. From email to display, Datran Media learned about the channels that had an impact in 2007 and what mediums will dominate 2008. We have collected and tallied all the results and we hope this survey helps shed some light on how the industry as a whole, will be using online marketing channels in 2008.

Overall, 82 percent of the marketers surveyed indicated that they plan to increase their use of email marketing in 2008, and 55 percent of the respondents cite that they expect ROI from email to be higher than any other channel. Datran Media's survey results are consistent with the Direct Marketing Association's recent report, which found the ROI from email is much higher than other channels. In fact, email ROI will hit $45.65 for every dollar spent in 2008, more than twice the ROI of other mediums including search and display.

In addition to increased use of email as a media and lead generation channel, the Datran Media survey found:

• 80 percent of respondents indicated email was the strongest performing media buy ahead of search and display.
• 67 percent of marketers believe email helps boost sales though other channels.
• Search is the favored channel for complementing the email channel.
• More than 80 percent of marketers send targeted email campaigns.

For a complete view of survey results, please visit Datran Media Success

New Report Finds Marketers Confident in Email in 2008

Close to 75 percent of marketers plan to spend either the same amount or more on email marketing in 2008 as they did last year, according to MarketingSherpa's "Email 2008: Top 10 Research Findings and Practical Ways to Increase Email Performance" report. More than a quarter of respondents said they would spend 1.5 times as much or more as they did in 2007. As more and more marketers recognize the ROI-potential of the cost-effective channel, marketing budgets will always have room for email. Similarly, in Datran Media's recent survey, 82 percent of marketers plan to increase email use in 2008.

Q: What exactly defines a newsletter's open rate?

A: A newsletter open rate is defined as the percentage of readers who were sent an email newsletter and opened the email message. However, results can often be skewed because the technology that measures open rates includes anyone who briefly viewed the message in the preview pane. And while many people have their email programs configured to read email through a preview pane, that doesn't necessarily mean they've actually spent time reading it. This very newsletter often receives very high open rates, but it could just be everyone quickly viewing through the preview pane, but then again, I doubt anyone skips an issue of this great newsletter.

Seriously, there are two types of open rates to think about.

Unique Open Rate: This is the open rate associated with unique users. For example: a user who opens the newsletter several times will be recorded as one unique open.

Simple Open Rate: This is the open rate where someone who opens the newsletter several times will be recorded as several opens. This open rate will be higher than the Unique Open Rate.

The unique open rate is a more accurate measure of your reach. However, the simple open rate is better for measuring advertising and branding frequency.

Send us some of your 2008 predictions, and we will print them in next month’s issue along with some from our own industry experts.  Here’s to a happy and prosperous New Year!