Blog Analysis Reveals Email Marketing Trends

A review of 12 months of email marketing articles reveals that legislation, spam and deliverability were top of mind in 2004. This looks likely to change this year, with marketers refocusing on tactics, strategy and the potential of RSS.

(PRWEB) February 2, 2005 -- The daily "No man is an iland" blog published at Email Marketing Reports - http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/ - selects pertinent email marketing articles from around the Internet to bring to the attention of a marketing readership.

An analysis of the 350+ articles so featured in 2004 shows that the chief concerns were legislative and technical. The most common topics addressed were the Can-Spam legislation that came into force at the beginning of that year, and other spam issues.

"The whole spam problem had threatened to pull the rug out from under legitimate email marketing, so it was the dominant topic in the early part of 2004" says Mark Brownlow, who writes the blog.

With legitimate commercial emails getting blocked by stringent anti-spam solutions, deliverability was also a hot topic. "Marketers recognized that the best emails in the world were worthless if they didn't get through - hence the interest in deliverability and keeping an eye on changes at the major email address providers." continues Brownlow.

With the spam war now tilting (albeit slowly) in favor of the good guys, marketers are able to turn back to other matters. Brownlow notes, "While legislation and deliverability remain important considerations, it already seems that marketers and commentators are turning their attention back to marketing practicalities."

"Which means renewed focus on improving tactics, such as segmentation, customization and automated email distribution based on customer behavior."

In addition, interest in RSS as a delivery medium to replace email continues to increase. "This interest was always there because RSS doesn't have the deliverability issues of email. But it's growing because of the rapid spread of RSS functionality across the web and people's desktops." says Brownlow.

The results in full (articles dedicated to each topic as a % of the total featured in 2004):
Can-Spam and related legislation: 17.9%
Other spam issues: 12.4%
Deliverability: 12.1%
Email address providers: 9.6%
Strategy/tactics: 9.2%
Case studies: 6.1%
RSS: 5.8%
Surveys/trends: 5.5%
Events: 5.2%
State of industry: 3.5%
Other issues: 3.5%
List management: 3.2%
E-newsletters: 3.2%
Format/design: 2.9%

About Email Marketing Reports
Email Marketing Reports is a content site featuring hundreds of hand-reviewed links to online email marketing resources. The "No man is an iland" blog reviews and links to the latest advice and news articles on the web.

The goal is to help marketers understand the issues involved in email marketing, and maximize the returns on their use of permission-based, opt-in email as a marketing vehicle.

###