Constant Contact Survey Shows Small Businesses Will Rely on Email Marketing this Holiday Season

Being a Boston-area, MIT-based company, Istobe always pulls for other Boston-area, MIT-based companies. And this goes double for companies in the customer analytics and targeted email realms. Such is the case with Constant Contact, one of the email service provider (ESP) titans out there. And now we get a new survey from Constant Contact that echoes our ramblings at Istobe. email marketing is becoming more and more important for small businesses as the economy stumbles into the Christmas season.

Highlights from the Constant Contact 4th Annual Small Business Holiday Outlook:

• One of the most interesting findings from Constant Contact’s 4th Annual Small Business Holiday Outlook is that the majority of small businesses (63%) have already begun their holiday marketing campaigns in an effort to entice consumers to shop early this year. If you can’t change the nature of the competition, change the timing of the competition.
• Less surprising is the fact that small businesses far and away prefer email marketing during the holiday season. A full 60% said that they rely on email marketing more than direct mail (28%) and advertising (21%). This is, in large part, because email represents the most direct way to communicate with current customers, the best source of revenue for cash-strapped businesses.
• 41% of small businesses surveyed said that email marketing drove more revenue than any other source. This is somewhat shocking given the large amount of attention paid to pay-per-click advertising. However, like the bullet above, this is likely because current customers are more effectively engaged via email. And, of course, they’re more likely to buy.

Overall, the Constant Contact survey describes the blue-blanket phenomenon. When all things are going awry, we reach for the trusty blue blanket that isn’t as shiny and new as other blankets but gives us a known quantity of relief.

Tags: Constant Contact, Email Marketing, holiday season, small business

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Constant Contact, Economic Downturn, Email Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.