Study Shows Email Response Rates Declining

According to a study by Harte-Hanks on B2B email marketing

Click-through rates for general marketing e-mail campaigns dropped from 1.3% in the second half of 2002 to 1.0% in the second half of 2003; click-throughs for market research e-mails dropped from 2.8% in the second half of 2002 to 2.1% in the same period in 2003; and click-throughs for seminar invitation e-mails dropped from 1.0% in the second half of 2002 to 0.4% in the second half of 2003.

According to the study, most email is sales oriented rather than marketing.

In 2002, 53% of the campaigns in the study were sales oriented and 47% of campaigns were marketing based. In 2003, 72% were sales oriented and 28% were marketing based.

Add that to the increasing number of ‘poor offers’ – offers that are badly targeted and lack a compelling call to action, and the increasing amounts of spam, and you can see where the trend towards lower response rates is coming from. Still,

Almost three-quarters (74%) of respondents are very inclined to give permission to receive e-mail from marketers. Seventy-four percent have opted in to at least one e-mail list in the past two years. Of that number, 14% have opted-in to 10 or more lists, and 39% have opted in to between five and nine lists.

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