Somewhat contrastive to last weeks post on Baby Boomers... A report by Jupiter Research found that the rising popularity of social networking sites and other forms of communication including text messaging and cell phone use are beginning to impact the effectiveness of e-mail marketing, particularly the numbers of consumers that say promotional messages inspired purchases.
The report (The Social and Portable Inbox: Optimizing E-mail Marketing in the New Era of Communication Tools) indicated that emerging forms of communication are leading to diminished use of e-mail.
22% of e-mail users said they use social networking sites instead of e-mail, with scores more indicating they have used instant messaging (IM), text messaging, and cell phones instead of e-mail.
In 2007, 51 % of e-mail users said e-mail inspired at least one online purchase, and 47 percent said the same for off-line purchases. However, in 2008, the share of e-mail users fell to 44 % for online purchases and 41 % for off-line purchases.
This smacks against the study on Boomers that found that 75% who have received promotional emails about products and services have clicked through to the site being promoted, and more than 55% have purchased a product or service promoted in an email.
