SendLabs

Email continues to be "dead" in the most opposite definition of the word as research giant Forrester Research released an interesting report Monday about what they forecast for the future of our business.

In the release, Forrester is forecasting that U.S. spending on email marketing will grow to $2 billion by 2014 - a rate of nearly 11% annually. The reasons? The R.O.I., growing consumer use of soecial email accounts and falling CPM (cost per thousands). They also forecast that within that same timeframe, users will recieve more than 9000 email marketing messages per year, an average of nearly 25 per day. 

Growth areas cited in the press release:

• Retention email — email that recipients have blessed with their permission — will continue to replace paper communications and will make up the largest share of marketing messages. Retention emails will account for more than a one-third of all marketing messages in consumers’ inboxes by 2014, representing increased competition for marketers.
  
  
• While the bulk of the market will continue to deploy email marketing on a self-service basis, the growing complexity associated with data integration and new tactics to increase relevancy will drive healthy growth in use of email service providers.
  
  
• Spending on ad-sponsored or ad-supported newsletters will double over the next five years as traditional print publishers face falling circulation and ad revenue.

Still wondering when that tombstone for email marketing is going to be ready....