Morgan Stewart, director, research & strategy at ExactTarget, wrote the following in an email with a preview of findings at the bottom:

Marketers were asked to rate 18 list-growth tactics based on three criteria: quantity of names acquired, the quality of the names acquired and overall return on investment (ROI). The study also compares tactics used in 2008 (with) the tactics marketers plan to use in the year ahead.

Tactics evaluated in the study include:

· Call center - inbound

· Call center - outbound

· Co-registration

· Email append to offline addresses

· Email forward to a friend

· In-store - point of sale

· In-store - displays

· List rental

· Mobile capture

· Offline - mass advertising

· Offline - print advertising

· Paid Search

· Share with your network/Social Forward

· Site registration - incented

· Site registration - non-incented

· Site registration - Purchase process

· Sweepstakes/Contests

· Trade show events

Key takeaways from this study include:

· On-site registration tactics are the clear winners, each having consistently high scores across all three criteria. Offline tactics consistently ranked low primarily due to low quantities of new subscribers and high costs.

· Social forwarding and mobile capture will be the most adopted new tactics in the year ahead.

· Interestingly, email append will nearly double this year, even after 1/3 of the marketers who used it last year remove the tactic from their 2009 plan.

This news story is important. I recommend that everyone read it.