• by Masha Geller , June 15, 2001

Before I get into today's topic of email, a quick housekeeping item: As you know from an email we sent out this morning, MediaPost is conducting a very quick member survey to figure out how we can better serve you. In return, we're giving away a free DVD player and five Rich Media Planning Kits. So if you haven't done so already, please fill it out and enter to win (the whole thing should take about 3 minutes). Drawing is June 29 so please take the survey today.

That said, on to email.

In a new report released this week, Email Marketing: Relevancy, Retention, and ROI, the Aberdeen Group projects that the email marketing sector will exceed $1 billion by 2003. Technology suppliers of the "killer app" in the e- Marketing space will face accelerated consolidation in the next 12 to 18 months, Aberdeen says, and the explosive growth achieved during the past year will begin to fade.

"The market has finally displayed the growth that most leaders in the space have been accurately predicting for years," said Aberdeen Research Director Kent Allen, "the next stage of strong growth will see increasingly sophisticated online marketers looking for more complete offerings that allow them to take their email marketing initiatives to the next level—and that means increased sector consolidation."

Email marketing, as you know, is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of Marketing Automation (MA), one of the primary and fastest-growing segments of Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

So, to lead off the weekend on good quote: "Some of the companies that will be acquired in the coming months have actually been seeing business pick up nicely but need an infusion of funding," Allen said, adding that funding is "beginning to materialize from e-Marketing companies that have weathered the recent downturn and are now positioning themselves to be the marketing platform of choice when the dust settles." Oh, how I hope he's right!

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