• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, December 11, 2007

Judging from attendee and speaker responses to a quick poll conducted by "Setting the Stage for Innovation" panel moderator Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path, 2008 looks promising for email marketing.

Attendees' show of hands clearly confirmed that the great majority will have larger budgets and larger staffs in the coming year. Panelists Jack Hogan of LifeScript, David Daniels of JupiterResearch and Hal Brierley of eMiles also reported increased budgets and staffs for the coming year. (Cisco's budget will be flat, but its team will be bigger, according to Email Program Manager Brian Ellefritz.)

As for progress achieved this year, attendees and three of the panelists reported that email was managed on a more global basis during '07 (Hogan said that this is part of LifeScript's plan for '08). And there was unanimous agreement that companies did a better job of integrating email and online marketing this past year.

Did management care more or less about email marketing in 2007? Responses to that one were less clear-cut. Most attendees and two panelists said their bosses cared more. Hogan reported that the level of management interest was about the same.

Ellefritz, however, noted that while management expects solid email performance and very much wants to continue to make email marketing more relevant and effective as a customer relationship-builder, email may be somewhat less top-of-mind for management these days, for a couple of reasons. One is that RSS and other new channels are absorbing more focus; the other is that execs' personal experience with email can sometimes "weigh against it."

Did ROI increase between '06 and '07? Most marketers also couldn't provide a cut-and-dried answer to this one, in part because companies' ROI definitions and metrics continue to evolve, making year-to-year comparisons tough. "Not sure" was the dominant answer among attendees and panelists alike.