• by Masha Geller , April 2, 2001

A press release crossed the wire this morning, titled, "Traditional Magazine Publishers See E-Newsletters as Important Supplement to Print Publications."

Well, it's about time!

The Clientize-Folio: E-Newsletter Survey, prepared by Clientize, an Internet marketing company serving the publishing industry, found a bright spot in a generally weak publishing market. According to the findings, almost half - 41.4% - of the top consumer and business-to-business magazines as identified by Folio: distribute free eNewsletters.

Not surprisingly, these researchers found that ad click- through rates for eNewsletters are much higher than banner ads. Click-through rates on advertisements of 5% or more were reported by 34% of respondents, with 9% reporting ad click- through rates of 20% or more. Just under half of the respondents (47%) report ad click-through rates of 5% or less.

In another key finding, driving traffic to the website is identified as the leading E-Newsletter business purpose, followed closely by generating ancillary revenue. E- Newsletter publishers are less satisfied with the market results to date in actually generating revenue.

In its article, "The E-Newsletter Explosion," based on the data, Folio: concluded, "...there is at least one online model that has publishers smiling: e-newsletters."

Once again, it's about time the publishing industry caught up with us advertisers in realizing that eNesletters are not just a fad.