• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 8, 2010

Family and friends email communications represents anywhere from 35% to 37% of all emails, with permission emails from companies at around 30% -- this, according research presented by Rich Fleck, vp of of interactive strategic services for Merkle, during the Email Insider Summit.

"Interestingly, family and friends is dropping; permission email is going up," says Fleck.

Right now email engagement is steady -- with 86% checking their email account one or more times a day; around 40% check at least four times a day.

Fleck says its good news that there are more companies being allowed to send emails to individual consumer -- an average of 11.3 companies in 2010 up from 10.3 companies the year before.

Research also shows that 74% say e-mail is the preferred form of communication from companies; direct mail is at 16%; phone, 4%; social, 2%; and text message, 1%.