• by Ray Schultz , June 12, 2018

Email marketing is thriving, with 69% of all firms investing in it, according to a new study by Manifest. And they are active — 41% send emails weekly and 32% send them daily.

Larger firms are more frequent mailers — 52% of those with 500 employees or more send daily, compared with 21% of smaller firms. But less may be more for some firms. 

For example, online ticketing company RateYourSeats.com sends a marketing email every two weeks. 

“We do not want to overwhelm our customers with emails, so we believe this is an ideal time frame,” states Angie Liti, digital marketing specialist for RateYourSeats.com, according to the study. “It is just enough time to keep our company fresh in our customers’ minds.” 

However, the website Houston On The Cheap sends two emails per week, with one at the beginning and one at the end.

“It fits my audience’s needs,” states Managing Editor Eric Anthony. “They want to know what’s going on for the week, and come the weekend, they want to know what free or cheap events are going on.”

Product/company updates and promotional messages are the most widely used types of emails, used by 69% apiece. Next are email newsletters, sent by 68% and event invitations, posted by 65%.

The study does not appear to address transactional emails. 

The Manifest surveyed 501 digital marketers in the U.S., focusing on firms with more than 100 employees.

Their goals are as follows: 

• Grow/retain customer base — 29%
• Increase engagement — 22%
• Sell product/service — 17%
• Build brand awareness-13%
• Deliver relevant content — 11%
• Drive more website traffic — 10%

However, larger firms are less like to use email to grow their customer base — 27% do so, compared to 34% of smaller firms. But they are more likely to deploy it to increase engagement — at 25% compared to 13%.

In addition, 17% of smaller firms rely on email to build brand awareness, compared to 11% of larger companies. 

"Email is far from dead," states Ada Chen Rekhi, founder and COO of Notejoy, provider of a collaborative notes app for the workplace, according to the study. "It's one of the highest-performing channels because someone has already given you permission to be in their inbox."