• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 10, 2022

Email will be the most durable channel in the event of a recession. That’s the view of professionals worldwide, according to Email in an evolving economy, a study released Thursday by Mailjet by Sinch. 

If forced to make cuts in their marketing budgets, 41.60% of marketers would start with traditional advertising, 26.10% with digital advertising and 22.80% with event marketing.  But only 13.10% will cut email.

That said, budgets are likely to hold steady over the next 12 months, as 39.90% will keep them at their current levels. But only 22.60% are increasing their marketing spend, and 12.40% are likely to make cuts, as 12.20% already have. Another 12.90% don’t know. 

The U.S. is roughly in sync with the global average: 22.10% are increasing their budgets, 41.90% will maintain them and 11.80% will make reductions. 

But companies everywhere are worried, listing these top three threats to their firms over the next 12 months:

• Inflation — 55.90%
• Reduced consumer spending — 40.60%
• Energy and transportation costs — 29.30%

Fears about consumer spending are highest in Spain: 65.60% cite it. The U.S. is just slightly above average, at 41.10%. 

And if the worst happens and a recession comes? The respondents believe email marketing will provide the best ROI, although not by much:

• Email marketing — 41.80%
• Digital advertising — 41%
• Social media — 37.40%

Marketers have a different view. They see the best ROI as coming from:

• Email marketing — 59.90%
• Digital advertising — 45.60%
• Social media — 38.70%

Operations people who deal with the nuts and bolts are less sanguine than marketers about email: 46.10% see it as providing the strongest ROI. 

How are companies doing? They describe their digital communication strategy as:

• Very successful — 14.80%
• Somewhat successful — 34%
• Average — 38.20%
• Somewhat unsuccessful — 10.10%
• Very unsuccessful — 2.90%

Of the very successful firms, 30.30% are increasing their marketing budgets.

Mailjet by Sinch surveyed 1,300 marketers, IT professionals, app developers, support specialists and others involved in sending email.