Organisations trying to focus on effective marketing during the economic downturn believe email is a vital weapon, according to research published by Econsultancy and Adestra.

The Email Census 2009 discovered that 78 per cent of company respondents now rate email as excellent or good for return on investment – higher than for any other digital marketing channel and up 12 per cent since a year ago.

However, the research also found that significant numbers of marketers are still failing to adopt a range of best practices relating to email and many are not mastering deliverability – less than a fifth of companies know what percentage of their email budget is lost through non-delivery.

Econsultancy research director, Linus Gregoriadis, said: “While some companies are mastering various tactical elements of email best practice, such as segmentation, deliverability, list cleansing and triggered emails, it is clear there are still problems for many organisations at a strategic level. A well thought-out email strategy has to be the starting point for email marketing success.”

Henry Hyder-Smith, managing director at email service provider, Adestra, added: “With belts tightening throughout this recession, it is very concerning that 42 per cent of marketers do not know their ROI from email marketing. It is the most cost effective medium, accounting for just 14 per cent of online marketing budgets. With many marketers recording ROIs of over six times, budget constraints should not be seen as a barrier.”

Read the report here: http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-census  or here: http://www.adestra.com/census?=AM00169