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• UK businesses are increasing their use of email to communicate with both customers and prospects.

London, 14th May 2008: According to email marketing provider Newsweaver, email is now an essential part of the B2B marketing mix. Based on a recent survey conducted by B2B Marketing Magazine and sponsored by Newsweaver, 78% of UK B2B marketers surveyed consider email to be either a "critical" or "very important" part of their marketing mix.

Of the 175 B2B marketers who completed the survey, 68% believe that the versatility of email is on the increase and are integrating email more into the overall marketing mix - over 40% of respondents said that they are now using email as part of integrated marketing campaigns. B2B marketers also see themselves as sophisticated users of email marketing with 67% stating that their understanding of email and how to leverage its effectiveness is either "excellent" or "good".

Use of email on the up
Email is clearly an important B2B marketing tool. 71% of B2B marketers said that the number of email campaigns they send out has increased and 69% said that the volume of email they send has also increased in the last year. "This year's survey shows that marketers are growing in confidence in their use of this channel. But as they increase the number of campaigns and the volume of email they are sending, companies must strike the right balance and strive to send only timely, targeted and relevant emails". said Denise Cox, Newsletter Specialist Newsweaver.

In terms of who B2B marketers are communicating with, email is being used both for prospecting and customer retention. 90% of B2B marketers use email to communicate with prospects and 83% to communicate with customers. The survey showed that "prospecting" and "generating new sales leads" are the most popular uses of email followed by using email for "maintaining customer relationships". "Although marketers recognise that email is an effective retention tool, they are relying more on email for prospecting or generating new sales leads," commented Joel Harrison, Editor B2B Marketing Magazine.

Room for improvement
The results of the survey also highlighted that most B2B marketers are only using the minimum personalisation in their emails. 37% of respondents only ever use name when personalising their email marketing and 22% of respondents do not use any personalisation at all. Only 22% use more than just name to personalise their email and as few as 16% are using dynamic content. "Segmentation and personalisation allows for more targeted and relevant emails, which are key for B2B marketers to engage readers and achieve the best ROI possible from their email marketing," added Cox. "There is clearly a lot of room for improvement through to get the maximum benefits from email marketing."

According to the survey, the biggest challenges facing email marketing are "Inbox overload" and "Spam undermining the medium". Cox advises, " A wanted and valued email is always welcome in the inbox. This is why it is so important for marketers to create campaigns and relationship emails that are coming at the right frequency, with the right information and to the right individuals. These types of emails will always cut through the clutter and get opened".

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