Promotional E-Mail Delivery To Become New Revenue Opportunity.

By 2005, about 5.6 bil e-mail messages expected to cross networks of Internet and e-mail service providers
From DIRECT MARKETING MAGAZINE, April 1st, 2001

ORIGINAL TITLE: Promotional E-Mail Delivery To Become New Revenue Opportunity. FULLTEXT: Promotional e-mail delivery will emerge over the next two years as a new revenue stream for large portals, ISPs and Web mail providers as they exert
greater control over e-mail passed between marketers and consumers, according
to a new Jupiter Research report. As e-mail marketing proliferates, Jupiter projects that ISPs and e-mail service providers will have approximately 5.6 billion e-mail messages cross their networks for each one million subscribers by 2005. Additionally, Jupiter predicts that advertisers will send 268 billion e-mail messages in 2005–22 times the number of promotional marketing e-mails sent in 2000. “Internet e-mail service providers control a crucial chokepoint between marketers and the millions of consumers they want to reach,” said Christopher Todd, analyst at Jupiter Research. “As they restrict access to a user’s primary inbox and monetize the delivery of promotional e-mail, advertisers looking to reach consumers online must prepare to pay a premium. Although shortsighted marketers will view this as extortion, savvy marketers will recognize it as an opportunity to distance their messages from existing inbox clutter. Large portals, ISPs and other organizations that have a sizable
e-mail subscriber base will see it as a significant opportunity to generate
additional revenue.” Jupiter predicts that the current free delivery of promotional e-mail will evolve into a tier-based scenario that forces marketers to refine and focus their e-mail strategies. Jupiter expects these tiers to develop as follows: * Top Tier — profiled delivery into the primary inbox based on individual usage behavior (i.e. time of day); * Second Tier — enhanced delivery into the primary inbox with enhanced fonts and icons to break through clutter; * Third Tier — standard delivery direct to the primary inbox for marketers that compensate for access and for all personal or one-to-one e-mail messages; and * Bottom Tier — bulk delivery into a promotional “bulk” e-mail inbox (no fee). “On the consumer side, this may be end the of SPAM as we know it,” Todd notes. “Consumer email users will adopt and accept new delivery tiers as they realize increased efficacy within their primary inbox.” ISSN 0012-3188; Issue 12; Volume 63; Page 19 Copyright 2001 Hoke Communications, Inc.