Major consumer brands have upped their weekly email volumes by 75% since August according to new figures from the Alchemy Worx Consumer Mailbox (AWCM) index.
The steep four month increase covered all mainstream consumer sectors with volumes jumping by 25% in November alone as brands continued to ramp up for the Christmas period.
The index also reveals that email marketers seem very reluctant to send campaigns on Saturdays and Sundays - only 9% of emails are sent at the weekend.
Monday Thursday and Friday are the most popular days to send email each accounting for between 23% and 25% of the overall volume. The weekday least favoured by email marketers is Tuesday with only 12% of the overall volume.
Dela Quist, CEO of Alchemy Worx commented: “As a result of the credit crunch, retailers are under a lot of pressure to reduce their margins so it is not really surprising that they are trying to reduce their costs by switching to email – which is by far the cheapest way of getting offers out to their customers.
This huge increase in email volume is not necessarily a bad thing for consumers; most people will tolerate a full inbox if the emails they get deliver real value. Put it this way would you as a consumer prefer more emails and lower prices or higher prices and a clever ad campaign in the press or on TV?”
The AWCM index is complied jointly by Alchemy Worx and the independent Research agency BML
Copies of AWCM free report are available to download at www.alchemyworx.com