Email marketing is big, really big

Email marketing is big, really big

Email marketing is big, really big

Comparisons can be a way of explaining size: dinosaurs as big as two double-decker buses shows how terrifying they were, even if not red. But when things become really big, such as say the distance from the Earth to the Moon, suggesting it is half a million times as far as the pub is not really helpful. So just how big is email marketing in this country?

It is twice the size of the UK hotel and restaurant market and nearly as big as the financial services sector.

Google commissioned a report, The Connected Kingdom, into the current state of the internet in the UK. The results are, even to those of us working in the industry, quite startling. A headline grabbing one was that it contributed some 100bn, that's 7.2%, to gross domestic product in 2009 and another suggested the UK is a global leader in e-commerce.

The UK has the highest online per capita spending in the world. All the more remarkable for a nation of shopkeepers when retail outlets are just around the corner. The UK online advertising market is second only to the US. Now do you see how important your email lists are?

In many ways it is wrong to think of the internet as a separate industry as it has penetrated every form of business. Even the greenest blacksmith has a website. At least those who are not struggling financially have. Email marketing has what is fast becoming an essential role in sales and services. Even so, the internet as a whole is the fifth largest industry in the UK, remarkably just behind financial services. Bigger than lots of double decker busses.

But for those engaged in email marketing one range of figures was particularly interesting. About 62% of adults in the UK, that is 31m, have so far this year bought products online. In 2009 the total spend on goods or travel was around 50bn, roughly 1,600 each. Sort of brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it.

The fact that email marketing in particular and the internet in general are doing so well should not come as a surprise to those who have been engaged in email marketing in recent years. The actual figures are little short of fabulous. The report deserves close reading as you might miss little points, such as the fact that the 1000bn does not include B2B, itself worth some 360bn.

The report states that the internet, and therefore email marketing, is set to grow in the short term and that by 2015 could account of between 10 and 13 per cent of GDP. This is generated by broadband penetration, the government's target of making it available to everyone by 2015 being more or less achievable.

Billions, millions, percentages and lots of zeros are all very well, and very comforting. But rather than comparing the industry to all sorts of objects the essence of the report, the first of its kind, is that the opportunities are out there and will increase substantially over the next few years. Investment now in email lists and infrastructure will be repaid.

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