Study Identifies Most Effective, Fastest Growing Approaches to Building Email Lists

INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research released today finds a record number of marketers will turn to text messaging to grow their email subscriber lists this year, as consumers opt-in to increase their interactions with brands online and in stores.

Featured in the 2009 List Growth Whitepaper, the joint research conducted by Ball State University, Email Marketers Club and ExactTarget found the fastest growing and best way to grow email subscriber lists is to collect customers' email addresses during times of high engagement - at the point of sale, during online shopping and in-store via text messaging. These onsite list growth tactics rated as much as 60 percent higher than offline methods such as list rental and mass advertising.

"The best performing list growth tactics are built on gathering subscriber data rather than hunting for it," said Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget's director of research and strategy. "Whether you are a B-to-B or a B-to-C marketer, the best way to grow your subscriber list is to collect information during customer-initiated interactions."

The 30-page whitepaper provides marketers insight into the best and worst list growth tactics by exploring the past performance and future plans of 351 email marketers from around the globe. Overwhelmingly, Stewart said, marketers are finding proximity paramount to the success of list growth.

"There is no silver bullet, and no one tactic that will provide meaningful list growth," said Tamara Gielen, founder of The Email Marketers Club. "Successful list growth strategies employ multiple tactics to drive new subscriptions and compel subscribers to register because of the value of the communication itself."

Key findings of the research include:

• Onsite registration is the best performing list growth tactic, followed by capturing information through inbound call centers, at the point of sale and through social sharing.
• The worst performing list growth tactics include outbound call center attempts to collect email information, list rental, email append and offline advertising.
• B-to-B marketers are more successful in driving new subscriptions with incentivized registration, while B-to-C marketers find non-incentivized subscriptions most effective.
• Mobile capture, or allowing customers to subscribe to emails via mobile phones, will increase faster than any other list growth tactic in 2009 - more than 500 percent.
• Enabling subscribers to share email content with their social networks is expected to increase more than 348 percent in 2009.
• One-third of all email marketers rarely or never evaluate the performance of their list growth sources.

"Strong list growth strategies and effective one-to-one marketing programs are built on communicating value to the subscriber," said Tim Kopp, ExactTarget's chief marketing officer. "With the industry's most sophisticated one-to-one marketing platform, ExactTarget provides marketers the solution they need to power email, text messaging, voice messaging and landing pages all from a single application."

The complete 2009 List Growth Whitepaper is free and available for download online at http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exacttarget.com%2Flistgrowth&esheet=5970120&lan=en_US&anchor=www.exacttarget.com%2Flistgrowth&index=6.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget, Inc. is a leading provider of on-demand email marketing software solutions. The company's on-demand one-to-one marketing applications enable clients to send business-critical and event triggered communications to increase sales, optimize marketing investments and strengthen customer relationships. ExactTarget offers four editions of its on-demand software application along with integrated solutions such as ExactTarget for Salesforce.com AppExchange, ExactTarget for Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ExactTarget for Omniture Genesis. ExactTarget offers a range of optimization services including support, implementation and training, integration, deliverability, account management, design and deployment and strategic consulting. ExactTarget's software powers permission-based email communications for thousands of organizations including CareerBuilder.com, Expedia.com, Florida Power & Light, Gannett Co., Inc/USA TODAY, the Indianapolis Colts, The Home Depot, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Liberty Mutual Group, Papa John's and Wellpoint, Inc. For more information, please visit http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exacttarget.com%2F&esheet=5970120&lan=en_US&anchor=www.exacttarget.com&index=7 or call 1-866-EMAILET.

Contacts

ExactTarget, Inc.
Mitch Frazier, 317-275-5034
mfrazier@ExactTarget.com
OR
Dittoe PR for ExactTarget
Lauren Sanders, 317-202-2280 X 10
lauren@dittoepr.com