Email and Search Marketing Top List of Effective Marketing Channels

According to Datran Media’s "4th Annual Marketing & Media Survey," which surveyed more than 5,000 marketers online, 39.4% chose e-mail as their strongest marketing channel for 2009, followed by 23.6% who chose search marketing.

Those selections far outpaced all other channels, including display advertising (7.1%), direct mail (6.3%), and social media (4.7%).

When asked if social media marketing will generate quantifiable results for them this year, 50.4% said yes, while 49.6% either were unsure or said no. So, it seems that the jury is still out on social media...

That said, savvy marketers will continue to pay attention to social media, if only for raising brand awareness. With the highly-granular targeting capabilities provided by, for example, Facebook Ads, it is extremely easy to conduct tests of specific offers and determine their effectiveness in near real time. I'll be talking more about this in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!