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 Ireland Email Database 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 buses.
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
