If you’re the type of person who can’t wait to open your E-mail and see the newly arrived daily deals in your inbox, well – you’re not alone. More than half of all Internet users in the U.S. find value in these E-mails, too – enough to make them subscribe to at least two daily or weekly shopping E-mails or newsletters.
According to a report published recently by market research firm eMarketer, a surprising 56 percent of adult Internet users in America subscribe to at least two “daily deal” E-mails or online newsletters. 61 percent of these subscribers, moreover, said that they find enough value in these E-mails to open and read all the messages.
And they don’t keep the E-mailed online deals, discounts, sales, and freebies for themselves, either. According to the report – which cited research from Yahoo! Mail and Ipsos MediaCT – 45 percent forwarded daily deal E-mails to friends and family at least once a week; close to 25 percent, meanwhile, passed these E-mails along every day.
eMarketer’s report comes at a time wherein the world’s biggest Internet companies like Google and Facebook are working to launch their own online deal-of-the-day products. Google, for example, has rolled out Google Checkout as well as the geo-located, made-for-mobile Google Latitude, while social networking site Facebook is slowly but surely launching their own product, Deals, in more and more countries.
This isn’t to mention other e-Commerce or social geo-location sites often said to have pioneered or popularized the daily deals space: Groupon, LivingSocial, Foursquare, Jasmere, and BuyWithMe, among many others. Last March, media and advertising research firm BIA/Kelsey reported that revenues of daily deal sites in the U.S. would reach as much as $1.25 billion this 2011.
The data from the report also reaffirms the continued viability of E-mail marketing, which, not too long ago, was thought of by a few industry observers as having fallen behind the surging popularity of social media, SEO, and local search marketing.