Firm size (# of employees) | Number of Firms (000s) | Estimated Email Marketing Penetration |
Very Small (0 to 19 employees) | 24,780 | 4% |
Small (20 to 99) | 526 | 20% |
Mid-sized (100 to 499) | 87 | 35% |
Large (500 or more) | 17 | 75% |
Total | 25,410 | 4.5% |
Although email marketing may seem fairly ubiquitous today, the industry as a whole is in its early stages. Penetration among large firms (with 500 or more employees) is estimated at 75%, but very small firms (those with less than 20 employees) have barely begun to explore email marketing.
In his book, Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey A. Moore describes a technology lifecycle in which the adoption or acceptance of a new product or innovation proceeds according to the demographic and psychological characteristics of defined adopter groups. The model indicates that the first group of people to use a new product is called "innovators," followed by "early adopters." Next come the early and late majority, and the last group to eventually adopt a product are called "laggards". If this model is applied to the hosted email marketing sector, it becomes obvious that the industry has a much room for growth. The figure below shows that email marketing among small and mid-sized businesses has only reached the ‘early adopters’ stage. This explains the large and growing number of email marketing vendors seeking to gain a foothold into this expanding market.
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| Email Marketing Adoption for Small & Mid-sized Businesses |
