It is a proven fact that only about 36% of all emails get through to your clients.

I know It is hard to believe, and I couldn't believe it myself, but that is the average right now. This statistic is taken from a recent report by Marketing Sherpa.

If you use a double opt-in list, which means that someone signed up to receive email from you and then you send them a confirmation email asking if they are sure that they want to receive email from you - you are still getting only 36% through the system to the point where somone actually reads your message.

Due to Spam Filters and just the popularity of email as a preferred means to communicate, people just aren't reading all of their email. People are overwhelmed, so they just delete, delete, delete.

The answer to this is direct mail - especially postcards. Postcards get seen by almost all of the people who pickup their mail. Even if it is only for a split second, they see your face and name.

So if you use email to communicate, make sure that you follow-up email with some other form of communication.

Jeff Charlton