SME need Consultancies# with the breadth of expertise and experience to help integrate their Online Marketing with their Business Strategy and Offline Plans

Companies which choose to launch email marketing campaigns should use social media to complement it, not replace it.

This is the latest advice from Adestra, which found that 37 per cent of firms are now adopting email marketing to encourage the sharing of news and views on networking sites.

Furthermore, a third (31 per cent) are planning to adopt this strategy in the near future.

Henry Hyder-Smith, managing director at Adestra, commented: "We are delighted to see that email is far from dying in the midst of the social media revolution.

"And instead of cannibalisation, we are witnessing a solid partnership evolving between the two; email and social media working in harmony to fuel one."

Of the firms questioned, 21 per cent noted they were using email marketing as a means of promoting customer reviews and 28 per cent are adopting video content in the messages they sent out.

The merits of email marketing are that it allows for a strong return on investment and that reply rates are generally good, the respondents stated.

Nearly half (47 per cent) of respondents to a recent Silverpop survey said their email budgets would stay the same throughout 2010. 

# Such companies are known as digital business Consultancies - of which Living Streams is one.