Email is an "increasingly successful" medium within direct marketing strategies, say industry experts.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) has pinpointed email as a "much cheaper" medium for this form of marketing and is considered "less intrusive" than telephone marketing.

David Thorp, director of research and information at the CIM, said: "The traditional mail sent through the post is still a tried and tested format, although its impact is declining.

"Email is increasingly successful, particularly if you emphasise the 'opt-in' nature of your communications."

He also stressed that email marketing has more chance of being read than postal marketing, which often ends up straight in the bin.

In 2005, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) published a paper on the power of email marketing, which claimed that the results from the second quarter of 2005 showed that email continues to be a "strong marketing channel".

Research by the DMA at the beginning of 2007 found that mobile marketing now accounts for 0.7 per cent of the total £16.4 billion marketing industry's expenditure.

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