SKYLIST Survey Reveals Marketers' Demands for Better Usability of Email Marketing Solutions and Integration with CRM and Emerging Communication Channels

AUSTIN TX and SAN FRANCISCO - April 26, 2006 - SKYLIST, an email service provider and deliverability leader, announced the results from an informal survey of marketing professionals. The recent survey polled users of a variety of email marketing solutions and uncovered several trends and opinions on email's place in the overall marketing mix.

When asked to rank the usability of their current email marketing solution, only 5 percent are completely satisfied with overall ease-of-use. Yet, 76 percent declared usability a top feature when selecting an email marketing automation solution which shows a tremendous opportunity for email service providers to capture market share. According to the recent Jupiter Research Email Marketing Buyer's Guide, marketers are focused more on the usability of their applications than any other performance rating factor.

The survey uncovered another major trend involving the growing demand for easy integration of email into other systems and emerging online channels. 61 percent currently integrate email into their CRM solution or would be interested in integrating in the future; 39 percent stated that they currently incorporate blogs and 34 percent use RSS in their marketing strategy.

"As the first ESP to integrate DomainKeys and Sender ID, SKYLIST has always been ahead of the curve on emerging trends and technologies," said Joshua Baer, founder & CEO of SKYLIST. "We always prioritize our StormPost development based on customer and market feedback and StormPost 2.5 is no exception."

Marketers Need to Differentiate Their Messages from Spam and Achieve Higher Deliverability Rates. The Answer: Authentication!
Based on the survey results, there can be no question that email is still "the killer app" as 82 percent of respondents stated that it is a critical component of their overall marketing strategy. However, concerns about email still remain, as 55 percent of respondents say that spam issues have made them more hesitant to use email and 47 percent cite deliverability as an email marketing challenge. These statistics underscore the importance of authentication of email as a way to significantly boost deliverability rates for legitimate email.

As shown by the strong attendance at this year's Email Authentication Summit II, the industry has heartily embraced authentication as one of the crucial weapons against spam. According to a report issued at the Summit by the Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC), AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo!, whose combined email accounts receive over 50 percent of the commercial email in the country, support at least one of the current authentication standards. Soon it will be imperative for all email to be authenticated, and any email that is not will simply not be delivered. Marketers must choose an email service provider that supports all authentication standards to ensure their messages get through.

About SKYLIST:
Founded in 1996, SKYLIST is a top-ranked email service provider and email deliverability leader. SKYLIST StormPost, available in license and hosted-form, gives companies that rely on email marketing a distinct competitive advantage by enabling them to efficiently deliver highly targeted, optimized, and measurable opt-in email campaigns. For more information, please visit www.skylist.com.

Media Contact:
Morgan McDowell
blast! PR for SKYLIST
919-833-9975
morgan@blastpr.com