In the In-Box, More Retail Promotions

Large retailers sent 15 percent more promotional e-mails per subscriber in 2010 than in 2009, according to Responsys, an online marketing firm. Responsys arrived at the figure by setting up dummy accounts to track the e-mail marketing practices of some 100 of the largest online retailers.
Retailers have been stepping up their reliance on promotional e-mail for years; the volume of e-mail sent per subscriber has increased by double-digit percentages every year since 2006, when Chad White, the research director at Responsys, began collecting data.
Mr. White said that some of this increase was offset by a decline in the amount of catalogs and direct mail sent by marketers. But he added that this e-mail blizzard, while profitable in the short term, could be overkill. “Subscribers might either opt out or they’ll tune out, or, worst of all, they might file a spam complaint,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/business/media/10drill.html?_r=1&nl=business&emc=ata3&pagewanted=print