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There are challenges when using e-mail for marketing – especially with the prevalence of social media and limited budgets – but it is far from dead, a new survey shows.

In fact, for some uses, e-mail marketing “works better than anything else,” according to a survey from Econsultancy, which was undertaken with the Email Experience Council of the Direct Marketing Association. The problems that arise from e-mail may relate to “tactics” used, the results show.

“Companies who are creating precise and unique e-mail campaigns continue to find the highest return,” Econsultancy said in a recent blog post. “For them, this is often the best way for communicating with customers and prospects over the long-term.”

“Those who still compensate for relevance with volume by ‘batching and blasting,’ have found the results have ebbed, deliverability has dropped, and list growth is slowing,” the company adds in the posting.

The survey also showed that 75 percent of those responding said that competition with social media is “somewhat” or “very” challenging. In addition, 69 percent of the respondents said that younger people are “abandoning e-mail as a primary channel.” And some 65 percent say it is a “challenge to get the budget that their e-mail programs deserve.”

The company concludes that online behavior is changing in “a profound way and on a massive scale” so mobile and social both have to considered. This is in light of less than one in four organizations responding having a plan to integrate e-mail and social, says the survey. Also, 35 percent of companies offered incentives for e-mail subscribers to join social programs from a company, the company adds.

On the bright side, 60 percent of clients who use companies for email are upping the use of e-mail.

In a related matter, TMCnet reported recently that the new StrongMail Message Studio is both an e-mail and social media marketing solution.

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