Highest ROI = 1% of Your Marketing Budget?

A great article on iMediaConnection points out email will surge well ahead of projections in the next two years, perhaps tripling or more in terms of transactions volume.

This is astounding and confusing and alarming...
"Consumers spend approximately 34 percent of their media time online, but only six percent of advertising and direct marketing spending is currently online. Of that six percent, only about 20 percent of the online budget is spent on email, meaning that only about one percent of marketing budgets are currently dedicated to email."

I truly think this is partly based on email's less than sexy reputation and interactive firm's steering of client budgets to more glamorous line items (and things they excel in) like flash, web design, banner ads and media buys. Oh, wait they generally make more money on those programs and have the in-house expertise.

A change is gonna come, soon enough.