The first marketing round for the Enlightened Salesperson was just concluded and we're just moving in to phase two.

Here are some results from round one:

1. Conversion rate from e-mail recipients to customers: 20,87%

2. Conversion rate from web site (sales letter) visitors to customers: 47,86%

This, at least to me, proves that e-mail marketing is still working, although it is of course quite evident that there are huge probles with e-mail deliverability ... and credibility.

If you remember, my friend John Botscharow and I exchanged quite some views regarding this (check out our online debate here) and it seems we never seem to agree ... besides agreeing on not agreeing:)

John is probably the greatest anti-e-mail evangelist alive today ...

Still, I do admit that e-mail might be running one of its final laps, but as our results above prove it, it's still very far from dead.

But I'm sure John would be very happy to hear that among others Seth Godin as well is having his doubts about the survival of e-mail.

Or as he puts it:

"RSS can't come a moment too soon. It's become more and more clear to me over the last five years that email is simultaneously too powerful (people who read it jump) and too weak (spammers have trained us not to read it) to last for much longer."

I'm not quite sure I agree, considering that the e-mail landscape might very soon change. There are important solutions being prepared and I'm sure that some of them will work.

Naturally, e-mail will have to (and it will) change, but in my opinion it will survive.

What do you think?