Ever refrain from email campaigns because you didn’t want to bother your target audience? If so, research suggests you should reconsider your attitude toward email marketing.

Survey results compiled by marketing services firm Epsilon revealed that 40 percent of respondents said receiving a company’s email increases the likelihood of future purchases from that company. The study focused solely on permission-based email marketing in which a customer or prospect signs up to receive communication from a given company.

Such findings add another feather to email marketing’s well-decorated cap. Prior research has shown that email marketing, when executed correctly, increases brand awareness among customers who grow accustomed to seeing a company’s name and likeness in their inboxes. Over time and with consistent email sends, the company’s email communication triggers brand recognition among recipients.

Quality email marketing also has proven to build positive relationships with a company’s email recipients. How? Such communication demonstrates a company’s commitment to staying in touch with its customers and delivering on its promise to send email for which the consumer signed up.

Now, according to the Epsilon study, email marketing does more than generate brand awareness and foster good customer relationships: It actually incites favorable customer purchase behavior. Brand recognition plus relationship building plus purchase intent? Sounds like a winning formula for getting and keeping paying customers!