Nearly nine of 10 email marketers (87 percent) say relevant content within the email message is "very important," followed by eight of 10 (81 percent) who rated email deliverability as very important, writes MarketingCharts, citing a study by eROI, which surveyed email marketers on their perceptions of and experiences with email.

The study sought marketers' opinions on what they deem important when creating an email, how they design emails, and how they test deliverability and rendering.

Notably, only 68 percent of respondents said coding emails to work across various clients was very important, despite recent concerns with image blocking and the lack of support for style sheets in Outlook 2007.

"Many marketers are still behind the times, with only about two-thirds of marketers coding emails properly to work on all major email clients," Jeff Mills, author of the study, told MarketingCharts. By taking relatively simple steps, "like using ALT tags so readers can still see what the offer is about even when images are blocked," Mills said marketers can improve results.

For example, though "age-old email marketing wisdom" says an above-the-fold call to action increases response, only 59 percent of respondents consider it very important, according to the study.

"There is a huge opportunity for marketers to button up their email programs and know that the little things really do matter," Mills said.

Moreover, though email marketers claim relevant content is very important, over half of them say they send broad-based messages to their entire list and do not direct email to specific segments. Only 55 percent said segmentation was very important.

MarketingCharts has more here.