The Connected Kingdom is a report commissioned by Google into the internet in the UK. It makes fascinating reading, even for those of us not impressed by figures. It shows that email marketing in general and the internet specifically is booming in this country. Not only that, it encourages a great deal of confidence for its future as well.

The headline figure of £100bn is quoted as the worth of the internet to the economy, more than 7% of national income. This figure is said to be conservative. It suggests it is worth more than twice as much as the UK hotel and restaurant market. And email marketing is a sizeable chunk of that.

This figure excludes B2B e-commerce, worth a further £360bn as well as indirect benefits of the internet.

Biggest is a word used frequently in the report. When it comes to e-commerce, by the amount spent online per capita the UK is biggest. Second biggest might not be quite as good but the UK falls behind only the US when it comes to the size of the online advertising market, running at £3.5bn a year.

But history is all very well. You will want to know what the future is looking like for email marketing. After all, you will have invested time and money into securing your email lists and you will want to know if this outlay has been worthwhile.

First the good news: there is no bad news.

The report, quite reasonably, restricts its predictions to 2015 but even so the forecast is positive for those engaged in email marketing.

An annual growth rate for the next five years of 10% per annum is better than any other industry can boast. The prediction is that by 2015 it will make up 13% of GDP.

The message is clear. Now is not the time to cut back on your investment in email marketing. Build up and protect your email lists.

Cut backs are everywhere but with £2.80 of overseas sales for every £1 imported, the Government’s investment in UK broadband spread is likely to continue.