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It
was expected. It had to happen.
A recent GartnerG2 report confirms that e-mail marketing is now
accepted as cost-effective way to acquire and retain customers.
Everybody knows that the first (& most) successful benefit of the
internet was and is email. (This despite the fact that the internet
was initially promoted as an information tool.) And everybody has
access to 1 or more email ids. So this should really come as no
surprise! Let's take a look at the 3 parameters involved in Direct
Mail campaigns
1.
Cost & lead time of replicating content & delivery : Conventional
direct mailing needs physical copies of content. While email requires
electronic copies. Considering that in both cases, the design is
executed electronically, the savings in costs & lead times is overwhelmingly
in favour of email. Gartner estimates a multiplying factor of 100
in costs. And a multiplying factor of 5 in lead times. That
is, conventional mail costs 100 times more than email. And takes
5 times the time to reach.
2.
Lead time & convenience of response : While conventional
direct mail campaigns require the target to make a special effort
to reply by (snail) mail or respond by telephone/fax, as far as
email is concerned, response requires just one mouse click.
3.
Response : There is no significant difference in average
response rate between email campaigns and direct mail campaigns.
(Both hover at around 1%.) But the rate of response for permission-based
emails and opt-in marketing strategies is much higher at 7%. No
wonder, more & more direct email campaigns are expected to be permission-based
in future.
The entire cycle time of the e-mail campaign from creation to
delivery and response is one-tenth the time of traditional direct
mail. And all this at a hundredth of the cost.
The share of email marketing is already estimated to have crossed
40% in 2002. And revenue from email advertising is projected as
$ 1.25 billion.
And as e-mail usage continues to increase, consumers will increasingly
expect & accept advertisements through their computer.
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