by Regan Maloney, CraikJones

In order to look at the benefits of email marketing let’s first compare it to other marketing channels to have something to measure it against. Below is a chart illustrating comparative costs and responses for all different forms of direct communications:



Email can of course be used for a whole lot more than just direct marketing, such as delivering servicing messages and helping to build relationships and two-way dialogue with your consumers.

The above table was compiled by Dave Chaffey - an expert in digital media - and published in his book “Total E-mail Marketing 2e”. It shows a compilation of cost effectiveness for different media based on the example of acquiring a customer for a new credit card which might have an allowable cost per acquisition of £40 to £50. The compilation of offline media is from Tapp (2005) with added estimates based on Dave Chaffey’s experience of digital media.

It’s also worth considering the power of combining two channels for an increased response. For instance, you can send a customer an email telling them to look out for a postal communication that’s on its way to them. The impact of this has been tested by companies across different sectors and has shown that an increased response rate can be achieved with such an approach, as can a follow-up reminder email once a piece of communication has been sent out.

Top 10 benefits of using email marketing against other traditional channels:

1. Reach: email is constantly rated as the most used application on the internet

2. Cost effectiveness (no print/postage charges): can be deployed for pennies rather than pounds!

3. Speed: quick to create and send.

4. Versatility: can be used to build and maintain relationships, deliver servicing messages, information rich content, encourage word-of-mouth, awareness and drive engagement.

5. High response rates (on average 5-15% for in-house lists): can be higher than standard online advertising and traditional direct mail.

6. Immediacy: deployed at the click of a button and results can be viewed in real time (the majority of responses will occur within 3 days traditional direct marketing can take weeks).

7. Targeting and segmentation: is easy to do in a cost efficient way.

8. Fully trackable: if you find after the first few hours of deploying to your sample test group that you’re not obtaining the required results, you can refine and re-track.

9. Potential to make money: if you have a large database and have obtained data opt-in for third parties to utilise it, then you could make money through advertising within your emails or by selling your data.

10. Relationship management: due to the speed with which messages can be deployed, you can respond to your customers and service them better. And provide tailor-made, personalised communications.

Issues to be aware of

Spam filters and email providers (whether web-based or computer programmes) are making it increasingly difficult to push the creative boundaries, and so some innovative thinking needs to be done to ensure that your message is received as intended.

Furthermore, it’s not always for everyone - an article in Precision Marketing, Nov 2007 referred to ‘Silver Surfers’ and the fact that almost 80% of the over 50’s do not respond to email marketing communications (stats from a Precision Marketing survey).

Is it of benefit to you?

All of the above, both benefits and negatives, should be considered in the relevance and objectives of your campaign. For example, if you only have 100 email addresses on your database, obviously email is not necessarily going to be the most cost effective communication channel for you.

Likewise, if your audience is utilising other methods for communication, aside from email, then you then you need to consider how best to communicate with them. For example, 14-19 year olds use mobile or instant messenger more than email (90% of their communications are via instant messenger vs 10% email).

Summary

Put your consumer first and ensure that email is the best way to contact them politely. Then look to your database to ensure that you have a high enough volume of data to qualify as cost-effective. Finally ensure that your content is relevant, engaging and has a strong call to action. Test this, tweak it, ask for feedback and you will reap the rewards.