I stumbled upon a recent article about maximizing online marketing ROI. It referenced a report that states, “E-mail marketing was cited by 28% of the marketing professionals surveyed as delivering the strongest ROI for customer acquisition online.” And that Email was “voted” #1 for customer retention.
I would hope that this information doesn’t mislead marketers and web managers to invest more into Email marketing without considering the other aspects required to properly market a site or products online. To truly maximize your marketing dollars requires you to be diligent in employing as many tactics possible, very well. That includes SEO, direct mail, online advertising, content creation, blogging, and email to name a few.
Email does have it’s place in any marketing plan. It is cost effective and very easy to deploy when compared to direct marketing. According to Direct Marketing Association retailers spent in 2008 more than $184B in advertising. Less than a half percent of that was spent on Email. However, the ROI on Email was 46.57% compared to 11.74% from direct marketing.
But Email doesn’t generate to same results for everyone. Email is a very competitive space when you consider the volume of emails delivered to the average user. I’ve experienced CTR (click-through rates) of 1% – 20%. With most research will show you that 1%-5% is a respectable target. And of that you may get up to 10% conversion (consumers fulfilling on the call-to-action). So when all is said and done that may not total a lot. But the cost of deploying an Email campaign makes that additional revenue worthwhile.
Why is Email a great retention tool? First, consumers love to subscribe to emails to find out their value later and reluctant to unsubscribe just in case they miss something they really want. More often than not these emails are left unread, filed away or deleted. But when something captures the readers attention that becomes a qualified opportunity. Also Emails have a great viral nature to them since they are so easy to forward to a friend or colleague.
