We’ve blogged in the past about rising postal costs driving direct marketers to consider email marketing. Now a new study from the Direct Marketing Association puts forward yet another reason to consider email: It delivers the best ROI.
The DMA study found that email returned $57 for every dollar spent in 2005, far outstripping the return per dollar from print catalogs ($7) and non-email Internet marketing ($22).
Ironically, email campaigns make up only a tiny part of the average marketing budget. The $300 million US companies spent on email marketing in 2005 is dwarfed by the nearly $19 billion lavished on traditional print catalogs.
Of course, email is credited with only $16.5 billion of the total $1.806 trillion in U.S. direct marketing-driven sales in 2005. Bot the compound annual growth rate for email driven sales between 2006 is expected to be 14.9%, while overall direct marketing is expected to show a 6.3% growth rate during the same period.
According to the DMA report, email drove $7.7 billion in consumer sales and $8.8 billion in B2B sales. ROI for email marketing is predicted to continue to outstrip print catalogs and non-email Internet marketing, even though it will taper off significantly to $40 per dollar by 2011.
We continue to encourage our clients to explore adding affordable and effective email campaigns to their direct marketing mix. Please contact us to find out about getting started with Marigold’s extensive roster of opt-in email list.