Email Ads Outperform Print, Social Media and Mixed Media Marketing Ads
Marketing measurement nearly always comes down to one thing: ROI. Out of all the new hot trends in marketing, which is going to deliver the greatest return for every dollar invested? Marketing is a rapidly evolving subject and new techniques are constantly emerging, but the winner of the ROI game has been the same now for several years: for your marketing spend, email ads clearly outperform direct mail, social media and even mixed media attempts.
Email vs. Direct Mail and Mixed Media
The Harvard Business Review article, “Why Email Marketing is King,” shows the data clearly. Advantages of email marketing include measurability and comparably lower cost. Email campaigns outperformed direct mail, and mixed media marketing campaigns that combined direct and electronic mail. ROI is calculated by dividing the revenue by marketing spend. Based on conservative assumptions by HubSpot, every dollar spent for an email marketing campaign in Harvard’s study resulted in a $2,600 return. Direct mail only resulted in a $27 return. The direct mail and email combination resulted in a few dollars more, topping out at $30.
Email vs. Online Marketing
In Forbes’ summary of “Marketers Continue to Rate Email the Most Effective Digital Marketing Tactics” and other supporting surveys, email is still the predominant marketing channel. Email is a clear winner against SEO and content marketing. Email, in a surprising MC infographic, ranked most effective and least difficult to use of all marketing methods presented. Global respondents surveyed compared the effectiveness of their inbound marketing tactics and the difficulty of execution. Email came out well ahead of Content Marketing, Paid search/PPC, Mobile/SMS and E-commerce in both categories. While website/blogs, SEO, and social media ranked closer than other alternatives, their difficulty in execution was markedly higher than email advertising.
Email vs. Traditional Marketing
Television, newspaper, magazine and direct mail are all expensive and require bigger budgets. They may be appropriate for building brand awareness or addressing those that choose not to engage online. Not every organization has the deep pockets to get their brand seen in this medium. Review your target demographics. Find where your audience, is and address them on their terms.
Why Does Email Marketing Work?
Email marketing has safeguarded its position for some time now. The clear reasons include:
- Marketers are comfortable with the medium. Email marketing campaigns are relatively easy to design, execute and analyze. Messages that perform well can be reused. Performance indicators such as open rates, recipient behavior (clicks-through-rate and conversion rate) and more are plainly discernable, and A/B testing is simple and cost-effective.
- Once recipient data is cleaned, it is easy to segment and update the various groups of purchasers and prospects. Messages can clearly target different groups and their specific needs.
- Emails are opened when it is convenient for the recipient. Recipients can take their time to read and respond to different messages.
- Emails allow for remarketing. Keep on trying. Once a prospect turns into a conversion, they are highly likely to purchase again.
These statistics clearly show that email continues to be a reliable source of revenue for companies. Try the new trends by all means, but do not throw out a winner. If you’d like help with you email marketing efforts, Madrivo can help.
