Email is STILL the most effective online marketing tool
May 1, 2008
Email marketing always gets a bad press… but a new study proves it’s actually the most effective and efficient marketing tool available to online entrepreneurs.
Sure, spam is still as problematic as ever. But if you’ve got a targeted list of opt-in subscribers and a message they want to hear, email marketing can be incredibly powerful!
A new survey by Forrester Research and Shop.org says email marketing messages sent to in-house subscriber lists provide the highest return on investment of any type of e-marketing activity.
The report says the average value of a sale generated by email marketing to in-house lists is $120.27. At the same time, the average cost of making that sale is only $6.85.
So the Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS) is 17.56, which means the average value of a sale made through email marketing is 17.56 times more than the amount it cost a business to make the sale.
ROAS is calculated by dividing the sale value (dollars earned) by the amount spent on corresponding advertising (dollars spent). Any value higher than 1 represents a positive return on investment.
So, 17.56 is a pretty impressive figure!
But remember, this only refers to email marketing using in-house subscriber lists. In other words, people who’ve actively asked you to contact them, not random email addresses you got from a rented list.
The survey says search engine optimization is the second most effective e-marketing tool, with an ROAS of 12.71.
However, I think this is much more difficult to measure — because it’s harder to attribute a sale to general SEO marketing than a specific email campaign.
Nevertheless, it emphasizes the importance of a top organic search ranking.
In third place is affiliate marketing, which can be easily measured. It has an ROAS of 10.01.
Bottom of the pile — rather predictably — is banner advertising, which has an ROAS of just 1.58.
So, as we’ve always said at IMC, email marketing works! It just needs to be used with a targeted list of subscribers who are interested in what you’ve got to say.
For more information on the report and these statistics, click here.
And if you’ve been neglecting your email marketing for newer, sexier strategies — get back on it!
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Thanks for the good information. Nice topic and good information to share
Hi,
Internet marketing really the best and easiest way of making money. The blog also throws light on importance of online marketing. The small business owner can avail this option to grow their business. One of my friend started a small business one year ago but he could grow his business to higher position only by using online marketing. Email is the most effective online marketing tool with regards to online business. The blog has good information about online marketing. Thanks for the post.
Nice post! The ideas and insights are very worth reading. You really gave me valuable information. Thanks for sharing it!
hey…
nice article.. i m sure it will help
btw, whats affiliate marketing??
I am looking for soft ware that will let me build a newsletter with images in it. does anyone know what i need to look for? Jim
Email marketing is one of the least expensive yet most effective ways to market your products and services to your customers and keep in touch with your subscribers.
It can take up to 6 email reminders (of excellent quality) before a subscriber becomes a buyer.
Jim, i know Derek offers a product called Mailloop that can do this. Read up on bulk mail distribution, many hosts do not allow this. It may be worth searching online for a complete solution. These also vary in prices.
Good luck
Emma
Email marketing pay very well. If you think about it, imagine how many people have publically accessible email addresses who are just ready to be sponsored with a simple product for a simple website. I could use the extra $700k. I feel nosy people ought to give something a fair trial before springing to inaccurate conclusions.
Word-of-mouth is one of the most trusted forms of advertising so it’s no wonder email marketing works so well.
I try to tell people their number one priority should be to build an email/mailing list before anything and that goes for any business.
Great insight.
I want cheap and effective software which can increase my email marketing area. so do u have any suggestion peoples. actually I m the owner of a shopping site.
3 years ago I purchased mailloop, but never used it. Also I de-registered it and don’t know how to re-register it. Can u help me? Regards, DSJ
I am a Health Club Sales consultant. It is totally up to me to get in business for myself and sign up clients. I have been given permission to use any methods that I want. I want to build my email marketing list for gym users and interested parties who then fwd to their address book. Emails will contain helpful gym and health info. And in doing so create a potential client base who will only sign up with me.
Does anyone have advice on this? I would appreciate marketing tips in addition to email marketing to get people to respond to my emails. I can sign up regional and national memberships with anyone in the country but can only sign up local members at my specific club. I will probably have to liaise with head office to get some kind of process for this. But I would like to be able to convert interested parties to gym members. What are the glitches in this idea? What about the contract work? And signing of contracts etc.
Alot of questions but I really want to be successful at this. I cant sign up clients across the country in person but perhaps I can convert them through email marketing. How do I bypass the paperwork issue?
Kind regards