Direct mail may still hold a slender lead as the most dominant form of Direct Marketing, but things are definitely changing. Recent technological developments are giving marketers more and more opportunities to get their message directly to their audience. In years to come both mobile marketing and social networking may be the most effective forms of Direct Marketing, but right now the biggest rival to the DM pack is undoubtedly email marketing.

The practice of contacting customers and prospects through email has really taken off in recent years. In fact, The Direct Marketing Association estimated that US firms alone spent over $400 million on email marketing in 2006 – and the technique has only grown in popularity since. The reason for this is simple… email marketing has a number of benefits over traditional DM and door drops.

Cost
Currently, the price of sending an email to a customer is approximately 0.00053 pence. That means you can send over one thousand emails for the same price as posting a single DM pack. This low cost allows marketers to talk to the ‘dribs and drabs’ – the customers who do not regularly place orders and so are overlooked when it comes to sending out mailings – and therefore easily make even the bottom segment more profitable.

Speed
Emails can also be produced and delivered extremely quickly, allowing you to keep your finger on the pulse and even reflect current affairs. Has a big storm swept through the north east of England? Then you can be sure that every Geordie will receive emails about fence panelling and car window repairs within 24 hours.

Tracking
Unlike any other form of Direct Marketing, email lets you accurately track the response rate of your message. Heatmap analysis allows you to compartmentalise the email you’ve sent out, seeing which parts result in the most click-throughs. Better still, you can then see how many of those click-throughs actually generate revenue, and which products those customers have bought. In other words, you can ascertain a direct link between email feature and desired product, allowing you to refine future emails to increase effectiveness and profitability.

Dynamic
With email marketing, it is perfectly plausible to make slight alterations to an email depending on who it’s going to. For example, you can quickly and inexpensively change the ‘hero product’, image and headline ten times for ten different audiences – like selling the 42” LCD TV to men aged 18-25 with an income over £30,000, and flogging a knitted cardigan to retired women.

Immediate response
If somebody receives a DM pack and is interested by its contents, they then have to make a concerted effort to follow up on this interest by calling a number or going to their computer and logging online. Consequently, only those with a significant interest will pursue it. With email marketing, the target is already online and simply has to click a link, so you get more response from customers who only have a casual interest in what you’re selling.

Feedback
Customer feedback is an invaluable tool for any business: it allows you to determine what products and services to provide, how to price them and who to target. While customers may be shy about voicing their feelings face-to-face or over the phone, email allows them to leave honest feedback quickly and simply.

Moving offline
Interestingly, email marketing can be a useful tool even if you don’t have the technology to offer online purchases. According to a survey by WebDummy.com, 59% of email users said that they have made a purchase offline after receiving an email promotion – generally either because they need it straight away and can’t wait for delivery or they want to interact with the product (sit on a sofa, walk on a treadmill) before purchasing it. So even conventional offline businesses can use email marketing to drive customers in store.

Cross-selling
Another useful thing about email marketing is being able to cross-sell immediately after a purchase. For example, if you run a sports retailer you can create ten different emails related to ten different sports, each packed with products. Then whenever somebody purchases a tennis racket from you, they get an auto-respond email containing other tennis products they may be interested in. This immediate reaction to a purchase is used extensively by many online retailers including Amazon, who claim that their cross-selling ‘customers who bought XXXX also bought…’ feature adds an extra 30% to an average order value.

Additional benefits
There are many more benefits too. How about the fact that email helps you generate new clients by allowing current customers to easily recommend a friend – and a referral means that a lot of the hard work building a relationship has already been done for you. Email messages are also paper-free and so greener than DM packs, which are often cast aside by environmental consumers out of principle. And how about the fact that emails allow you to include lots of value-added content like video links, games, screensavers and more, so customers can actually look forward to receiving the next email from you (how many look forward to the next DM pack?)

In summary…
Email marketing is cheaper, faster, greener, more flexible and simpler to personalise than DM packs and door drops. They allow customers to more easily leave feedback and recommend a friend, while they allow you to more easily cross-sell other products and provide value added content that ensures your communication is valued, not discarded.

More and more companies are waking up to the many additional benefits of email marketing. Direct mail and door drops are still valued techniques, but their time as the dominant forces in Direct Marketing is coming to an end.

Discover how Red C can help you take advantage of email marketing… call us on 0161 872 1361 or click here.

Tags: Amazon cross-selling, Cross-selling, Direct Mail, Direct Marketing, Direct Marketing Association, DM pack, DMA, Email Marketing, Environmental marketing, Feedback, Green marketing, Heatmap analysis, Mobile Marketing, Personalised marketing, Social Networking, Webdummy.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 7:47 am and is filed under Blog, E-mail Marketing, Email, Marketing, Marketing Innovations, Online Marketing, World of Web, ecommerce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.