A report from research service GartnerG2 suggests that email is eating into traditional direct mail as a marketing tool. In a report titled "Email Savings Threaten a $196.8 Billion Direct Mail Marketing," Gartner analysts cite lower costs and quicker turnaround times as factors that are causing businesses to shift direct marketing expenses to email.
The report says that a direct mail campaign takes an average of four to six weeks to complete, as opposed to seven to ten business days for email. And email costs are $5 to $7 per thousand versus $500 to $700 per thousand for direct mail. Permission-based email marketing yields an average 6-8 percent response rate, far outstripping direct mail at an average of 1 percent.
"Direct mail has reached its peak and will account for less than 50 percent of mail received by U.S. households by 2005, down from 65 percent in 2001," says GartnerG2 Research Director Denise Garcia. "As email use, familiarity, and trust increase, consumers will become more comfortable with accepting advertisements through their computer."
Our View: Don't Abandon a Marketing Method That Works
Often the numbers for email marketing look good, but this is not universally true. I have seen permission-based email campaigns that pulled a 30 percent response rate, but I've also seen campaigns with zero response. And what will the response rates look like when people are receiving two, three, or four times the number of emails they are receiving now?
Having worked in the world of direct mail before getting involved with emarketing back in 1994, I still have a great love and respect for the venerable postal medium. I always urge marketers to be careful about cannibalizing a successful direct mail marketing program in favor of email. It's all in the numbers: Run test campaigns in both media to find out what works and what pays off best.
Al Bredenberg
Publisher, EmailResults.com
