While sipping my morning coffee last week and perusing my favorite marketing news sources I stumbled across a Harvard Business Review article that talked about email marketing. Not a lot of articles these days grab my attention, but this one did.
According to eMarketer, 2012 will see American companies spend $64 billion on TV advertising, $34 billion on print advertising and $39 billion on internet advertising. How about basic email marketing? Just $1.5 billion. That’s it! At first this really surprised me.
With TV, print and internet advertising, there are typically major costs associated in the strategy, ad creation and preparation with most of the cost assigned to the buy or placement. Now, just think... how much is your message is actually seen by your actual target and how much money are you wasting in “demographic overspill?” “I don’t know” is typically the most common answer.
With email marketing, you can pick and choose who to add to your list so your actual demographic is receiving your message - no overspill here! And, there are usually no fees associated with this tactic past the creation. No airtime fees, no placement fees, just the cost to create your message. Maybe this is why so little is spent on email marketing - because it costs less! Or, maybe companies are just under utilizing this tactic. Possibly both.
Email is still the most popular way that people communicate with each other in the business world, more than phone or text - another reason to explore this tactic as it is a proven avenue for communication. If this all sounds good, just wait... it gets better.
Email marketing campaigns are equipped with very detailed performance reports that tell you everything from who received the email, who opened it, how many times they opened it, if they clicked on any links, if they forwarded it to a friend, if they unsubscribed, and compares your results to the industry standard and to past campaigns. These are great tools to see what your ROI is on your campaign. TV, newspaper, radio, direct mail and other forms of traditional mediums just can’t provide those kinds of exact reports.
Email marketing has statistically been shown to have a 23% response rate according to eMarketer. Email marketing makes it easy for your target to act on your call to action as they are already at a computer or mobile device and just a click away from where you are sending them. It’s not like TV where they finish their show, then try to remember “what was that web address again?” Email marketing makes it easy.
So, if you think email marketing is just a bunch of spammers sitting at computers spewing off unwanted messages, think again. Although some of the email marketing communication has gone this way, if you have a quality message that people are wanting to receive, then your message will cut through all that clutter and be welcomed by your recipient.
At Bradley Advertising we can help create an effective mass email marketing campaign that includes database setup and creation, branding and creating the right message for your company, blasting the message out to your lists and supplying you with performance reports to see how your message did. If you think this tactic is right for you, contact us today and we will get you set up!
