Turn to Email Marketing Automation In Any Economic Climate

The seasons are changing and so is the US economy. As more pundits predict the US will move to recession, more dollars, not less, need to go toward email marketing automation during an economic downturn.

Email marketing is one of the few marketing channels that provide hard data for ROI, performance and industry growth stats.

• For every dollar spent on email marketing in 2007, marketers can expect an estimated $48.29 ROI. (DMA 2007)
• Email is delivering sales at an average cost per order of less than $7, compared to $71.89 for banner ads, $26.75 for paid search and $17.47 for affiliate programs. (Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report Sept. 2007)
• Small business Email Service Provider Constant Contact recently went public and has a market cap hovering around $800,000,000. Yep, 800 million!
• One email marketing industry leader (Bill McCloskey, CEO of Email Data Source Inc.) says email marketing is a $3 billion industry.

Customers want it and depend on email communications. Email marketing automation provides a personalized one-to-one communication platform that is not cost prohibitive to utilize on a frequent basis.

There is no other quicker and easier way to communicate with the people most interested in your company than emailing your opt-in list with timely and relevant updates, news and updates.

Email gives you the data you need to determine success. Most marketers can gauge the success of their campaigns within 24 hours and make adjustments as needed. It is not a wait-and-see type of measurement approach that other marketing platforms have to deal with.

Email cuts other costs. Think about the way email can minimize printing, call center and direct mail costs by stepping up email to handle those internal company newsletters, costly postcard direct pieces and proactively provide essential information that could often lead to a customer service call.

Plan A Response Before You Take the Lead

Brad Powers, CEO of Response Group, makes some great points in his article published on iMedia Spot entitled 2 Steps to Ensure Lead-Generating Success.

He makes the point that many companies start a lead generation program without thinking about how the leads will be nurtured or measured.

"There are several common missteps that prevent advertisers from maximizing lead-generation opportunities. One example might be a lack of real clarity about how the leads will be measured and monetized initially, much less how the data might be used for re-marketing purposes. Another example is having a very cohesive and quantified plan, but not clearly communicating the goals and metrics that define a campaign's success to the lead-generation provider."

He also hits on the importance of marketing automation to quickly respond to customer needs. "... another common misstep is to sit on leads too long without reaching out to consumers who have already expressed interest in a product or service. For example, a month in email time can be an eternity, and a marketer is not only at risk of losing the lead's interest, but also losing a potential transaction to a competitor in the meantime."

Email ROI

Here are some interesting statistics that demonstrate the powerful return on investment of email marketing:

• Email is delivering sales at an average cost per order of less than $7, compared to $71.89 for banner ads, $26.75 for paid search and $17.47 for affiliate programs. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
• For every dollar spent on email marketing in 2007, marketers can expect an estimated $48.29 ROI. - DMA (2007)
• 83% of marketers surveyed said that they thought 2007 ROI for email will increase over last year. - Datran Media Research, "The 2007 Email Marketing Survey: Looking Forward" (2007)
• U.S. marketers spent $300 million on email in 2005. They're expected to spend $400 million on email in 2006, an increase of 24.4 percent. - 2006 Online Retail Holiday Readiness Report, WebTrends (2006)
• Email generated $15.50 in sales per dollar spent on email marketing campaigns last year, 17% more than direct mail, even though marketers spend 23 times more money on direct mail campaigns than on email, Winterberry Group reports. Winterberry notes that email drove 73% more sales per marketing dollar than did telemarketing, which generated $8.94 per marketing dollar. - Winterberry Group (2004)
• Cutting customer defections by just 5 percent has the effect of boosting profits between 25 percent and 95 percent. - Harvard Business Review (2005)
• 50% of the shoppers surveyed in late December, 2005 said they used emails to make purchases; 50.2 percent said email had some influence on their shopping habits. - Return Path (2006)
• Email's ROI index is 70 percent higher than any other direct-response marketing vehicle. - Direct Marketing Association (2006)
• Engaging your audiences in more relevant communications (such as email) increases net profits by an average of 18 times more than broadcast mailing - Jupiter Research (2006)
• Triggered campaigns perform 171% more revenue than broadcast campaigns. - Jupiter Research VP and research director David Daniels (2006)
• Lifecycle campaigns perform 389% better than broadcast campaigns. - Jupiter Research VP and research director David Daniels (2006)
• Clickstream campaigns perform 781% better than broadcast campaigns. - Jupiter Research VP and research director David Daniels (2006)
• It costs 5 - 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. - Emarketer (2005)
• Email marketing is the top online marketing method for retention, above search engine positioning, banner ads, sponsorships and other programs. - Direct Marketing Association (DMA) (2005)
• Email delivers the highest ROI by an eye-popping margin: a whopping $57.25 for every dollar spent on it in 2005, $7.08 for every dollar spent on print catalogs, and $22.52 for every dollar spent on non-email Internet marketing. - DMA (2005)
• 31% of US Marketing Executives surveyed say direct response programs (email and mailings) have greatest ROI, more than double all other marketing programs (p.r., event marketing, website, advertising). - CMO Council (2005)