Comparison of Direct Mail Marketing and Email Marketing

Comparison of Direct Mail Marketing and Email Marketing

For direct marketers, the print-to-online transition is an ongoing one. Consider the following facts comparing direct mail to e-mail for marketing purposes.

Paper costs

The 20 percent increase in the cost of paper over the past two to three years is being caused in part by higher labor costs as well as higher fuel costs to get wood to the mill, run the papermaking machines and transport the finished product to warehouses and on to printers.

Moreover, many paper mills are making investments to become more eco-friendly, incurring costs to train employees in new processes and procedures. Printing and postage costs are also rising, and additional paper price increases are likely.

E-mail costs

For companies whose customers are largely online, e-mail is a cost-effective replacement to direct mail. For organizations that have a blend of online and non-online customers, it can be a welcomed alternative for e-mail-equipped recipients that also lowers the cost of marketing for the company.

Direct mail efficiency

A direct mail campaign can take weeks to design, lay out, print and mail. Moreover, while deliverability and response are trackable with direct mail, they take time. Undeliverable mail can take weeks to be returned and addresses must be manually removed from a list. In addition,response can take days by postage paid reply.

E-mail efficiency

An e-mail campaign can take as little as a few hours to a few days from concept to receipt, enabling companies to respond rapidly to market dynamics and competitive pressures. In addition, with e-mail sent by an advanced e-mail delivery system, bad addresses are discovered within minutes and culled from a list. Then, marketers know exactly how many recipients opened the message.

With links back to a Web site, purchases can be made immediately and tracking systems can show which pages or items were viewed, providing invaluable customer data for future campaigns.

Green marketing -- direct mail

While many direct marketing firms are instituting green standards in their companies, the direct mail business is under environmental pressure because of the huge amount of paper it consumes and the waste that paper generates.

Green marketing -- e-mail

While e-mail servers require electricity, no trees are destroyed, no pollutants are sent into the air, and no gasoline or other petroleum-based products are used to get a marketing message across with e-mail.

Source:http://www.emarketingandcommerce.com/article/direct-mail-versus-e-mail-you-decide/1 by Berry Abel

Benefits and Challenges of Email Marketing

According to a survey, conducted by Hurwitz & Associates for Ontario-based email marketing service provider Campaigner (a solution of Software-as-a-Service communication services and solutions company Protus), almost half of North American small businesses use email marketing today.

Campaigner’s “2009 State of Small Business Online Marketing Survey” found that 46% of small businesses surveyed rely on email marketing to help them find new customers, keep existing ones and grow their businesses. Hurwitz & Associates gathered responses from 259 North American businesses with 1 to 20 employees.

Furthermore the report reveals that 36% of the surveyed small businesses plan to start using email marketing in the coming year.

Despite the growing confidence in using email marketing, both current users and those that plan to use email marketing view spam as the biggest barrier or potential barrier to successful email marketing.

When questioned about their concerns in designing and executing email marketing campaigns, respondents reported the following top challenges:

1. Concerns that my customers will view email marketing as spamming
2. Too many email campaigns are filtered out by spam filters
3. Poor response rates

Survey respondents cited the following as their top criteria for choosing an email marketing provider:

1. Ease-of-use
2. Quality of customer support
3. Price

When asked more detailed questions about email marketing, small business owners cited the following as top benefits:

1. Inexpensive/effective way to reach out to new prospects and customers
2. Generates a fast response so I can tell if a campaign is working
3. Effective way to build customer loyalty

Newsletters, sales and promotional offers and announcements are the most common ways small businesses said they are using email marketing.

Campaigner also released a second report about email marketing in small businesses, called “Small Businesses Put Email Marketing to Work” that looks at small business adoption, plans, use and requirements for email marketing solutions. Both reports are free and available for download here. Get more info on this topic at marketingadvisor.eu.

Source:http://lazerpromotions.com/blog/general/benefits-and-challenges-of-email-marketing-for-small-businesses