More on the Effectiveness of E-Mail Marketing

Continuing on our theme of effective e-mail marketing . . . Marketing Sherpa has recently released some very interesting statistics about the use of this channel in their E-mail Marketing Benchmark Survey.

The results of this survey are very compelling. Here's a sample:

• 61% prefer to receive marketing materials via e-mail
• 77% will open marketing emails from trusted sources
• 76% want to receive "relevant" marketing e-mails
• 67% are more likely to visit your website after opening a marketing e-mail

In fact, e-mail marketing sent to in-house lists has been shown to have excellent response rates, and can really help your company build customer loyalty. Further, due to the cost effectiveness of this channel, conducting relevant e-mail marketing campaigns can do a lot to help you reach your marketing budgetary goals -- and kick-start your ROI. The report also confirms earlier suspicions that the use of e-mail campaigns on prospect databases is at the opposite end of this spectrum -- open and click-through rates remain very low. Getting potential customers to opt-in or ask for your e-mail messaging is the only way to make e-mail campaigns effective.

And, the definition of spam has changed a bit. Where it used to be viewed as simply "junk e-mail" it is now more accurately viewed as "non-relevant e-mail from a source I don't trust."

If you'd like to review our ideas on integrating e-mail marketing effectively into your marketing strategy, take a look at our E-mail Marketing Best Practices White Paper.

TGIF!