Planning your Marketing for 2011 with Email & Direct Mail

Its the time of year where many marketers are planning their strategies for 2011. We are too.

This Blog post is about e-mail marketing. Obviously we do it; many of you get an email from us at least 8 times a year. But we sell printing and direct mail. In the course of our sales effort, we get the occasional comment, “we only do e-mail marketing now.” I understand this sentiment. It is cheap, sales are down, budgets need to be cut and marketing is expensive. I get it. Here’s what you need to know about email marketing.

What is your average open rate? The open rate on e-mails is the number of e-mails that are clicked on and presumably read. Just like response rates to direct mail, the average can very wildly. If you are e-mailing a huge database of past customers on a regular, monthly basis, the average open rate can be 10% or much less. For a smaller list of customers that you only e-mail quarterly, the open rate can be 50% or more. The average is probably about 20%. And it’s going down. Did I mention spam filters?

That means, on average, 80% of your e-mail recipients are not even viewing your marketing message. 80% don’t see your offer or invitation at all. But I know, it’s cheap to do.

On the other hand, most direct mail gets looked at. Especially with a postcard, there’s nothing to open or keep them from seeing your offer or message. With a postcard mailing, you can be much more assured that you have made an impression and improved overall awareness.

Like everything else in life, it’s not either/or, it’s and/both. We use direct mail to maintain our awareness with current customers, to reach specific niches that we know are responsive, and to recent prospects. We use e-mails long term to reach all customers and prospects (they’re cheap!). I realize that some people like e-mails and find them convenient.

Define your marketing strategy in terms of what resources will you use to pull new customers into your business, get them to your web site etc and then once they get there think about retention - how will you keep them informed of specials and new products - Email is great for ongoing communication.

One final comment: It takes 7 impressions on average to get one sale. This is an old marketing research rule of thumb. You’re not going to make all of those impressions with one media. Mix it up. Direct mail, e-mail, phone calls, print, radio, trade magazines, bus-stop benches, whatever. Just make sure that the media reaches the same prospects so that you build up overall impressions. And make sure that you have the budget to maintain some level of frequency with the media channel you choose.