Does email marketing really work?
Email marketing is one of the fastest growing marketing tactics globally – and in the US – in terms of the number of companies who use it. Not surprising since it’s pretty low cost compared to other tactics and major parts of it can be automated.
But email has its share of challenges. Chief among them is getting through ISP and corporate spam filters and the recipients’ own “why should I care” filter. Over the past few years, response rates were heading downhill like an out of control shopping cart (the offline kind).
Some of that seems to be changing.
According to a recent report from the Direct Marketing Association, email campaigns return an average of $45.06 for every dollar spent. That alone is enough to make you pay attention.
But there’s more. The newly released Epsilon Q1 2009 US Email Trends and Benchmark Study shows an increase in open rates for the 3rd quarter in a row. Business Products and Services in general had opened rates of 29.1% in Q1 — up from 22.9% a year ago.
Click rates increased from 5.4% 6.4% (again in the business-to-business markets) and deliverability was up a little – up to 94.1% from 93.4%
What’s causing the increase in open and click rates? Are recipients becoming more willing to spend more time on email? Are they more willing to weed through the junk to find messages that are interesting to them?
Not likely.
I think email response rates are going up because marketers are getting better at sending relevant messages with a frequency that matches with the customers’ needs. Online marketers are also getting much better at testing to learn which headlines, offers and subject lines work best, and then optimizing messages accordingly.
Unfortunately, what I read of the Epsilon study doesn’t differentiate between prospecting email (messages sent to people who don’t know you) versus lead nurturing type email (messages sent to people who have already had some interchange with your company). I’m sure if we looked at lead generation email alone, the numbers would be much lower.
We’ve found that email is a great way for our clients to stay in touch with and continue to develop prospects and leads. We’re less excited about email sent to a cold list as a lead generation tool. But I’m willing to listen.
If you’d had success with lead generation email, share it with us here.
Technorati Tags: email marketing, lead generation, lead nurturing