In the recently released Power of Direct Marketing study, the Direct Marketing Association attributes commercial email as returning $40.56 for every dollar spent on it in 2011.

Although slightly down from its 2010 ROI of $42.08, email continues to dominate as the most cost effective marketing channel. Its closest rival is search which is delivering an ROI of $22.24 for every dollar spent.

Furthermore, commercial email is expected to drive $63.1 billion in sales this year, compared to $57.8 billion last year. According to the study, social networking is emerging as an effective business tool and is expected to drive $31.9 billion in sales this year. 

However email marketing continues to prove its position as the workhorse of the internet. If you’ve ever doubted the value of email, check out the below infographic from SmarterTools for perspective on its dominance when compared to other communication modes.

The value of email:

• There are nearly 3 times as many email accounts as there are Facebook and Twitter accounts combined.
• The total posts on Facebook and Twitter combined add up to 0.2% of all email traffic.
• The total number of searches on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing combined equals just 1.1% of all email traffic.
• The total number of all page views on the internet equals only 25% of the total number of emails sent.
• Nearly 4 times as many emails are sent each day as the total number of Facebook/Twitter updates, Google/Yahoo!/Bing searches and internet page views combined.

So how important is email marketing to your business? Do you give it the resources and budget it deserves?

Posted by:
Matthew Johnson
EDM Specialist

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