Today’s discussion focuses on the differences between direct mail marketing and email marketing, and how those differences can affect your company.  Direct mail marketing is when you send pieces via post mail to potential prospects.  Maybe these prospects were people who were referred to you by your current customers, or maybe you bought a list of names and addresses.  Typically, mail pieces are post cards.  A good example is the type of post cards everyone receives almost daily this time of an election year, enticing voters to vote for a particular candidate.  Email marketing consists of sending messages via email to prospects.  As with direct mail, email lists can be purchased, or referrals from current customers.  However, email lists can also be compiled by subscribers; prospects who visit your website may sign up to receive a newsletter or coupon email at a regular interval.  Because of this capability, email marketing has three, as opposed to two, sources for obtaining recipients.  Of course, you can invite people to sign up for your direct mailing list when they visit your office or store, but the list is going to be provincial and small.

As shown in an earlier discussion on our blog, email marketing allows you to view reports that show, in real time, how effective a particular email marketing campaign is.  Direct mail marketing does allow generation of data, but essentially that data only exists when a prospect responds to the call of action within your message, whether that is to email you, phone you or stop by your office.  You cannot know how many kept your post card, threw it out, or gave it to a friend.  With email marketing, you can see how many people moved your email into the trash or spam folders.  You can see how many unsubscribed, or who forwarded your email to a friend.  You can see how many people click on specific links within your message.  Reports of this nature allow you to further customize your campaign to increase effectiveness, and decrease cost.

Let’s talk about that for a moment, because often times, decreasing cost can seem such a tall hurdle, that it’s easy to forget that decreasing cost is actually quite simple.  When you increase the effectiveness of a particular message, you get more prospects becoming customers.  When more prospects become customers, you get a greater R.O.I. (Return on Investment).  Because of the nature of calculating R.O.I., actual cost decreases as more revenue comes in.  The more effective your email marketing messages are, the more prospects will become customers.  Of course, effectiveness isn’t the only way to reduce marketing cost.  Other methods, which we will discuss in the future, can help reduce marketing cost.