eROI Days Email Agency

This is a relevant study just released yesterday from Shop.org and Forrester on how super effective email marketing is for retaining customers and a top priority for many marketers. I’ve got to admit that some of these numbers are hard to believe as conventional wisdom is strongly rooted in Search being a far better customer acquisition tool than email (while email marketing has always been known to perform best in customer retention). Apparently, email is strong for both retention and acquisition.

Some key highlights:

• E-mail marketing to house files is delivering higher response rates and lower costs per order than other channels
• E-mail is delivering sales at an average cost per order of less than $7, according to two surveys conducted by Forrester Research on Shop.org’s behalf to create the State of Retailing Online 2007 report. This is compared to $71.89 for banner ads, $26.75 for paid search and $17.47 for affiliate programs.
• 91% percent of those surveyed said they use e-mail to a house list as a marketing tactic while 88% of them said it has increased as a priority in 2007
• Average click-through and order-conversion rates of e-mail are an astounding 11% and 6%
• Most popular and effective e-mails are those that tout online-only promotions, with 71% of those surveyed saying they use the tactic and 66% rating it as “very effective.”
• One of the lowest-rated types of e-mails were those following shopping cart abandonment, with 17% saying they use it and 13% rating it very effective.

More info and full article here:
http://directmag.com/disciplines/email/email_metrics_healthy/