The Email Fix!

The Email State Center reports 83% of the marketers surveyed choose Email marketing as the most important advertising medium they plan to use in 2007. And more than 70% plan to increase their Email marketing budget in 2008.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) estimates that in 2007 U.S. marketers will spend $500 million on email marketing to generate $21.9 billion in sales, an 18.3% increase in Email marketing expenditures over 2006.

According to Jupiter research, the average American is receiving 45+ Emails a day. The average businessperson is receiving 125+ Emails a day.

The two biggest objectives for using Email marketing are customer acquisition and customer retention.

Interesting.

In an average day, I receive more than 200 Emails…and that’s with Apple’s latest version of screener software.

Starting last week, I decided to take back control.

In the last five days, I have contacted AT&T, Bank of America, Chase Financial, Wal*Mart, Home Depot, Newsweek, FTD, Weight Watchers, Nutrisytem, Golf Pro and told them to please take my Email address off of their list.

A number of them actually told me that it was “impossible” to do and that I should just trash the Emails when I receive them.

After receiving three duplicate Emails form a local production shop here in Atlanta called Lab 601 Digital Post the receptionist told me that “the system” hadn’t been updated and that it was actually beyond their control that I received the number that I did.

WOW…what a great avenue of customer retention!

When I first started serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Georgia, I generated some controversy among the fellow professors when I told my students that in today’s world of brand culture and relationship marketing the old model of reach and frequency is dead.

Marketing directors, agency account executives and media planners who are out there getting their daily fix off of the Email numbers will ultimately pay the price when more of the consumer public says enough is enough. The consumer public will not hesitate to post the brands that fail at understanding “permission marketing.”

At BrandVenture, we have a wonderful resource that allows clients to target market lifestyle groups at the ZIP+6 level of household versus blanket marketing across an entire market landscape or trade area.

When a client asked me last week why even consider direct mail when Email marketing is so hot, I replied simply…the last I looked, I received a maximum of 15 items in my snail-box mail-box versus the 200+ stream of Emails on my MacBook Pro.

And because I am visual, I actually enjoyed physically touching the direct mailer, opening it up and seeing the pictures!