Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

On a percentage basis, email will not pull anywhere near the numbers that direct mail will, unless your audience is extremely passionate about your cause.

However, email costs a whole lot less than direct mail on a per-message basis.

As you've said, there are no standards that work across the board for reponse rates. You simply have to test and see how your audience responds.

Good luck.

- Paul

@ Inbox_Interactive: I'm not sure where you are getting the following from:

"On a percentage basis, email will not pull anywhere near the numbers that direct mail will, unless your audience is extremely passionate about your cause."

In any marketing I've done with direct mail, I've been told that a 1-2% return/response rate is supposedly good, meaning 98-99% of your effort is wasted. If I deploy a campaign that gets a 20% open rate and a 12% click-through rate, I would consider that more successful. Maybe I'm missing something in your thought process.

@ lmurray: Inbox is right about standards being tough to gauge across the board. Things to note: no postage or printing costs and you can actually can track the actions of the people reading your marketing piece in real-time and see what action they're taking. Even with a targeted direct mail piece with a specific URL based solely on that campaign, you're looking at weeks before you can truly gauge the return.

Direct mail, in my opinion, is a dying marketing tool because of these reasons. I'm sure people would disagree but there's too many positives in doing email that make it difficult to not take advantage of!

-Josh the Email Marketing Guy

Hi, Josh -

I think when people talk about "response" in direct mail, they mean something where the person on the other end has taken some action beyond reading the message. Specifically, a "response" is either the generation of a lead, a purchase, or something along those lines.

Do you agree?

If so, then a "click" is not anything close to a "response."

If, as in your example, you get a 20% open rate and then 12% of those 20% click a link, you then have a click-through rate of 2.4%. Granted, this is better than "1-2%," but of those 2.4%, most will not actually become leads or generate a sale. As a result, I would wager that response on email, in percentage terms, will be lower than with direct mail.

And if you meant that 12% of the total list will actually click, that would imply that 60% of the 20% that opened are clicking...a percentage that I can't say I've ever seen. Maybe with a small, super-targeted list of people who are expecting your message, but other than that, I don't think I've seen anything close to it.

I really don't think there is any doubt that, on average, response rates from email are much lower than snail-mail, but again the cost of email is so much less that it can (and does) work cost effectively.

If your experience is different, please share some details to the extent that you're comfortable. I know I and others here would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Paul

Inbox is right. A response rate means the recipient has done something (ordered something, called for a brochure, etc.). Being able to see open and click-throughs are great (you can't tell if someone opens an envelope), but the success (or failure) of any promotional mailing, email or otherwise, lies in the action.

I agree with miss marketing. Use both. People like information in different ways, plus repeating your message increases both recognition and response.

Mailer Mail did a report last year that studied thousands of email marketing campaigns. They found that the email open rate for nonprofits averaged 15.9%, while clickthroughs were 2.16%.

Here's the link to th full report

https://www.mailermailer.com/metrics/

The DMA's 2007 Response Rate report found the best response rates by type of campaign and marketing channel were:

2.15% (for direct orders or contributions) by direct mail
4.09 (for lead generation) by email
5.36% (for traffic building) by direct mail

(if you want the full report, it costs $445 (for non-members) and you can get it here:

https://tinyurl.com/4dvxnl

Of course, the net-net of all of this is that every company, and every mailing/offer/list/creative combination is different. You have to test to see what works best for your situation.

You can raise response rates on either method by being sure that the message resonates. I really like email because it is less expensive as someone already mentioned and you can easily test a variety of messages.

Maybe you can work your messages out in html and then, if you have the funds to do direct mail, see how those messages pull in that format.

Be careful to consider your audience before using text messaging. I am somewhere between the baby boomers and gen X. I consider text messages to be like pagers once were. It's a way to reach me if you have something urgent. My dentist was text messaging me holiday greetings. I found it very irritating.

@ Inbox: Now I get what you mean. To be honest, I don't know if I agree with the notion that you can get more of a 'response' with direct mail. For example, we did a 24-hour targeting email campaign with a Fortune 50 company last year that netted them $500k in sales in that 24-hour period. The reps could see who clicked the emails and could follow up based on that action.

Direct mail vs. email is a great debate overall. To me, d.m. is too passive in its traditional 'print and blast' format. Targeted d.m. campaigns can definitely provide results if taken seriously by the marketer.

Also, I definitely agree with Melissa about texting. Proceed with caution.

Great topic overall though...fun stuff to discuss on a rainy Friday!

-Josh the Email Marketing Guy

Hello,

You need to develop your own response rate by testing your mail/email message. 2% is a bench mark but not a standard.

In the non-profile world their are many more list options for postal than email. I am referring to lists that have proven donors and not survey data.

Email is very difficult to obtain for donors.

With that being said, I think collecting email addresses from existing donors would be a cost effective practice for future donations.

Hope this helps.

Thank you

Tom