• by Bill McCloskey , September 26, 2007

To continue the theme I began a few weeks ago, I asked the experts on the Inbox Insiders to provide me with their case studies and statistics showing the effectiveness of email marketing. I'll be presenting those case studies over the coming weeks.

First up is some data from Simms Jenkins, who is a principal at BrightWave Marketing, an email marketing firm located in Atlanta. Besides Brightwave, Jenkins has put together a repository of email marketing statistics on a site called EmailStatCenter.com. In the ROI section, EmailStatCenter notes last week's email marketing report released by Shop.org that shows email is delivering sales at a cost of $7 per order -- compared to $71.89 for banner ads, $26.75 for paid search, and $17.47 for affiliate programs. Ka-pow.

Please read that paragraph again. Shop.org. $7 versus $71. A 927% better ROI than banner ads. A 282% better ROI than paid search.

Another nice stat, according to the DMA: a $48.29 return for every dollar spent in email marketing in 2007. This number is consistent with the ROI number I reported a while back.It hasn't changed. It remains a consistent and reliable number.  Spend a dollar. Get 48 back. Ka-pow.

Then there's the Denison University Case Study: Denison University is a small liberal arts school in Ohio that worked with BrightWave Marketing in 2006 to create a fundraising email campaign. Three types of personalized emails were developed, each going to a different segment of the audience:

1.    Alumni who had not forked over any cash in the last year.
2.    Those who did.
3.    And a follow-up to those who still hadn't forked any cash over after reading the email, but who had also neglected to click on the link to the Flash presentation designed to remind them of those carefree college days.

The result? Well, those Denison grads came through big time, and the email campaign generated a 1300% return on investment. Open rates were 50% and click-throughs reached 29%. Put together, the email campaign drove over 5% of all the annual fund contributions during the time frame.

Ka-pow.

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