• by Masha Geller , March 20, 2002

First, a warning: I’ve been rather calm about things lately, but today I just can’t resist a rant, so here it goes. The question of the day is, “Why do some researchers feel the need to pass off well-known facts as brand new findings?”

Take the latest from GartnerG2 – a reputable research firm. They’ve just recently figured out that email marketing is a more cost-effective way to acquire and retain customers than direct mail. Who knew?

According to their extensive research, it takes four to six weeks to complete a direct mail campaign vs. just seven to ten business days for an email campaign. Moreover, responses to direct mail take an average of three to six weeks, while responses to email take an average of three days. Now, that’s what I call a valuable discovery!

In addition, GartnerG2 found that email campaigns are – get this - significantly less expensive to execute than the traditional direct mail campaigns. Currently, email costs range from $5 to $7 per thousand while direct mail costs range from $500 to $700 per thousand, they found.

In all fairness, Gartner did recommend that marketers should develop mailing lists from addresses collected through opt-in means and ensure that the email includes a working mechanism for opting-out, which is an extremely important point, but the rest of the report should be old news to each and every email marketer out there.

Please tell me we haven’t run out of serious things to study!