Today on MobileMarketingWatch.com a post appeared titled, “Applying Email Strategies To Mobile Marketing,” which suggests email marketing best practices have applications within mobile. While I agree that strategies like targeting and relevance apply to either discipline, as noted here marketers should remember that email and mobile often have different or interdependent applications.
More interesting than the recommendations were references to an earlier November 24, 2009 article on MarketingVox.com citing Direct Marketing Association (DMA) ROI research for email and search marketing:
“…commercial email now returns $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009…”
“…search advertising..is the next most effective channel with an ROI of $21.85 for every dollar spent.”
A simple conclusion would be that email’s return is about 100 percent that of search. Consider as well that, with respect to email, “41% of consumers find that promotional offers are irrelevant, according to a study by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).” That means despite nearly half of those subject to email marketing rejecting those offers, ROI is greater than 4,000 percent! It isn’t clear if ROI was calculated based on direct sales driven by email promotions.
Even so, you could argue that relevance is a key determinant of return for email and search marketing investments. Paid search may help connect consumers with relevant results, yet search by its nature is rather broad, pointing consumers to some destination rather than calling them to action. An email communication pushed to a consumer by a business should be more targeted, relevant and contain a compelling call to action.
Considering mobile — especially SMS text message interactions – by its nature must be relevant, ROI should exceed both email and search. Extrapolating figures cited in the article, ROI for mobile marketing could be another 100 percent greater than email, offering upwards of $80 for every dollar spent. Even if it’s no better than email, mobile’s ROI is highly relevant to marketer’s interested in making the most of their budgets.
