Internationally, the return on investment for an electronic marketing campaign is 2.5%. Locally, DevCom’s 20% success rate is proving that average is not good enough. “The cost per response is measured by dividing the total cost of the campaign by the number of respondents,” explains Mari Lee, CEO of DevCom. “We test and measure every one of our campaigns to make sure we hit the mark, and the statistics are testimony to our success.”

A survey of several studies on the efficacy of email and electronic marketing campaigns, reveals useful user trends around which to plan such campaigns.

1.    Get the subject right:

•    69% of email recipients report email as Spam based solely on the subject line 
•    35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone.

2.    Maintain your database:

•    Email lists with 10% or more unknown users get only 44% of their emails delivered by ISPs
•    17% of people create a new email address every six months
•    30% of all subscribers change their email addresses annually

3.    Target the start of the week:

•    Mondays have 17.1% success rate; followed by Tuesday (17%) and Thursday (16.2%) 
•    Friday only has a 9% readership response

According to Mari, email has earned its reputation as an effective marketing tool. “Research shows that people who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than people that do not receive email offers. In addition, 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email.” 

As with most promotional efforts, however, a blended approach also works best for electronic campaigns: people younger than 25 prefer SMS to email.