E-mail Called Fastest Growing Direct Marketing Tool

A new report from TechProse Inc. in New York says opt-in e-mail is “outpacing
telemarketing and traditional direct mail as the fastest growing form of
business-to-business marketing,”

“We’re in the middle of a major marketing shift, one that will be more
powerful than banner ads,” said Sarah Stambler, a veteran e-mail marketer and
author of the report, “BEYOND SPAM: E-mail Marketing That
Works.”

“E-mail is the killer app on the ‘Net and will soon be the killer marketing
channel,” she said.

Stambler’s report said that Forrester Research found more than 3 billion
pieces of (opt-in) commercial e-mail messages were sent in 1997 and the number
of pieces sent will grow to 250 billion by 2002, creating a $1 billion market
in just four years.

Omaha Steaks told DM News in its April 6, 1998 issue that one e-mail campaign,
managed by Acxiom/Direct Media, had a 5% click through rate on links embedded
in the e-mail message to www.omahasteaks.com, followed by a spike in sales.
Eddie Bauer’s 10 campaigns to its house file of customers’ e-mail addresses
yielded typical click-through rates between 2% to 6%, the report says.

A recent National Geographic campaign received a 32% click-though rate and netted 23,000 new names., the report said.
HTML mail, which looks like a Web page in recipient’s mailbox, gets even
higher results.

Designed for businesses, publishers, and entrepreneurs, the report covers
what other marketers are doing, how to build or rent opt-in lists, select list
brokers and compose messages. Three major list brokers comment on the state of
the industry and successful campaign tactics. A section on how to set up an e-
mail newsletter walks readers through the basics.

Stambler is the editor and publisher of TechProse’s “Marketing With Technology
News,” a fax and e-mail newsletter.