A company’s first instinct during a recession is to reduce costs, and rightly so. The trick can be how to figure out what’s truly necessary, and what’s a luxury. Bankrupt bailout-recipient Wells Fargo’s Vegas blowout? Definitely a luxury. Marketing programs? When they result in high ROI–like email marketing–they’re indeed a necessity.
eMarketer said recently that email remains appealing thanks to its low cost and high ROI, and estimates that email spend will increase to $488 million in 2009 from $472 million in 2008. The same article also notes Epsilon data released in January shows that deliverability rates remained the same in the third quarter of 2008 as in the same quarter a year earlier.
There are two lessons here. First, one’s business rivals will likely be using email marketing–and thus one must engage in these campaigns, too, in order to remain competitive. Second, email’s efficacy remains steady, unlike other types of marketing–so if one must cut out a certain marketing activity, it had better not be email. The medium is a bare necessity for marketers in this economy.
Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm
“I’d rather you text me”