Average open rates for house email lists are nearly 20 percent, according to a recent findings of the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) 2010 Response Rate Trend Report. That should come as encouraging news for all of you direct marketers out there. The findings also found that conversion rates for house lists averaged 3.72 percent, which is considerably higher than prospect lists which average open rate was 1.38 percent.
The numbers don’t across as staggering at first but look at this way and this is just simple math. Let’s say you email a list of 100,000. In the time that it takes you to send the email you’ve made 20,000 impressions and if the numbers hold true, 1,000 new customers.
Of course, there is the right way to email marketing, which I don’t claim to know, but usually involves the help of a copy writer, design agency, etc. to ensure your message is on point. And then there is the wrong way, which usually results in you just alienating yourself from a list of potential customers. Below is a great visual of this (courtesy of Hubspot).
One final thought from the report, telemarketing is still king when it comes to response rates (6.16 percent), just another reminder that your sales team still has to get out there and pound the phones.
What do you think, are these numbers holding true for your company? Is email marketing really that effective or do you think that the aging cold calling is still most effective?
