We recently did some research about e-newsletters and the numbers we came up with are VERY interesting. So much so, that I thought I would share them with you.

First of all, if you haven’t read my article “E-marketing: Newsletters” do so now. Go ahead, the rest of us will wait . . . done? Good. In that article, I mentioned some of the benefits of an e-newsletter. Now, I have some hard numbers to show you that speak to those benefits.

I have a client that sends out e-newsletters as well as printed newsletters. We had some of our preferred print vendors bid on it with the specifications of 11″ x 17″, 4 color, 2 sided, 2 folds and full bleed. the vendors were bidding on printing, folding and mail services, that is, they would label each and put them in the mail based on my clients database. The number of the people on this particular list was 2,000.

Here is the average cost sent back to us: $1,000 for the printing and $300 for the mailing. This doesn’t include producing the piece, so let’s add in $500 for production cost. That brings us to $1800.

One thing you should know is that mailers of any sort, have a 1% response rate. That means if you send out 2,000, about 20 people will respond. Given the bid numbers above, that equates to $90 per lead. That’s right, LEAD. You haven’t made a sale yet. Let’s hope your average sale is over $90.

To reach those same people through an e-newsletter the cost is about $200 on average. Yep, that’s it - $200. Of course you will have to pay some up front charges, if you have your newsletter professionally designed. I left design cost out of the printed version, so I left it out here as well.

The response rate on e-newsletters is recorded at being 25% on average. Most services can be set up so you can test these numbers yourself. They’ll give you “click through” rates; which is who opened the newsletter and clicked on a link in it to visit your site. That means about 500 people will respond and your cost per lead would be 40¢ each.

What do you think now? 20 vs. 500 and $90 each vs. 40¢. If the bottom line is important to you, and if you’re a business owner it should be, then it’s all about margins. Need I say more?

Now get out there and look good!

Chris Motley
Motley Creations
©2008 Motley Creations.

Tags: E-Marketing, e-newsletter, response rate, save.