Email overtakes print - why is that surprising?

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has released figures in its Email Benchmarking Report showing email marketing has overtaken direct mail in terms of volume. The report reveals that the average volume of emails rose by 50% in the last quarter. This increase underlines email marketing’s continued effectiveness due its ability to react swiftly to market opportunities and its short production cycle.

Personally the only reason that I find this is surprising is that it hasn't happened sooner.

If you make a direct comparison between the costs of direct mail and email, email is the winner by a country mile. With delivery costs of between 1 and 5p and no print costs, email has a clear and massive benefit. Other advantages are the ability to track response rates right through to purchase, the ease with which you can personalise your message and the immediacy of the medium (you could have an email launched hours after deciding to run it).

So there must be a perceived downside. Reach is one element, email is not universal so you can't target everyone. Risk of being seen as a Spammer is another.

But how significant are those issues. Certainly email is not universal, but take up is very high, and rises as you target more affluent customers. Here are some stats to consider: over 20million UK residents use the Internet every day; 90% of consumers now access the Internet using Broadband; 75% now shop online spending an average of £1,600 and 10% of retail spend is now online.

Spam is a problem that you need to recognise and manage. If you follow best practice you will minimise the risk of being perceived as a spammer and maximise the effectiveness of your communications. (And to switch the argument round, how many people are annoyed by junk mail and bin it without regard?)

The fact that this tipping point has been reached before is down to the fact that the marketing world, like the world at large, is risk averse. They would rather run with the tried and tested, than try something new. Marketers will know all about adoption curves, innovators to laggards. Well the message from the DMAs report is clear. Email marketing has reached its tipping point. It cannot be ignored any longer, even by the laggards.