Underinvested in Email

The Canadian Marketing Association's latest study of direct response vehicles charts some interesting growth. Telemarketing still dominates, representing the biggest spend area in 2007 at $4.4 billion. Direct mail - the supposed workhorse of the industry - is a distant second at $1.6 billion. And look look who's hot on their heels - the Internet (Web and Email) at $1.4 billion. The biggest difference, however, is growth rates. Spending on mail grew by only 4% last year while Internet marketing posted a 24% gain. Any money on what will be second place in 2008?

The absolute fastest-growing vehicle was Email, with 26% growth in spending. But with a very tiny base of $38 million, it was only 3% of all online marketing in 2008. Compare this to the US where Email is 15% of all interactive spending - that's a five-fold increase. (Forrester Interactive Marketing Forecast 2007-2012). Given that Email consistently shows the highest ROI of any marketing vehicle from year to year, it begs the question: why are Canadian marketers so slow on the uptake?
Geoff Linton