Email Marketing is one of the most powerful and effective forms of marketing today.  It has emerged as a cost-effective, efficient, real time marketing channel defiantly challenging the traditional methods of customer contact. No other medium – offline or online – provides marketers with such a direct, personal, interactive and measurable customer communication capability and marketersare increasingly demanding e-execution capability within their marketing toolkit. The Direct Marketing Association has consistently reported that email garners the highest ROI among all direct response methods.
A recent study shows email marketing’s average ROI to be $45.06 for every dollar spent, more than double internet marketing ROI of $19.94 for every dollar spent.

It is a tragedy that email marketing is not being recognized and is given its fair share of marketing budget by Indian Marketers. The online ad spends in India represent just 3% of total media spend compared to 8 to 20% in developed markets. It is ironical that most of the online ad spend by Indian Marketers is spent on Display/Banner Ads and Searches, when more than 50% of the Indian online population is spending time on email compared to 18% to 25% of the time they spend on searching for information.

The above chart is a very nice presentation of the online consumer behaviour in India.

One of the reasons why India has not been able to realise this simple fact, is because of its lack of marketing legacy. We are a country where people could wait for a Maruti car for 6 months to be delivered. And right now when there is suddenly so much of competition among brands the old marketer is not able to understand the how to go about things. Moreover companies sold brands to masses rather to individuals.

In the US where the market is matured they understand how important it is to be constantly in touch with their customers, address their individual needs and gain their loyalty.

Eg: Virgin Atlantic immediately gratifies the passenger with $10+ worth food coupons or vouchers for giving their email ids. The marketing manager of Virgin Atlantic understands that if he is able to get his customers email id, how valuable the acquisition is for the airlines.

The growing online population and the increasing demand from consumers for more personalized needs, requires marketers to address these requirements quickly. Mostly email ids in India remain constant for a really long while in comparison with mobile phone numbers. And it is the only channel where the advertiser can have the most personalised and complete communication with the consumer.

The technology solutions and best practices for email marketing are available today in India for Marketers to jump and realize its potential to the fullest extent. Well, one has to watch and see the action. India has always been able to pull its socks quickly when it comes to absorption of technology and best practices, when it can provide higher returns!

What’s your opinion?

[Guest article by Saurav of Sprinkr]

Tags: email marketing business in india, email marketing campaigns, india online