Email is a workhorse for important communication and engagement plus driving sales. Because of this plenty of time has been spent analyzing the return on investment email delivers.

Email is reported to produce the highest ROI of any other channel. Current estimates from the DMA report that for every $1 invested in email marketing the ROI is $43. The closest runner up is organic search marketing at $21 (less than half).

The DMA estimate that the average value of an email is about $44. Other estimates go as high as $141. So, your email list is a valuable asses to your company.

What Role Does Email Marketing Play in Your Marketing Mix?

The biggest “oomph” comes from sending emails to your own house file and assuredly this is why the ROI looks so good! Other channels such as paid search, search engine optimization, direct mail and print bear the brunt of seeking out and stimulating "first contact" with new customers by driving traffic to our website.

So, to be fair we should expect great results from email sent to our house file instead of an outside list.Especially when email as a channel is not bearing the cost of driving the traffic that results in the on-site sign ups. Start working these costs into email and you soon get a different picture.

Email Is Not A Stand Alone Marketing Channel

Email promotions are essential to creating successful marketing programs and driving sales but email is not a stand alone marketing channel. Email is almost wholly reliant on other channels to drive traffic.Where email excels is in delivering back-end communication, fulfillment, messaging and driving sales from  your customer database.

Its still an open dabate whether email can make money with names the company has no established relationship or previous contact. But I can guarantee you that sending out email to non-house lsts will give you much lower ROI.