Wall Street Journal: Email Offers ‘Highest ROI’ for Marketers

Farewell Facebook and Twitter – the hot new way to communicate on the internet is still good old-fashioned email.

In fact, a recent report in the Wall Street Journal says it’s still best way for businesses to acquire customers and makes sales online.

After nearly 30 years on the Web, email is again touted as the up-close and personal way to get your business message across.

Email has another benefit. It’s direct and bypasses the Big Brother-style rules increasingly being imposed by the social media super-giants.

Email is “a way to fight back against the algorithms that try to dictate what people see,” says Wall Street Journal technology columnist Christopher Mims.

And it’s a bonanza for advertisers who want to target their customers inexpensively and more personably.

According to Association of National Advertisers, the largest marketing association in the world, while “email has been declared dead and dying many times over” it still remains “the most prolific tool for today’s data-driven marketer.”

“When executed well and delivered with relevance to engaged customers, email provides the highest ROI for modern marketers,” the ANA’s Data Marketing & Analytics says.

Newsmax.com, a major online email content provider with over 6 million opt-in subscribers across 70 verticals, says advertisers still love the response rates they get.

“Think about it,” Joe Fuentes, digital ad manager from Newsmax says, “When you get a new customer by email, they will be much more likely to respond to your future offers by email. They are email responsive by nature.

Fuentes says many native advertisers are seeking refuge with Newsmax emails after online content providers and networks continue to add algorithm restrictions.

“With Newsmax, your sponsored headlines can be an integral part of our breaking news,” he says, arguing email-sponsored content is good for advertisers and good for Newsmax readers who can see “relevant marketing pitches in their inbox.”

[See Newsmax Media Kit Here Now]

The Journal says marketers are subject to increasing costs when they use sponsored ads via platforms like Facebook and Google.

Email, on the other hand, allows authors to “intimately connect with readers, lets brands address their most loyal customers and budding startups develop armies of influencers,” the Journal’s Mims says.

Antoine Bonicalzi – Director of Marketing for the email marketing platform CyberImpact, and a member of the Forbes Communications Council – says marketers should strive to get personal to their audience through email.

“Instead of resorting to spam-like tactics, invest in your content strategy to attract an audience of prospects who are interested in the value that you provide. With time, build that relationship to the point where they don’t just know your business; they look forward to your emails and trust your opinion,” Bonicalzi writes on Forbes.com.

“”After all, focusing on making a genuine human connection is the foundation of any great marketing campaign.”

As the old adage goes, everything old is new again. And that”s certainly the case with email.

Note to Marketers: Check out how you can tap into the power of Newsmax emails by seeing our Media Kit – Click Here Now