Graduate & Professional Schools > E-mail Marketing > E-mail vs. Traditional Media

E-mail marketing is cost effective

E-mail campaigns cost less then traditional direct marketing or advertising. And because e-mail marketing is highly targeted, e-mail campaigns get higher response rates.

Consider a situation where you want to market your open house to students, counsellors, parents, etc. You have three options:

1. Traditional advertising (e.g. placing an ad in a newspaper),
2. Traditional mail (mailing a post card invitation) or
3. An e-mail campaign.

E-mail marketing may cost less and gets better results. The result to you is a much lower cost per response.

	Traditional Media (newspaper)	Traditional Mail	E-mail Marketing
Creative Cost	$500	$500	$500
Placement Cost	$1,000	n/a	n/a
Printing Cost	n/a	$600	n/a
Distribution Cost	n/a	$2,400	$1,500
Total Cost	$1,500	$3,500	$2,000
Total Circulation	700,000	n/a	n/a
Total Pieces	n/a	5,000	5,000
Estimated Responses	10	50	n/a
Estimated Open E-mail	n/a	n/a	1,500
Estimated Clickthrough	n/a	n/a	100
Cost Per Response	$150	$70	$20

Note: We are not necessarily recommending you use only one marketing channel. This chart is meant to make a point about the effectiveness of e-mail marketing. Costs and response rates will vary.

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