Most marketers can never tell with authority just how effective their direct mail marketing efforts were, and how tactics could be improved. You canвЂ™t really address individual customers, unless you want to manually write their names on a blank space.ДЇinally, direct mail provides no clear data regarding reach, attention, and conversion. On top of the cost factor, direct mail offers limited personalization possibilities. Flyers and postcards are even more costly items to produce.

Printed letters can be costly when you factor in the cost to send them out.

Luckily for todayвЂ™s marketers, itвЂ™s no longer necessary to print out hundreds of the same thing in order to reach customers. Through the process of sorting mail, theyвЂ™d find bills, personal letters, and marketing promotions. The first email message was not sent until 1971 by email creator, Ray Tomlinson.ДЇor all messages between companies and customers prior to that point (and certainly in some cases even today), customers would walk outside their houses to their mailbox to receive these mail items. The Days of Postal Mail MarketingД«efore the birth of electronic mail messages, business marketers relied on traditional mail to send forth their marketing messages, that might include: Take a look at this brief history of email marketing, and see how much it has changed the way business marketing works. People understand what it is now, but understanding how it evolved can provide a more in-depth understanding about it. According to a recent report (as of August 2016), over 205 billion emails are sent daily, and there are more than 4.6 billion active email accounts, with over 2.6 billion active users.Д®mail marketing has become an integral part of everyday business transactions. In fact, email marketing has reinvented itself many times, and so far has managed to avoid being cast aside by its users. Despite the increase of social media usage in marketing, email marketing hasnвЂ™t ever seemed to waver as a favored marketing tactic.

ItвЂ™s hard to deny that email is one of the most direct channels for reaching customers.

Brief history of advertising