I came across this article claiming that online channels such as email marketing were now becoming credible enough to rival offline channels like direct mail. There may be some merit to this observation, but there is one critical component that will always cripple email marketing when compared to offline mediums like direct mail, and that is the ability to get a list.
In direct mail, marketers have always been able to purchase a variety of mailing lists from brokers and other list owners/providers. Direct mail marketers never had to contend with the problem of developing or building a list every time they wanted to do a campaign outside of simply purchasing the correct list from someone. If they purchased a list they never had to worry if everyone on the list was "opt-in" or all the legal problems that were caused by the idiots in our Congress with the CAN-SPAM act of 2003 that did nothing to stop really egregious spammers, but added all kinds hurdles for small businesses to overcome.
However email marketers have all of these problems and more to deal with. First, they have to actually build a list name by name of opt-in subscribers. Now to be fair, some magazines will send out email marketing messages to their subscribers on your behalf, but they will never give you those names to mail your campaign to as direct mail list providers do. Therefore, while you can technically still do a campaign without building a list first you are severely limited in your control over how the piece looks and works. This of course takes a lot of power out of how well an email marketing campaign can and should work.
The second problem you face assuming you can get a list from anyone is to know if the entire list is really opt-in. If you fail to do this and someone that gets your email marketing messages files a CAN-SPAM complaint against your company you could be facing some stiff fines and penalties and possibly even criminal charges.
Therefore, it seems to me until a source of 100% verifiable opt-in lists can be purchased from a source and you can send your email message directly to the user rather than through a proxy and not have to sweat out the heavy hand of government coming down on you every time you send a campaign then email marketing will never be as accepted or as easy to perform as direct mail.
Email marketing has wonderful advantages in terms of customization, branding, speed, tracking, and response that direct mail will never be able to rival. Unfortunately, the problems with SPAM, morons in Congress and technical limitations will always keep email marketing a second tier marketing option unless you build your own list to market to or the laws and technology make it more feasible.
