Traditional Mailing gives a lower ROI. Less freedom to the receiver. Costs more. It’s not always easy nor possible to measure the returns from it.

Therefore, my answer is: Cheap, Direct and measurable.

Compared to other means, mailing is a cheap way to physically arrive to your prospects. It’s one of the cheapest way to trasmit your offer to a large number of potential clients. For this reasons, many companies use these marketing strategy in such a period of crisis.
The same thing happens with e-mailing: in addition, this is more recent than mailing and arrives directly to your target.
Which one of these 2 ways is more effective? And, which one is able to guarantee the higher returns?
I believe that, almost for all sectors, E-mail marketing is more effective and efficient AND provides higher returns, but most of all, more easily measurable than traditional mailing. With a Web Analytics tool (copying and pasting a tracking code into the HTML of the e-mail) it will be possible to get a clear view of how many accesses and conversions actually came from e-mailing. with mailing campaigns, 90% of the times you won’t be able to measure the returns that easily.

Other than the marketing considerations and web analytics information, a recent study from the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) on a target of people from the USA showed how ROI from mailing campaigns has an average of 15,55$ per dollar spent, while ROI from e-mailing campaigns (DEM) has an average ROI of 45$.

Therefore, according to me it seems like e-mailing is the best way for the user to get to an audience with success. It’s also easier, cheaper, and makes it easy to delete the communication with no impact on the environment. Other than that, you can save the message with no need to acquire additional furniture or you can drop the message into the spam and decide not to receive any additional communication from that sender. Traditional Mailing does not give to the receiver this simplicity.

In my opinion, in this period of crisis
CHEAP and DIRECT is the best solution.

A solution to be carefully put in place, with a clear and define strategy.

The results must be measured on a daily basis with a valid web analytics tool and graphycal layout, written content and target must be corrected according to the results.

I know a couple of web analytics tools that are great in this.