This article started out as a "top ten reasons to have an email newsletter". It's probably going to have to be a series. This is just the first of several, but it is a big one: COST. Of course, we intuitively all know email is less expensive than postage. Here is a deeper dive into actual costs in the real world. It's painful to see what a printed campaign would cost you. If you're a small business, the cost difference could be the difference between taking a tropical vacation this year!

The biggest reason is the extremely high cost of the U.S. Postal Service. Now, for what they are able to do - transporting handwritten notes of varying quality acrossthe country with dizzying speed - the cost is unbelievable! However, we are talking about regular, repeated communications - you know, the kind of thing that computers and the Internet were designed to do!

The cost to send a newsletter via the US Postal Service has gone from $.33 in 1999 to $.45 in 2012. That is more than a 36% increase in costs. In a world where costs must continually decrease to be competitive, that just doesn’t fly anymore! Email is charged on a per subscriber basis. So, you can immediately see how things can be far more cost effective.

Example

Let’s try an example of 1000 subscribers where we compare email to a printed newsletter once per month.

Let’s say you have Green Bay Net design you a set of killer newsletter templates. We’ll consider that to be in your “production costs”. Typically, this will be an infrequent cost of no more than a few thousand per year. For this example, let’s say it’s $2000. This production cost would be the same for a printed newsletter.

Typically, clients will have someone on their staff write content, but let’s put a value on that as well. Per issue, for content, let’s assume a fixed production cost of $500 for copywriting, photography, promotions, etc. This would also be the same versus a printed newsletter.

Now, we have printing, the most inexpensive you are going to be able to print 1000 sheets is going to be in range of $.10/ea. Possibly a little less for black-in, and potentially quite a bit more for full color. We’re going to be conservative.

Here's how things add up:

That’s pretty good. Email is nearly half the cost of printed newsletters including all the production costs! However, if you recall, this was closer to a worst case scenario. Consider that 1000 subscribers costs the same as sending to 2000. Also, you can send more than once a month! It is very realistic to see how you can get your per subscriber cost down to just a few dollars for a full-fledged, professional email campaign whereas a print campaign can easily hit $20 or more per subscriber per year. That's "value menu" versus "fine dining" price differences!

That's just the start! Let's get going on revving up your business!

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