If we drop a catalogue in a home and then follow up with an e-mail a few days later, we find some people are prompted to pull the catalogue out of a magazine rack and order. Our data are pretty compelling. That represents more than 10 percent of the 40 million customer names it has collected from all its stores, mail-order business and Web site. We would not send e-mail about children's apparel to someone who has never bought children's apparel. That's greater than the half a percentage point rate for Internet banner ads and the 1 percent to 2 percent response rate to paper junk mail.
Costs compare even more favorably.
By contrast, each e-mail costs a penny to 5 cents to transmit, depending on volume. Increasingly, marketers are trying to marry our postal addresses with our e-mail addresses. L90 transmits 250 million e-mail a month on behalf of clients. This year we will triple the size of our e-mail business. We are sending out 200 million e-mails a month.