What is the worth of an email address?

What is the worth of an email address?

The value of an email address is Zero. Why? Read on.

Email marketers often speculate the value of an email address. You might hear compelling numbers backed by sober theories. Good email marketers spend time and money on acquiring an email address, where as not so good email marketers purchase email addresses from spammers at probably one fourth the cost (of genuinely acquiring an email address).

In addition there is revenue, conversions, ROI that email marketer’s measure against their email marketing efforts, all this should amount to something right?

Well it does, the value or the worth lies in the relationship and not the email address. You have a relationship with the person who owns that email address and not with the mere email address itself.

Why I’m highlighting this is because you can’t have a relationship with someone you do not know. So if you only have an email address your like a blindfolded chap in a dark room trying to have a conversation with an imaginary person. A real conversion requires engagement. Engagement requires you to know your subscribers, ask questions, find their opinions etc. Most importantly, engagement requires “two way conversation”, which cannot be initiated with just an email address.

An engaged subscriber is a valued subscriber. No engagement means zero value.