Many businesses agree with you Jackie - it's still viewed as the most favorable ROI out of the online marketing mix as measured by MarketingSherpa's Search Marketing Benchmark Survey July 2007. Survey chart  Would be good to see how this rating has changed over the years along side the ROI decline.

Interesting data.

is this for postcards or those bulk mailings?

Wow interesting information. I honestly, believe that we could see this trend up, if marketers better asses every dollar attached to email. Marketers spend a lot of money sending non-revenue generating emails, but I believe there is still value in many messages. A company using email to convey a product recall or change in their pricing structure will undoubtedly asses the value of the communication over the value of the dollar attached to it. If a company decides to send a recall message to their customer base explaining that the tires they bought 6 months ago may fail, isn't the class action law-suit they avoid or the lives they save valuable? If so how is it calculated in the ROI of email. Sure this is just one possible scenario, but if you take into account the cost to keep a customer and the cost associated with trying to obtain a new one, I believe you will see the algorithm change a little bit.

Maybe I'm missing the boat completely in my observation but as marketers fight to get into the inbox, some level of effort and energy will have to be put into messaging more effectively and defining what is valuable and what is not. Just my two cents. Thanks for the news. Great read.