The average retailer spends about 10% of its Internet marketing budget on email, even though email is by far the best marketing value online. According to a study by Forrester Research for Shop.org, it costs an average of $71.89 to get an order using banner ads, $26.75 using paid search, and $17.47 through affiliate programs. Each order costs only $6.53 using email sent to a company’s customer email list.

That’s the average. But fashion retailer Barney’s has increased response to its email campaigns tenfold by 1) using simpler messages–featuring one product per email rather than 10 or 12, and 2) carefully mining existing data from its web site to target offers to the right buyers.

What if you’re not in retail? The same approach may pay off for you.

• some non-retailers may have a better sense of how to target specific offers to the right customers.
• some non-retailers may have smaller customer email lists, thus reducing costs.
• everyone can benefit from simple offers targeted to the right customers.

If you’re not using email as part of your online marketing, give it a try. You may improve your return and reduce your spend.

Read all about it in Fast Company.