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Therein lies the future of e-mail. Spam messages aimed at attracting customers are ineffective; people are even less likely to respond to e-mail from unfamiliar sources than they are to answer paper junk mail. Jupiter Media Metrix, based in New York City, estimates that marketers pay $125 to attract each new customer using e-mail and only $66 using direct mail. But customers are more receptive to firms they already do business with. Inducing an existing customer to make a new purchase costs $6 using e-mail, vs. $18 for direct mail. Says Jared Blank, a digital-commerce analyst at Jupiter: "They're good for different things."
Before the anthrax scare, Jupiter predicted that companies would increase their spending on e-mail marketing by 80% in 2001, but that only 3.5% of the new spending would come from direct-mail campaigns. He doesn't expect the anthrax scare to make a permanent dent in those numbers. And even if more poisonous letters emerge in the months ahead, they're not likely to wipe out direct mail. Says Blank: "People are just very attached to paper."