Email marketing is, as the name suggests, the use of email in marketing communications.
What sort of email?
In its broadest sense, the term covers every email you ever send to a customer, potential customer or public venue. In general, though, it's used to refer to:
- Sending direct promotional emails to try and acquire new customers or persuade existing customers to buy again
- Sending emails designed to encourage customer loyalty and enhance the customer relationship
- Placing your marketing messages or advertisements in emails sent by other people
Give me an analogy...
You can think of these three main forms of email marketing as the electronic equivalent of:
- Direct mail
- Sending people a print newsletter
- Placing advertisements in subscription magazines and newspapers
There is, however, one extremely important difference - the issue of permission (see later).
Why is email marketing so popular?
Email marketing is so popular because:
- sending email is much cheaper than most other forms of communication
- email lets you deliver your message to the people (unlike a website, where the people have to come to your message)
- email marketing has proven very successful for those who do it right