Email Marketing

TL;DR: Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves sending commercial messages to a group of people via email. It is often used to promote products, services, or events, and can be highly effective when targeted and personalized.
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What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is an online marketing strategy which involves sending carefully crafted email messages to people on a mailing list. Such regularly sent emails are aimed at connecting with the audience and engaging them in a way that drives sales and increases loyalty.  

Although email marketing has been around for some time in the digital marketing landscape, it continues to be one of the most popular advertising tools to date. A large majority of the adults around the globe have access to at least one email address, making email marketing a popular choice for reaching a wide audience.

Types of Emails Used in Email Marketing

Email marketing is a form of direct, digital marketing designed to promote business products and services, while building relationships with customers. Companies investing in email marketing often use a variety of different types of emails to reach clients, such as:

Promotional emails: Email marketing campaigns are frequently intended to promote a something, such as a product or service. With promotional emails, you can draw attention to special offers, deals, sales, and more.

Informational emails: Newsletters and information-focused emails pull attention to the nature of the business and things the company accomplishes. The purpose of informational emails is to develop a relationship with the customer and build brand reputation.

Transactional emails: Transactional emails inform a customer about the details of their purchase, shipping times, and often thank customers for buying something. These emails also help with relationship building,

Email marketing can also be used to make announcements about important information, like changes to the structure of a business or new product arrivals.

What is Email Marketing Software?

Sending regular emails to customers to promote products and improve brand/customer relationships would be very difficult to do manually. Fortunately, email marketing software can assist with this process.

An email marketing solution can automate the process of sending emails to large groups of people. You can also arrange your email lists, and "segment" them to ensure the right messages reach the correct people. The software available often comes with segmentation tools to help distribute emails more effectively according to specific workflows.

Email marketing software often features themes and templates, so companies can build professional-looking emails without a lot of coding knowledge. There's also access to tools for analytics, reporting, and so on. 

Benefits of Email Marketing

Email marketing helps to fulfil a range of objectives for today's business leaders. If you're launching a sale or promotion, you can reach customers wherever they are. Most people have access to an email address at all times, particularly in the age of smartphones.

Email marketing is effective at driving conversions, particularly when companies promote the right sales, offers, or deals to customers. Other benefits include:

Improved brand awareness

Opportunities to build customer loyalty

Brand reputation development

Customer research and insights

Customer service

The right email marketing strategy can often accompany other plans for digital marketing which may include content marketing and social media advertising.

Updated February 17, 2024
Axel Grubba is the founder of Findstack, a B2B software comparison platform, with his background spanning management consulting and venture capital where he invested in software. Recently, Axel has developed a passion for coding and enjoys traveling when he is not building and improving Findstack.