Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing.
There are some advantages to using email marketing in comparison to traditional mail:
- Email’s immediacy reduces delays in communication, allowing businesses to run more smoothly.
- An exact return on investment can be tracked (“track to basket”) and has proven to be high when done properly.
- Email marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.
- Email Marketing is significantly cheaper and faster than traditional mail, mainly because of the high cost and time required in a traditional mail campaign for producing the artwork, printing, addressing and mailing.
- Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of email subscribers who have opted in (i.e., consented) to receive email communications on subjects of interest to them.
- Email marketing can be done to either cold lists or current customer database.
