Email marketing is the art of introducing your product or service to the general public without being accused of disseminating SPAM. To this end, email marketing companies have sprung up which promise to handle your marketing campaigns and which will craft specific email marketing strategies germane not only to your product but also to your target audience.

You will need to make sure that you find a reputable firm with whom to throw in your advertising lot, since those who are on the slightly shady side of doing business will not shy away from sending your name, business information and contact emails to addresses derived from rather questionable sources, thus leaving you open to complaints of spamming which at best are embarrassing but at worst may result in loss of business and even lawsuits.

Email marketing further refers to the methodology of employing a number of winning strategies that have proven to work for other companies with a similar target audience. Quite possibly the most commonly used form of email marketing refers to the opt in form of email list subscription. An email marketing firm may in this case compose a monthly newsletter for you which are sent out in your name.

Together with a few articles or maybe some trivia questions there will be links to your products and sales offers. This form of marketing is perhaps the most commonly seen form since it not only permits you to remind current customers of your goods or services but if your newsletters are well crafted, the odds are good that they will also be passed on via emails by your customers to their friends, thus widening the circle of recipients that will see your ads.

Interestingly enough, email marketing is sometimes done in more surreptitious, albeit ethical ways, namely by means of the free online magazine. Consider the many niche magazines that have sprung up on the Net. There are the ones that cater to new moms, the ones that are made up for the car aficionados, the many which are crafter with hobby gardeners in mind and of course the ones that appeal to educators.

All of these are not only placed on websites but also emailed back and forth. Generally it is the niche that was created first usually by identifying a target group and a magazine was constructed around this niche. While in these cases your business will not be the only one that is being marketed, you may find that you are in quite reputable company, which in turn will serve to boost your reputation.

Sure, there are also other facets to email marketing but in answer to the question, what is it anyway, the only possible way to respond is simply to say that email marketing is the equivalent of the catalog of yesteryears that was avidly expected, looked forward to and then shared among friends and family.