At its most basic level, email marketing can be described as touching your intended audience by using email. This particular method should be thought of in the same way as the use of direct postal mail, telemarketing, selling in person, websites, radio, and television. The reality is that email can be employed hand-in-hand with any or all of the above methods with often remarkable results.

Marketing using email is merely writing directly to a particular group of your target audience, to be specific, those who have provided you with specific permission to communicate with them via email. By specific permission, to be clear what is referred to is the action of clicking on a link that identifies the reader's intention to receive future information from you. In the case of a double optin list, the reader also must confirm his or her subscription by clicking on the link in a confirmation email sent their email address for that purpose.

It should be clear that email marketing should not automatically be labeled "spam"; i.e. unwanted commercial email. When email lists are managed as they should be, the recipient requests to be added to the email list, and in addition, every email they receive contains a mechanism for unsubscribing.

What is included in email marketing communications?

In general, email marketing messages will include:

News relevant to your industry or subject area. If you are marketing to professional dog trainers, you may want to inform your readers about lawsuits, new techniques, and the like. By providing relevant information and helpful interpretation of it, you will eventually become a trusted advisor to your readers.

Helpful tips and hints. One common use of email marketing is to provide introductory level training. A great example would be sending out a short course via email on how to get started playing the guitar. Or you could merely address one issue that new guitar players often struggle with.

Sales messages. Of course, this is why marketers maintain email lists... to sell something! What exactly you are encouraging your reader to do is going to vary depending on your circumstances. You might not always be asking your reader to part with their money, but you will normally be asking them to move farther down the sales funnel.

Common encouraged actions of email sales messages include:

* Checking out a sales page

* Call a phone number for information package

* Participating in a complimentary teleseminar

Commercial bulk emails can be classified as "broadcast" messages or "sequential" messages. The latter are often labeled "autoresponders" for the fact that process behind including a subscriber to your list is automated, and in addition, the system keeps track of when to send follow up messages.