Email marketing software has long been admired for its usefulness to assist businesses keep in touch with their customers, enhance their brand, and boost traffic to their website, store or event. However many online retailers are quickly realizing that eCoupons are the hidden gem of email marketing.

With fierce competition for the consumer's spending dollar, eCoupons allows both small and large businesses harness the power of email marketing to directly increase purchases from their online customer base.

If you visit any shopping mall you will see numerous window advertisements displaying "Inventory Clearance", "Big Sales", "Reduced Prices" and many more enticing business moves to draw in customers. The World renowned retailer, Wal-Mart, has accomplished great success with their "price rollback" marketing campaign. This time-after-time proves that, in the area of consumer psychology, people love any and all forms of discounts and every chance at a good deal. But, why should the advertisements of sales or discounts only be restricted to the offline world, when the online economy is exploding with just as many or more stores?

Many online stores have inquired about that exact question and have come to the understanding that it is completely foolish to ignore a sound marketing strategy as soon as you shift into the online business world. If special promotions can drive foot-traffic, then they can absolutely increase web traffic as well.

Large quantities of online retailers have begun using email marketing software to ease the transition into the online business world. They can start advertising online promotions that rival not only their direct competitors but also the industry leaders.

Since email marketing software is very simple to use and extremely affordable, it provides a level playing field between small and large online businesses. Needless to say, an online business with a marketing budget that Amazon has would vastly surpass that of the smaller online retailer. However that does nor mean smaller online businesses can't employ their own strategic promotions to compete with those of their larger counterparts.

With the correct email marketing software any and all small online retailers can put forward a professionally designed email marketing campaign that is as easy as only a few clicks of the mouse and at a cost of less than a penny per target. There are no ridiculous restrictions or excessive lead times necessary as the businessperson is only limited by his or her own strategic prowess.

A superb benefit of using email marketing to distribute eCoupons and to advertise other promotions is that everything is entirely measurable. After all, if you are unable to gauge the success of your efforts, then how can you determine if it was effective?

Unlike conventional paper coupons that are expensive to track, most top-notch email marketing software programs will provide for you free real-time reports on how your campaign is running. Picture being able to see, within seconds of sending your email, the number of people who have opened it or clicked on a link to redeem your coupon? With this knowledge at your fingertips, you can learn and therefore improve on your future email marketing campaigns. You will be able to determine if some eCoupons work better than others, or maybe sending your promotion at a specific time or day produces better results.

One aspect is definite, in a day and age where knowledge is power, knowing what eCoupons produce the greatest ROI will let you maximize each promotional dollar you spend.

With the increased number of businesses starting to send out eCoupons and online promotions, it is increasingly important for all online businesses to start compiling their customer email databases, this way they do not fall too far behind. The quicker you employ email marketing software as an ingredient of your marketing mix, the quickest you will be able to level the playing field and see how eCoupons will benefit your online business.