Internet has brought about a revolution in communications. Today, a computer with an Internet connection has become almost ubiquitous across the globe. Communications, through the web, transcend international boundaries, and have virtually shrunk the world. Communications have become fast, inexpensive, and convenient.

Emails are one of the early and convenient mediums devised for communication over the Internet. The business world has been quick to recognize the power and vast opportunities that emails communication has to offer, particularly for the implementation of marketing strategies.

The term ‘marketing’ refers to programs used to create, reach and persuade prospective customers to buy products or services. The aim is to first make the product or a service ‘visible’ to the world. Tools used to achieve this include mailers, advertisements, and public relations campaigns.

Email marketing involves sending mail-outs and newsletters for sales promotion by email. It is a cheap and convenient way of introducing your products and/or services to potential customers. Imaginatively designed mail-outs, using multi-media tools, can be very successful in catching the eye of consumers. They may also capitalize on sales promotion events and schemes. Emails can lead an interested reader straight to your website with just a click of a link. The website would then have further detailed marketing information, and may lead to an instantaneous sale. In this way email marketing has the power to catapult sales to new levels.

The various forms of email marketing are Opt-in emails, newsletters, network advertising, and unsolicited bulk emails.

Permission from the recipient is of utmost importance for your email marketing campaigns to work consistently. In Opt-in marketing - the most acceptable form, emails are sent only to those interested recipients who have subscribed to receive the communications. This form is in conformity with both law and current best practices.

The other effective email marketing technique uses simple text link advertising. This involves finding web sites that have regular visitor traffic from your market segment, and getting your website listed on these sites. It is one of the best self-sustaining interactive marketing processes to draw qualified traffic to your own website. Other effective techniques include combining special offers, invitations, and staying in touch with customers and prospects.

Unsolicited bulk e-mails (often referred to as ‘Spam’) are a nuisance as the recipients are forced to spend a substantial amount of time dealing with this deluge. According to recent figures, these constitute 36% of all email traffic on the net. This is more than 8% over last year’s figure. In most countries, unsolicited bulk emails have been declared illegal by law, and Internet Service Providers can blacklist the sender. Care should be taken to avoid untargeted ‘Spam’ mailings.

However, an over-zealous email marketing campaign can also turn counter-productive. To prevent a campaign from becoming ‘anti-marketing’ and resulting in a negative brand image, you must not send unprofessional multiple text messages to an entire list. The addressee list should be focused to include potential clients only. The other pitfalls to avoid are emails with large attachments and/or un-optimized heavy multi-media content. Check for broken links before sending. All these can be annoying to the recipients as they take a long time to download - especially on a slow Internet connection.

Email marketing is an incredibly effective tool. It gives your product/brand an edge in an otherwise tough competitive market. Finding another marketing method, which gives all the benefits that email marketing offers, appears well near impossible.