What is Email Marketing?
As a key part of many marketing strategies, email marketing is one of the most effective and affordable ways for businesses to reach customers. It allows organizations to send targeted, personalized messages directly to customers and potential customers to promote products or services, and build lasting relationships
For professionals in the marketing field, understanding how email marketing works and why it’s so impactful can open the door to new career opportunities. This guide covers what email marketing is, why email marketing is important, different types of campaigns, the benefits, and how to build an effective strategy.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a key component of an overall marketing strategy. It involves the use of emails to keep customers informed about company news, limited-time offers, product updates, and more. When executed well, email marketing is a powerful communication tool that helps build relationships with potential customers and supports sales efforts.
In today’s increasingly digital world, candidates with email marketing experience are a valuable asset to businesses across all industries. For those interested in marketing, understanding the power of email marketing can provide a competitive advantage.
Common Types of Email Campaigns
Email marketing can be used in many ways to support an organization’s goals. Common types of campaigns include:
- Newsletters: Provide regular updates, insights, or educational content to keep subscribers informed.
- Promotional emails: Highlight sales, events, or limited-time special offer to drive immediate action.
- Welcome emails/onboarding: Introduce new subscribers to the brand, products, or services through a series of scheduled email messages.
- Abandoned cart emails: Remind customers of items left in their online shopping cart, and incentivize them to complete the purchase.
- Re-engagement emails: Reach out to inactive subscribers with new content, reminders, or special offers to encourage interest.
- Transactional emails: Confirm purchases, provide shipping updates, or deliver receipts and other account notifications.
Each of these types of email campaigns can be used individually or as part of a broader marketing strategy.
Benefits of Email Marketing
When compared to other types of marketing, email is one of the most measurable, convenient, and inexpensive ways to promote a company’s products or services. It can boost communication efforts, engage customers, and support sales efforts.
Here are some facts to remember when considering using email campaigns:
Affordable for Any Budget
Even small businesses can afford to launch professional email marketing campaigns, thanks to entry-level plans and free setup widely available on multiple platforms. Mailchimp’s free plan, for example, allows 1,000 emails per month and up to 500 contacts. Paid email marketing platforms typically range from $10 to $350 per month, depending on features, list, and size. In contrast, traditional advertising on tv, print, and online display ads can cost 30 to 60 times more.
Delivers Exceptional Return on Investment
Email marketing remains a high-performing and essential channel for driving revenue and engagement. According to a recent study, for every $1 companies spend on email campaigns, 35% see an average return of $10 to $36. Personalization, segmentation, and automation contribute to maximizing ROI.
When it comes to ROI by industry, the Litmus breaks it down in more detail:
Retail, ecommerce, and consumer goods: 45:1
Marketing, PR, and advertising agencies: 42:1
Software and technology: 36:1
Media, publishing, events, sports, & entertainment: 32:1
These numbers demonstrate just how cost-effective email marketing is across industries.
Drives Real Results
According to a study done by McKinsey & Company as reported by Forbes, people are three times more likely to make purchases from email marketing than social media. Additionally, 59% of consumers say that email marketing impacts their purchasing decisions.
Reaches Target Audience Anytime, Anywhere
With approximately 85% of users using smartphones to access email, businesses now have the power to reach audiences through email marketing 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, from wherever they are. This makes email one of the most reliable marketing channels for delivering timely messaging.
Email Usage Is Rapidly Growing
As of 2025, there are an estimated 4.5 billion email users worldwide, and that number is projected to exceed 4.8 billion by 2027. This growth highlights email’s continued dominance as a communication channel.
Streamlined and Scalable
Thanks to email automation tools and email marketing templates, marketing teams can create, schedule, and send emails to millions of customers with just a few clicks. Utilizing these tools helps teams work smarter, not harder.
Strengthens Customer Relationships
By appearing consistently in subscriber inboxes, a company increases its chances of building long-term relationships with its audience and creates more opportunities for interaction with the brand. Email also enables personalization based on each subscriber’s preferences. And thanks to email analytics, businesses can track customer clicks and identify the type of content that generates the most engagement, allowing them to adapt messaging to align with customer behaviors.
How Does Email Marketing Work?
Email marketing supports an organization’s overall marketing strategy through targeted campaigns. Each campaign typically coordinates with a marketing promotion and includes a specific call to action (CTA). Evaluating email marketing effectiveness ensures these campaigns reach the right audience and achieve the desired results. These campaigns are often sent through email service providers such as Mailchimp, Drip, Cakemail, Constant Contact, Brevo, and HubSpot.
Once the advantages of email marketing are understood, the next step is putting knowledge into action. Here are best practices to help organizations create effective email marketing campaigns:
1. Build a List
To connect with a large audience, a business first needs to grow a strong email list. Some tools to utilize include:
Email opt-in forms placed strategically throughout a website lets visitors know how to sign up for company news, sales, and new product arrivals.
Pop-up forms can be strategically timed during the user’s site navigation to encourage sign-ups.
Social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram are a great way to utilize a brand’s following and cross-promote email campaigns.
Incentives for signing up, such as a discount, free eBook, or exclusive content.
Regardless of the method used to build an email list, customers should be made clear about what subscribers can expect. Otherwise, emails could be marked as spam, which can lead to missed communications.
2. Send Quality Content
The purpose of email is to deliver valuable, relevant information to readers. However, if content and delivery aren’t quality, messages are likely to get ignored.
So, what makes an email high quality?
It adds value. Every email sent should benefit the audience in some way. This could be through providing useful tips or advice, sharing exclusive content, or offering a discount.
It has an enticing subject line. The subject line of an email is the single line of text your subscribers see when a message shows up in their inbox. It can often be the deciding factor as to whether or not someone opens the email. Effective subject lines are short (around 60 characters), specific, and personalized.
It’s mobile-friendly. With 85% of people reading email on mobile devices, content should be optimized for the experience. Best practices include using visual elements, keeping copy concise, and putting the most important message at the top so readers don’t have to scroll to find it.
It has a clear objective. Every email should guide the reader toward a specific CTA, such as making a purchase, registering for a class, or donating to a cause.
It aligns with your brand. From the design to the copy, emails should follow an organization’s brand guidelines and have a consistent look and feel. This helps with brand recognition and builds familiarity and trust with the target audience.
3. Utilize Automation
Email automation allows businesses to automatically send messages to subscribers when triggered by specific actions. For example, when a new subscriber signs up, a thank you message can be immediately sent to their inbox. This helps maximize marketing efficiency.
Automation also makes it easier to stay in touch with subscribers on a regular basis so that they stay engaged with brands. Consistent scheduling ensures that customers don’t go for long stretches of time without hearing from their favorite brands.
4. Leverage Analytics
To optimize email marketing efforts, organizations must track what’s working and what’s not in order to make improvements along the way. Email analytics provide the insight to do just that. Most email marketing tools use tracking features to automatically gather data for each campaign, including metrics for open rates, click-through rates (CTR), conversions, and unsubscribe.
WebFX reports these benchmarks:
Average open rate: 19.21%
Average click-through rate: 2.44%
Unsubscribe rate: 0.89%
Understanding analytics is a win-win for both organizations and subscribers. Recipients get a better email experience, and companies gain actionable data that can be used to help generate more leads and drive sales.
Email Marketing Job Titles
For college students studying business, marketing, or communications, a career in email marketing can be a natural fit. These career fields often combine creativity, analytics, and strategy—all skills that can be developed through college coursework, internships, and entry-level roles. Common email marketing job titles include:
Email Marketing Coordinator. This role involves scheduling emails, managing subscriber lists, and assisting with campaign reports. It is typically an internship or entry-level position.
Email Marketing Specialist. Managing email campaigns from start to finish—including writing copy, designing from a template, setting up automations, and analyzing performance metrics—are common responsibilities for this job. Building a portfolio can be key to being hired in this role.
Email Marketing Manager. This leadership role is typically responsible for overall strategy and results. Managers ensure campaigns align with business objectives and may oversee teams of employees, usually after gaining several years of industry experience.
Challenges of Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful strategy for reaching audiences, but it’s not without its challenges:
Deliverability. Even the most attention-grabbing emails won’t drive results if they end up in spam folders. List management, using verified domains, and following anti-spam regulations are essential.
Engagement. This is one of the biggest challenges in email marketing. Low open rates can be caused by anything from weak subject lines to poor timing. Sending tailored content through personalization and segmentation can improve open and click-through rates.
Competition. The email marketing space is highly competitive, making it difficult to stand out in a crowded inbox. Well-designed, relevant emails with catchy subject lines can help emails grab attention.
Email overload. Sending too many emails can lead to unsubscribers, while sending too few can cause subscribers to lose interest. Finding the right balance takes careful planning, testing, and data analysis.
Privacy regulations. Laws like GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CCPA require marketers to adhere to consent, data collection, and transparency requirements. This can impact campaign strategies.
What Are the Best Email Marketing Tools?
The good news is that businesses today have plenty of options when it comes to email marketing tools and software.
So, how do you pick the best one for your business?
First, it's important to ensure the email service provider (ESP) aligns with specific business needs. For example, a business may need flexible pricing, 24/7 support, or a large library of templates to choose from. Other companies may need more advanced automation features or integration with existing tools and processes.
Essential features to look for in an ESP include:
Robust analytics reporting
Mobile-ready designs
An intuitive email builder
Design and spam testing
Integrations and plug-ins
Selecting the right platform can lead to the ability to deliver high-impact email campaigns. Here are a few email marketing tools to consider:
Mailchimp
Mailchimp offers a drag-and-drop email builder, audience segmentation, and marketing automation. It integrates with platforms like WordPress, Shopify, and social media for streamlined campaigns.
Drip
Drip is built for eCommerce and digital marketers, with advanced automation and personalized workflows. It also provides revenue attribution to measure the ROI of your campaigns.
Cakemail
Cakemail makes it easy to design, send, and track professional emails. Its templates, contact management, and real-time analytics help improve engagement.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is known for its ease of use, large template library, and event marketing features. It also includes surveys, polls, and social media posting tools.
Brevo
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) offers email, SMS, and WhatsApp campaigns in one platform. It includes marketing automation, transactional email tools, and a built-in CRM.
HubSpot
HubSpot combines email marketing with CRM, automation, and lead tracking. It’s an all-in-one inbound marketing platform for growing businesses.
Learn More About Email Marketing with a Degree from WGU
If using email marketing to sell products and attract customers sounds exciting, earning a marketing degree could be the ideal educational path. A digital marketing fundamentals certificate or an online marketing degree from WGU teaches the skills to understand how email, website, social media, direct mail, and other channels work together as part of a larger strategy. Learn more about marketing and business degree programs, and take the first step towards building your expertise in this dynamic and evolving field.
