Email marketing software refers to a computer application which provides the ability to send bulk email to target audiences. The intent is usually to send newsletters or promotional materials to opt-in lists of subscribers, although the software can be used to send unsolicited email. The software typically includes a database that stores contact information, campaign statistics, and message history. The interface provides features necessary to run an email campaign, such as message sending, contact entry, contact importing, and reporting. Software packages range in price from free, to about five hundred US dollars. Some companies charge a monthly fee. There are also enterprise solutions that can cost thousands of dollars a month to manage large enterprises mass marketing email campaigns.

[edit] Advantages

• Email Marketing software speeds up the process of direct marketing by sending personalized email messages to a customer or prospect
• A Gallup poll found over 67% of Internet users send and receive email regularly and email outranks other online activities including shopping, downloading music, or reading blogs. ^[1]
• Most email marketing software includes a scheduler which can send emails automatically. This allows marketers to adhere to a marketing plan without much intervention.
• With email, frequency is free. A business or organization can communicate with people, keep teaching them, keep trying to turn them into customers. And it's free, which is attractive to any business trying to reduce costs.^[2]
• Business can use email marketing software to make their communications appear more professional. Many email marketing software packages include templates for attractive emails.
• Businesses can have access to tools that provide reports in tracking delivery, click rate and field visited by recipient.

[edit] Features

Most email marketing software has features that assist the user in the process of organizing contacts, creating campaigns, and scheduling communication. In addition, the software usually provides features, such as an "unsubscribe check" that assist in complying with the CAN-SPAM law. Email marketing software can also provide tracking functions such as how many people have opened an email, how many emails bounced back, how many people visited the hyperlinks provided in the marketing message, and how many people actually purchased something as a result of the email. Each email service provider has their own take and approach to these different features.

Some of the most common features are:

• Ability to create and send personalized email using data from a customer database.
• Ability to import customer lists
• Split campaign testing and segmented lists
• Automatic unsubscribe and bounce-back handling
• Ability to authenticate to SMTP and POP servers or send directly with an internal server
• HTML and plain text editor for creating messages
• Reporting features such as bounce-back, opens, and link click reports
• Tracking abilities such as tracking who has opened the email, usually by using a web bug

[edit] See also