Email marketing is a form of outreach that can be convenient, relatively quick, and inexpensive. However, these are not the only or even the biggest benefits that email marketing strategies can provide. Arguably the most important benefits of email marketing are its effectiveness and its encouragement of customer loyalty that is implicit in the campaign. These campaigns are done electronically with fewer expenses than are attached to traditional marketing campaigns (direct mail marketing, for example, can cost businesses more because of the cost of postage, paper, printing and more). So, for little money, a business can reach large amounts of people at once with their marketing messages, promotions, and deals in an effort to generate loyalty.

Why run email marketing campaigns? Since marketing was invented by John Wanamaker in the 1870s, businesses have been using various solutions to generate leads and spread awareness about their products. Just as the invention of television allowed businesses to raise awareness through commercials, the invention of the internet opened a multiplicity of marketing doors as well. One of these metaphorical doors was sending out an email newsletter regularly, which gives companies a cheap way to reach large groups of people at once with the click of the "send" button. These people can quickly turn into loyal customers who may, in turn, turn into brand advocates. They may then turn around and tell all of their friends that your company sent them an awesome deal via email – and before you know it, you have word-of-mouth marketing working in your business's favor, too.

So, how do you generate an effective email newsletter? Email newsletter software allows companies to easily run email campaigns as well as measure results. Not only does such software track emails, but it also provides data for analysis and records customer responses. Therefore, businesses can better analyze how effective their marketing strategies are by studying the statistics provided by the software. This data, plus email marketing's overall effectiveness and affordability, makes it an extremely profitable solution for businesses.

In fact, a survey conducted by Forbes Media recently revealed that email marketing is the second-most effective tool utilized by businesses.  The percentage of people who use the email as a jumping off point to click through to a business's website is high – as is the rate at which customers actually open email related to the business (between 20 and 40%). Being able to track this kind of success is indispensable for businesses, and is one of the main reasons why email marketing is still used in the age of social media, SEO and other innovative interactive marketing techniques.

So, if a company is able to create a well-designed, targeted (a general, mass email won't work- it should be specific to the audience) email that goes out to customers who have "opted-in" or somehow expressed interest in receiving interactive marketing messages from the company, email marketing can quickly,  inexpensively  and dramatically increase traffic and sales.