The email marketing system software enables the marketer to collect contact information, populate the database, create email campaigns, integrate customer information from the database, and send email.

The email software typically has different levels of automation. Most email marketing systems enable the marketer to create sequences of emails that are automatically sent to subscribers at preset days and times. The pre-made email series is referred to as an autoresponder.

The email marketing system software will also enable a marketer to "broadcast" email to the contact list at will. For example, I published a weekly newsletter years ago that took some effort to assemble every week. The following image is an excerpt of my old newsetter.

I published this newsletter pre-WordPress days. And before HTML coded email. I monetized this newsletter by selling sponsor ads. Each issue included a guest article from other marketers and bloggers. Even then, I had an opt-out option for subscribers.

My email marketing system strategy was to publish a newsletter to build the relationship with people who had listed their businesses in my business directory.

There are other strategies for email marketing besides relationship building. Building a relationship with a subscriber facilitates a product/service offer later. Other purposes include:

• Selling a product or service – This is the most aggressive strategy. The idea is to send offers (sales pitches) to the point of the subscriber either buying or unsubscribing.
• Creating customer engagement – This strategy may take a long time, but it creates subscriber loyalty. This is the ultimate create a friend and then create a customer based on establishing trust.

Next: How to Build a Mailing List