Sometimes the benefits of email marketing are quite different than anticipated.

Most people will already understand the basic concept of email marketing, which is to email promotional materials to a large group of internet users for the purpose of promoting an interest in your products or services.

This concept is easy for many to understand, but sometimes there are additional benefits to email marketing.

This article will discuss the basics of email marketing and will also explain how email marketing can sometimes have a further reach than anticipated. This additional reach can be either a positive or a negative depending on the quality of the original emails and the reactions of the original recipients.

Email marketing is a very simple concept that is also extremely cost effective.

The general idea behind email marketing is that an email is sent to an email distribution list and these emails are intended to create an interest in the products or services offered by the originator of the email.

In theory, this concept could not be simpler but email marketing can get significantly more complicated.

One of the biggest complicating factors is the potential for the emails used in the marketing campaign to be viewed as spam by either the recipient of the email or the spam filter provided by the internet service provider. This potential alone creates a major complication because internet marketers have to make a significant effort to assure their messages are not trapped by a spam filter or immediately deleted by the recipients for appearing to be spam.

Once the email messages get through to the recipient, they have a small window of opportunity to make a positive impression on the recipients and influence them to make a purchase. Or, at least, visit the business website to research the products and services a little bit more. 

So, where does that leave us?

The goal of an email marketing campaign—convince the email recipient to either make a purchase or visit the website to obtain more information. Then, when an email recipient performs either one of these actions, we win. However, thanks to the power of the forward button, email marketing can actually be much more successful than this. 

The great aspect of email marketing is that when the email recipients receive an email, which they think is worthwhile, they are likely to make a purchase and may also forward the information to a friend or family member they think might be interested in this information as well.

The ability to forward email messages can be thought of similarly to word-of-mouth advertising in the way that consumers can tout the quality of the products or services they received. However, the ability to forward a worthwhile email message is exponentially more effective than using word of mouth to spread the word.

With just a few clicks of the mouse, the original email recipient can forward the message to several of his friends at once. This can result in significantly better results than the business owner had originally intended with no additional effort on behalf of the business owners.

But wait, there's more.

Now, how about we add in a referral program? Some type of campaign, thought out ahead of time, and that matches your own business plan (not one you just happen think up while driving to the grocery store). We make sure that the numbers make sense for you, while also making it as lucrative and enticing as possible for the happy client.

Now what?

Now you've begun to galvanize your email list to work for you.

All with the power of email marketing.