What is email marketing?

Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing and, by most measures, one of the most consistently effective. Despite the proliferation of social media, email remains a direct and personal medium that gives businesses a level of control over their audience that algorithm-dependent channels do not. Understanding what email marketing is and why it works helps founders assess how to incorporate it into their marketing mix.

Email marketing is the practice of communicating with a list of subscribers by email — typically to nurture relationships, share useful content, promote products or services, or drive a specific action. Unlike social media, where the business depends on a platform to reach its audience, an email list is an owned asset: the business holds the relationship directly. Effective email marketing combines relevance and consistency — sending the right content to the right people at a frequency that maintains engagement.

Building an email list takes time, but the compounding value of an engaged subscriber base makes it one of the most valuable assets a small business can develop. Starting early allows a founder to build an audience ahead of launch. Our guide to email marketing for UK founders covers how to build a list, choose a platform, and create emails that get results.