E-mail marketing advertising wizard. Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to: sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business. Sending emails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately, adding advertisements to emails sent by other companies to their customers, and sending e-mails over the Internet, as email did and does exist outside the Internet. Email marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of Internet advertising. This is because there are many distinct advantages to the concept of email marketing. However, email marketing does have some disadvantages as well. Email marketing certainly has a set of unique advantages over other types of marketing both online and offline. Perhaps one of the most significant advantages to email marketing is the ability to reach a worldwide audience with minimal effort. It is certainly possible to reach a worldwide audience with other types of advertising but traditional types of advertising such as television, radio and the print media are not nearly as effective for reaching potential customers around the world all at once. Another major advantage to email marketing is it is extremely affordable. A mailing list provides the ability to distribute information to a wide range of specific, potential customers at a relatively low cost.