Email marketing is a type of marketing that is conducted over the internet but, more specifically, over the medium of the internet. In this method of marketing, a sender of bulk email will create a mailer based on an HTML template, plug in the content – which may consist of images and text, and send it out to people that have subscribed to the sender to send these very messages. This permission to send sales and marketing promotional material has to be voluntary according to the mandates of the laws of most countries that do have some kind of anti-spam legislation. Permissions, or opt-ins, are obtained by sign-on forms that are placed on sites and user-registration pages.

Social networking is a more recent phenomenon, which is a website that is basically a huge club of people who want to connect with others. Most social networking sites have tools that allow for a member to find other possible friends until nearly everyone that the member knows is connected through a single website. There are many other functions that are available to members of social networking sites, including some of which can come be great use to email marketing as well.

We know that online marketing through email needs subscribers to drive it forward; and we know that social networking is all about users; therefore, it would seem obvious that the twain should come together for a mutually beneficial relationship. This is something that unfortunately has not been done yet because many people would rather keep business and social networking separate; besides, no social networking site will reveal its email addresses to any entity. So, how would a possible tie up work?

Fan pages are the way out. Most social networking sites have specialized microsites and pages where people of similar interests can network and interact; therefore, by creating a fan page for a famous product, you can end up tapping more users than you can even imagine. On this fan page, you can simply place a link to your sign-on form and this will be your gateway to getting subscribers by not breaking the rules of the social networking site. What is really interesting is that you don’t even have to sit in a boardroom with the owners of the website and sign away half your equity for something like this. It is completely free for all to use.

This is one of the few tricks in email marketing that has been adopted by companies that sell cars, lighters, alcohol, and even music companies. What drives this is the fame of the brand, so before getting into a venture like this, you need to be certain that your brand is well known enough to get a response. It is also worth noting that you have to allow your users to come to you and not send mail to arbitrary users. If you do this, there is a link to every message where a user can identify spam mail and you could end up being blacklisted from using the site ever again.