The use of email marketing implies the development of a clear and structured strategy. This includes the definition of concrete email marketing targets, which are to be reached through individual measures, e.g. newsletters, stand-alone campaigns or transaction emails. We have compiled an overview of the most important goals, which can be pursued with email marketing.
Email marketing is not an autonomous area of the marketing mix. The email marketing targets must therefore always be derived from superior marketing methods, and assist in the achievement of attaining set goals. In order to specify the achievement of targets and optimise measures accordingly, the targets must be operational. Here, email marketing plays off one of its strengths: the comprehensive measurability through a multitude of performance figures. Even email marketing targets, which can technically not be measured, can be operationalised. Customer satisfaction or image can be determined, e.g. via surveys. Targets are naturally not independent, but affect each other. Increasing awareness has an effect on the acquisition of new customers. These dependences must be taken into consideration when setting targets. The following email marketing targets can be achieved:

Sales

One of the most pursued emailo marketing targets is probably the generation of sales. Especially in retail, it is often the only goal. The task of the email is to take customers either to an online shop where they can immediately buy the clicked offer, or to a POS, where they can find the promoted products. With more complex products, e.g. in B2B, a direct buy impulse through email marketing is rare. Email marketing, however, can help to prepare a future purchase decision through explanation of the product (pre-sales). In this case, the email should not refer to a shop but to a landing page with information.

Acquisition of New Customers

The acquisition of new customers is about turning users, who are not yet customers of your company, into customers. As email marketing is permission marketing, you can only reach users who have already subscribed to your newsletter. And these subscribers are primarily users who are interested in your products, i.e. are already customers.
The acquisition of new customers in email marketing is therefore linked to the acquisition of new newsletter subscribers. You can spark the interest of potential newsletter recipients through incentives such as vouchers, competitions, or attractive special offers. Especially in B2B, content marketing is also suitable. You can attract potential newsletter recipients with interesting specialised information, initially without direct product reference.
A special challenge is to turn users, who are currently customers of a competitor, into your own customers. Here, it is a case of precisely analysing the competitive offers and highlighting  the benefits of your own offers. Another option to reach users who are not newsletter subscribers yet, is the integration of SWYN links in your newsletter. SWYN links allow recipients to share newsletter contents with their social media contacts via a click.
New customer acquisition is also about quality. A single long-term customer with great willingness to buy is often more valuable than 100 customers who only subscribe to the newsletter because of a specific offer and then go astray again or only buy infrequently for small amounts. You should bear this in mind for the acquisition of new customers. Do not expect too much in the beginning. Most new customers will not spend half a month’s wages in your shop with their first purchase. The acquisition of new customers is only a first step for further customer development and the generation of regular sales.

Increase Brand Awareness

The company or brand awareness shows how many users in a target group know the company or brand. Awareness can be detected as brand recognition or brand recall. Brand recognition means that the user remembers a brand once it has been explicitly mentioned or shown to him. To achieve strong brand recognition is an important target, especially for FMCG (Fast Moving Customer Goods) or low-involvement products, as the customer is ready for spontaneous purchases, when he sees the brand at the POS and is reminded of it. Brand recall means that the user remembers the brand when the product category is mentioned to him. A high brand recall is necessary especially for high-involvement products. When buying a car or a software product in B2B, your offers must already be present in the relevant set of the user prior to planning a future purchase.
Brand recognition can be increased through frequent contact with the brand. This target is easily reachable when your newsletter has a high send frequency anyway. If this is not the case, you should not excessively increase the send frequency, as you may risk the newsletter recipients feeling harassed and as a result unsubscribe. To increase the brand recall, however, a high contact frequency is not enough. You must encourage the recipients to engage more intensively with the product, e.g. through informative or entertaining content marketing.

Customer Retention

Strengthening the customer retention means: Tying the customer to your company in the long term. Encouraging them to make regular purchases. And above all, not losing them to your competitors. To retain an existing customer in most cases, is more cost-effective than winning a new customer. It might sound obvious: Customer retention can be achieved by making the customer relevant offers, which satisfy his current requirements, throughout his customer life cycle.

Service

The margins between service and marketing are partially blurred. Newsletters cannot only be used for promotions, but also for service purposes. You can, for example, offer product training, handbooks, Best Practice or Webinars via the newsletter. The IT wholesaler ALSO, for example, offers its customers sales training via newsletters. Service measures are also perfectly suited to strengthen customer retention (see above). Another service measure is transaction emails. Transaction emails contain service information on user transactions, e.g. delivery confirmations after a purchase in an online shop.