A blast email is a type of electronic mailing that is distributed to a large recipient list, and is sent out over a specified amount of time. Often used by marketers, these types of bulk emails were once considered a form of spam, or junk email. Many companies now use blast emails as a legitimate tool to communicate with their customers, and as a result, blast email has become an effective type of email marketing.
Blast email and other forms of email marketing have grown increasingly popular for businesses, due to the relatively low cost and easy tracking abilities involved. In most cases, individuals must opt-in, or subscribe, to an email list to receive blast email from a particular company. Newsletters, for example, are a common form of email marketing. The company, in turn, must create and manage a large mailing list that identifies all the individuals who have subscribed to the email marketing service. Depending on the size of the company and the amount of recipients, managing this list can be quite daunting. As a result, most companies hire a third-party vendor or use software to manage mailing lists.
The purposes of blast emails are often to generate more sales, gain new customers, and increase traffic to the company’s website. To successfully do this, the email must capture recipients' attention, and motivate them to perform an action, such as purchasing an item online. These results can then be easily tracked through the links provided in the email, and the company can use these statistics to determine a conversion rate, or the percentage of customers who take the desired action. For testing purposes, companies often send out several different blast emails to determine which format is most effective, and may even customize email for a particular target audience.
Due to the massive growth of the Internet, most countries have passed legislation to prevent companies from sending unsolicited emails. These laws determine what is and what is not considered acceptable email correspondence, and enforce restrictions on email communications. In the United States and Europe, for example, bulk email must contain an accurate from field and subject line, and the email content must include the sender’s physical address. In addition, a blast email must also offer its recipients the opportunity to unsubscribe from the email list — and such requests must be met within a specified period of time. As a result of these laws, it is very important for companies to maintain an updated list of subscriptions and cancellations at all times, and avoid sending out email that appears to be spam.
