Email communication, email marketing, newsletters – confusion over terminology?

It doesn't matter if you're a beginner or a seasoned professional emailer, you've probably thought more than once - what do they actually mean?

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What's the difference between email marketing and email advertising? What's the difference between internal and external email? What characterises a newsletter, does it have to do with PR, perhaps press releases are a form of newsletter? In this article we discuss the conceptual confusion that exists and try to sort it all out and give our view on these commonly used terms.

The Umbrella Term Email

Something that most people agree on is that the general designation for what we're writing about is "email", which encompasses the medium, the channel, the information and the communication. An even more specific term is "email communication", which describes a phenomenon - communicating by sending information. Email communication can be of a private nature or commercial, or informational.

Email communication as a concept can be said to contain the other terms we've mentioned: HTML email, email marketing, internal email, email advertising, newsletters and press releases. Unlike 10 years ago, it's not all about newsletters anymore. Certainly, a large part of sends via email are newsletters, but there's so much more: transaction messages, triggers and event mailings - just to name a few. Want to make it even clearer? Then take a look at our little glossary with simplified explanations below.

Email Communication

Collective term for all types of communication via email.

Email Advertising

Commercially orientated email sends with the main purpose of selling a product or service.

Email Marketing

A broader term than email advertising. Can serve as a collective term for commercial email communication.

Newsletter

Email sends that are based on news value. The send can be internal or external, containing internal and/or external news. Apsis newsletter is an example of this type of send. Apsis user newsletter is an example of another variant of newsletter, which addresses internal news to a customer base.

Press Release

This term speaks for itself. It's a matter of a press release sent via email. It's not about an attached file in an email, but about a designed HTML send. Another possible name is press release.

Viral Email

This is a type of email that spreads quickly, to many people by recipients forwarding the email to their contacts.

Trigger

An event - based on one or more conditions - that automatically triggers the sending of some form of message, either an email message or an email.

Transaction Message

It's about, just as the name suggests, email messages that confirm some form of transaction, a purchase, a booking or a delivery.

Event Mailings

This is part of a larger event chain, which can include invitations, reminders, evaluations and more.

Internet-Based Survey Sends

Email sends that either contain or invite to a survey, also called market research or survey.

Mass Mailing

Mass mailing sometimes has a negative connotation. Some associate mass mailing with spam. And certainly, spam is a mass mailing. But within legitimate email marketing, mass mailing is simply defined as sends of a larger character, regardless of whether it's a newsletter or something else.

Mail Sends

Mail sends or sometimes written separately "Mail sends" is a Swedification of the English "mail sendings". Mail sends thus refers to sent email.