You'll need at least two technologies to execute your email marketing strategy: an authoring technology to create the content of your emails in HTML and a delivery technology that has the ability to deliver and track emails sent to a large email list.
In order to do literally everything on your own, you're going to need to own your own email server.
You'll need extensive programming knowledge and database skills. I don't recommend doing absolutely everything in-house, even for a large company with lots of technical resources.
Instead use an email marketing provider or EMP to help you run your strategy. An EMP is a company that offers a suite of tools to help you create, send, and track your own marketing emails.
Most EMPs allow you to create emails without the need to know any HTML or the programming languages. And you won't need to set up and manage your own email servers and delivery gateways, because EMP is sending email from their servers on your behalf.
Your customers will never know the difference and you'll probably get better delivery rates too.
EMPs give you tracking reports and database tools to manage your email lists and some EMPs even provide support and educational resources to help you gain expertise in marketing and the use of the EMP's tools.
Enterprise-level EMPs give you access to advanced features, such as point-of-sale integration, email automation, advanced segmentation, and behavioral targeting.
Remember that one of the most important assets of your email marketing strategy is your email database. Make sure you use a company that secures your email database properly and protects the privacy of your email list subscribers.
In the next post, I show you how to protect your database in another way: by avoiding unsubscribes and spam complaints.