I must begin with a warning! The subject of Broadcasts vs. Messages as it relates to email marketing, is not nearly as interesting as the subject of Godzilla vs. Mothra, as it relates to the fate of humanity. With this in mind let us continue… emails sent to an email list or newsletter come in two flavors, broadcasts and messages. Broadcasts are single emails that are sent at the same time either to your entire list, or to a portion of your list. Messages on the other hand usually form part of a series of emails which are sent out at preset intervals. These intervals usually start from the date of opt-in.

Broadcasts lend themselves more towards recently breaking news. For example something major has just happened in your industry or a related industry, and you would like add your own point of view to the events taking place and there relevance to your industry.

Messages lend themselves better toward those pieces of information in your email campaign that will not become outdated as quickly. A group of such emails might easily be formed into a Mini-Course. Such a course can act as the “freebie” offered to entice new subscribers to sign up for your list. Another give away item, which you may consider including in your list of initial messages is a free ebook. While an ebook probably won’t fit in a single email, a link to your ebook in one of your first few messages will work just as well.

As time goes on and you have written more and more broadcasts you may decide that some of your broadcasts would fit nicely inside your messages. So as your number of broadcasts grows your number of initial messages might grow as well, effectively “killing two birds with one stone”.