Email marketing doesn’t get a whole lotta love these days and I think that’s a massive oversight. The point of this post is to get you on board with just how awesome email marketing is and how to do it right in line with current email marketing best practices.
Email: The digital marketing wallflower
Email marketing isn’t the shiny new toy anymore. It doesn’t over-promise and it doesn’t claim overnight growth. Nor does it come with funky dance trends or a dirty dopamine drip. And yet, time and again, email is the steady digital marketing tool quietly doing sterling work in the background. You’re the best, email!
Working with small businesses across all sorts of sectors, I’ve seen email outperform social media more times than I can count. Not because it’s clever or flashy, but because it’s an owned channel.
Your data. Your audience. Your rules.
So let’s get into the brass tacks of email marketing best practices without the buzzwords, the chest-beating gurus, or the nonsense.
Email works because it’s built on permission
This is the crux of the matter for me. People don’t “stumble across” your email list. They choose it.
They’ve said yes to hearing from you, which already puts email in a stronger position than most marketing channels. And before you start rubbing your hands together and shooting off a zillion emails each week, that’s absolutely not something to exploit. It deserves respect.
The quickest way to destroy your email list is to treat it like a nuclear-powered megaphone for promotions. The quickest way to grow your list is to be useful, interesting, and genuinely human.
Pro email marketing tip: If every email you send is asking for something, don’t be at all surprised when people quietly slip out of the side door.
Personalisation is about context, not first names
Let’s clear this up before we go any further: bunging someone’s name in an email doesn’t really make it personal. That’s just straight automation.
Genuine personalisation is about understanding why someone’s on your list and speaking to that experience. Someone who’s already bought from you is in a very different place to someone who downloaded a free guide six months ago and hasn’t heard from you since.
To truly personalise email to your customers’ experience, you’ll need to do some smart email list segmentation so you can start sending the right messages to the right people. It might take a few attempts, but once you get it right you’ll see your response rates really start to flower.
Pro email marketing tip: Email marketing best practices today are about relevance, not hacks or clever tricks. Send fewer emails that actually make sense to the people receiving them.
Write like a person who knows they’re interrupting
Your email rocks up in busily overflowing inboxes. People are reading it on phones, between meetings, or while waiting for the kettle to boil. Also on the toilet. Let’s be honest about that.
The point is, you don’t have the luxury of attention so email is no place for waffle.
Say what you mean. Get to the point. Make it easy to scan. If there’s an action you want someone to take, make it really bleedin’ obvious.
You’re not writing an academic essay, you’re starting a friendly conversation. So make it interesting!
Consistency beats enthusiasm every time
Is this scenario at all familiar…
You get super excited about your brand new email list, people have signed up, you’re fizzing over with enthusiasm, you send three emails in the first week week… then disappear for two months because “life got busy”. That’s not a strategy. It’s a stress cycle.
I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve seen (and also done) this. But the truth is, email marketing works best when it’s predictably consistent. Monthly is fine. Fortnightly is great. Weekly is brilliant if you can sustain it.
What matters most is that your people know you’re still there.
Don’t lose sleep over open rates
Open rates used to mean something. They don’t any more, at least not in the way people think they do.
Privacy changes (I’m looking at you, Apple!) have made them unreliable. Which inevitably mean that chasing them leads to bad decisions like clickbait subject lines and over-sending. Don’t be fooled into second-guessing content that’s actually doing its job really well already.
Better questions to ask are:
Plain emails often outperform pretty ones
This one frequently surprises people. The emails that get the best response are often the simplest:
We’re all short on time and trust. So a clear, reassuring message and the sense that there’s a real person on the other end is a tonic. If you’re burning with 3 really important things to say, why not send 3 different emails instead of stuffing all the ideas into one mailing?
Email still matters because you’re in control
Social media is a valid marketing channel, but their platforms are in constant flux that is entirely out of your control. Algorithms are updated and your reach plummets. Features are retired without notice. Accounts get locked. Honestly, it’s a toxic relationship with a skewed power dynamic.
Your email list doesn’t vanish overnight.
That alone makes email worth investing in, especially if you’re building a business you want to last.
When email marketing is done well, it becomes a steady, reliable channel that supports everything else you do. Content, launches, services, relationships.
Building genuine connection with your customers over email
Are you happy with your email marketing strategy right now? Maybe it feels awkward, forced, or easy to ignore… Well, it’s probably not the channel that’s the problem. It might just be that you haven’t found the right approach for your business.
If you want help building an email strategy that feels natural, respectful, and actually useful to your audience, let’s talk. I help businesses make email work without turning it into a chore or a personality transplant.
Get help making email work harder
You don’t need more emails. You need better ones.
I help business owners create email strategies that feel manageable, meaningful, and aligned with how they actually work.
If you’d like support getting yours into shape, let’s have a real conversation… or drop me an email.
