We’ve Been Doing Email Marketing Wrong
Email marketing has been around for decades, but after attending a recent marketing conference, one thing became very clear: most businesses are still approaching it the wrong way.
Not because they aren’t sending emails.
Not because they don’t have a list.
But because the way businesses think about email marketing no longer reflects how people actually behave online.
For years, businesses have been told to focus on polished graphics, perfect layouts, and highly designed email campaigns. The assumption was simple: if an email looked professional, people would engage with it.
But the data being presented at the conference suggested otherwise.
In fact, plain text emails were reported to achieve significantly higher click-through and open rates than heavily designed emails, with some marketers reporting open rates as high as 68% for text-based campaigns. The reasoning behind this shift is surprisingly simple: people are becoming increasingly fatigued by overly polished marketing content.
Consumers are seeing thousands of ads, emails, and promotional messages every day. As a result, audiences are becoming better at filtering out anything that immediately “feels” like marketing (Forbes, 2024).
And that changes everything.
The Problem With Modern Email Marketing
Most business emails today follow the same predictable structure:
- Large graphics
- Multiple buttons
- Corporate language
- Generic messaging
- Several competing calls-to-action
The result? Emails that look like advertisements rather than communication.
At the conference, one of the strongest recurring themes was that modern audiences are no longer responding to perfection—they are responding to authenticity, clarity, and relevance.
This aligns with broader industry research. According to HubSpot (2024), personalised and conversational emails continue to outperform generic promotional campaigns in both engagement and conversion metrics.
In other words, people do not want to feel like they are being marketed to constantly. They want communication that feels human.
Fear, Curiosity, and Emotion Drive Attention
One particularly interesting insight discussed at the conference was the psychology behind why people open emails in the first place.
Most successful subject lines generally trigger one of three things:
- Curiosity
- Fear
- Benefit
This reflects well-established consumer psychology principles. Research by Cialdini (2021) highlights that emotional triggers—particularly urgency and loss aversion—are often more powerful motivators than logic alone.
This explains why subject lines such as:
- “Your marketing might already be outdated”
- “Most businesses are losing customers here”
- “Why your emails aren’t getting opened anymore”
often outperform safer, more neutral alternatives.
Fear-based marketing is often misunderstood. It is not about manipulation or negativity. It is about helping audiences recognise the cost of inaction.
If a business owner believes their marketing is working perfectly, they are unlikely to change anything. But if they begin to question whether they might be missing opportunities, attention increases immediately.
People Buy on Emotion, Then Justify With Logic
Another major theme from the conference was the idea that people make decisions emotionally first and rationally second.
This concept is supported by behavioural economics research, which suggests that emotional responses heavily influence purchasing decisions before consumers later justify those choices logically (Kahneman, 2011).
This matters because many businesses are still writing emails that focus entirely on information rather than emotion.
They explain:
- Features
- Services
- Pricing
- Inclusions
but forget to address:
- Frustration
- Overwhelm
- Fear of falling behind
- Uncertainty
The reality is that emotional connection creates engagement. Logic simply helps validate the decision afterwards.
Simplicity Is Becoming More Important
One of the strongest takeaways from the conference was how much modern marketing is moving toward simplicity.
Businesses are overcomplicating their emails:
- Too many links
- Too much design
- Too many messages at once
Instead, high-performing campaigns are becoming shorter, clearer, and more focused.
A single idea.
A single call-to-action.
A single problem being addressed.
This reflects broader digital behaviour trends. Research from Microsoft (2015) found that average human attention spans are decreasing in digital environments due to information overload.
People are scanning, not reading.
Which means businesses have less time than ever to:
- Capture attention
- Build trust
- Communicate value
before someone moves on.
So, What Should Businesses Be Doing Instead?
Based on both the conference insights and broader industry trends, effective email marketing now appears to rely on a few key principles:
Marketing Is Changing
The biggest takeaway from the conference was not that email marketing is “dead.”
It was that audiences are changing faster than many businesses are adapting.
People are becoming more selective with their attention.
More sceptical of polished advertising.
And more responsive to communication that feels genuine and useful.
The businesses seeing results are not necessarily the loudest.
They are often the clearest.
And in many ways, that requires businesses to rethink not just their emails—but their entire marketing approach.
References
Cialdini, R. (2021) Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Harper Business.
Forbes (2024) Why Consumers Are Tuning Out Traditional Marketing. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/ (Accessed: 19 May 2026).
HubSpot (2024) Email Marketing Benchmark Report. Available at: https://www.hubspot.com/ (Accessed: 19 May 2026).
Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Microsoft (2015) Attention Spans Research Report. Available at: https://www.microsoft.com/ (Accessed: 19 May 2026).
