Change isn’t polite. It’s… well, kind of rude, actually. It crashes your dinner party uninvited, rearranges the furniture, then helps itself to dessert while you’re still trying to figure out how it even got in. That’s marketing. Especially email.
I used to think, stubbornly, embarrassingly, that I could get away with doing what always worked. Like, forever. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” right? Except eventually, it was broke. Quietly. Subtly. Then suddenly. And there I was, rereading my open rates like a desperate ex trying to decode old texts.
That’s the sneaky thing about evolution in this space. It doesn’t always announce itself with neon lights. Sometimes it’s a whisper. Or a gut feeling that says, “Hey, uh… this approach is stale.”
And ignoring it? Costs more than a bruised ego.
Blanket emails don’t keep people warm anymore
Remember when you could blast out the same newsletter to 5,000 people and call it a day? No guilt. No second thoughts. (Actually, maybe a small twinge. But whatever, it worked.)
Now it just feels gross. Or worse, pointless. Spam folders are smarter than they were even two years ago. People’s eyes glaze. Their index fingers hover over “unsubscribe” like they’ve been waiting all week to exorcise someone.
I tried the old way not that long ago, by the way. Out of pure laziness. Sent a catch-all promo. The results? Abysmal. Lower engagement, higher churn. One angry reply telling me to take my “generic garbage” elsewhere. Ouch. Fair, though.
So what’s the modern play? Micro-targeting. Segmentation. Writing emails like you’re whispering secrets to one person at a crowded table. Sometimes it’s creepy how well it works. But then again, people want to feel seen. Just… maybe not stalked.
“Buy now!” is more likely to earn an eye-roll than a sale
If you’ve been around long enough, you probably still have remnants of that carnival barker voice in your head. The one that says: “Urgency! Scarcity! FOMO!” And sure, those tactics still have teeth, but use them wrong and they bite you, not the prospect.
I’m not even pretending to be above this. Last year, I ran a series with relentless countdown timers. Watch the clock, hurry hurry, limited slots! The short-term spike? Nice. The long-term trust erosion? …Less nice.
Now? I ease off. Tell stories. Show the weird, wobbly middle of the process, not just the shiny after shots. Talk about the client who panicked before launching their first funnel. Or how a small tweak to a welcome sequence led to 4X the revenue, but only after three messy experiments.
People are exhausted by perfect promises. They’ll take awkward honesty any day.
Obsessing over open rates is basically chasing ghosts
Can we be real? Open rates were never flawless. But they were at least… reassuring. Now, with Apple’s mail privacy thing muddying the waters, they’re a complete circus mirror. Distorted beyond belief.
A buddy of mine recently bragged about a 67% open rate. I didn’t have the heart to tell him half of that was probably just machine-triggered. Meanwhile, his clicks were down. Revenue flatlined.
Clicks, replies, DMs, sales later down the line, those are the new holy metrics. Not always pretty. Definitely more humbling. But honest.
Automation got smarter while we were busy perfecting Canva graphics
I resisted automation for the longest time because I didn’t want to sound like a robot. Irony, huh? Meanwhile, smarter marketers were quietly using sophisticated workflows to make subscribers feel more cared for, not less.
The old way? Blasting every new subscriber with the same tired 5-day sequence. Then awkward silence. Or worse, shoehorning them into random promotions.
Now? Tools tag people based on their interests, follow their clicks, adjust timing so it actually feels natural. A friend of mine runs a tiny Etsy shop and even she’s using branching logic that would make 2017 me weep with envy.
Less dashboard. More dinner table.
Here’s the strangest evolution: marketers caring more. Or at least pretending to, but convincingly enough that people stay around.
Old me used to measure everything by revenue per subscriber. Cold math. Now I pay weird attention to who replies. Who forwards. Who writes back “thanks, I needed this today.”
You’d be amazed how many future customers start off that way. Quiet. Grateful. Just noticing that you’re, well, human.
So yeah. Email isn’t dead. Or dying. Or whatever the latest gloomy headline says.
It’s morphing. It always was. If anything, it’s more alive, but also more demanding. Less tolerant of shortcuts.
And maybe that’s good. Forces us to grow up a bit. Write better. Care more. Be less about loud numbers and more about low-key resonance.
If you’re still stuck on “how we did it in 2015,” I promise there’s another way. Play around with it. Segment by actual interests, not just list age. Share a messy lesson instead of a polished boast. Ask a question you can’t script the replies to.
See what happens.
And if it all feels like too much? Well… at least you’re paying attention. That’s more than most.
Who knows. Maybe next month, the game changes again , and we’ll be right here, fumbling forward together.
To learn more about Affiliate Marketing and Email Marketing, Click here and Join for Free.
