Email Marketing Is Not Dead — Yours Just Needs CPR
Stop Blasting, Start Conversing: Write Like a Human, Not a Megaphone
Stop treating every blast as a billboard and imagine each message as a doorstep conversation. Open with a human detail, not a headline. Use short sentences, first person warmth, and the odd little typo that proves a human typed it. A few empathic lines will beat a pristine sale script any day, because people respond to people.
Write like you are answering a comment, not delivering a press release. Lead with a question, use concrete specifics, and give one clear helpful thing — a tip, a quick step, or a behind the scenes snapshot. Keep paragraphs phone friendly: one idea per paragraph and two to three sentences tops. Strip marketing jargon and prefer verbs over fluffy nouns.
Make it easy to reply. Ask for a single action that takes a thumb second: reply with yes, pick A or B, tap a quick preference, or vote in a tiny poll. Segment based on those micro replies so future messages feel more like follow ups than mass broadcasts. Use a P.S. to mirror a whispered reminder or a tiny bonus that rewards replies.
Treat tone like a variable to test. Run tiny splits that vary voice, not only offers, and measure replies and opens, not only clicks. When you focus on human responses, engagement climbs and unsubscribes fall. Try one friendly experiment this week, track the reply rate, and double down on what sparks real two way conversation.
Subject Lines That Slap: 7 Word Hooks That Actually Get Opens
Seven words is the sweet spot: long enough to promise something, short enough to scan on mobile. Use a power verb, a specific benefit, a time or number, and a curiosity spark. Think verbs first, nouns concrete, adjectives minimal. Try the simple formula: Verb + Benefit + Time/Number + Curiosity to keep it punchy and open-worthy.
Here are seven-word hooks you can swipe and adapt: "Unlock 3X opens with this 7-word trick", "Last chance: your discount expires in hours", "Meet your new inbox hero — five minutes", "We saved you one extra seat today", "Open for a surprise that boosts conversions". Each one balances promise, urgency, and curiosity.
Actionable tweaks: A/B test one element at a time (verb swap, number vs. timeframe), personalize the first word when possible, and pair the subject with preview text that finishes the headline’s thought. Use one emoji max, avoid spammy phrases, and let data decide—open-rate jumps are the kind of CPR you want to see.
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Inbox VIP Status: Segmentation and Timing That Feel Psychic
Imagine your email landing in that tiny pocket of time when a person is actually open to ideas, not buried under notifications. The secret is marrying sharper segments with timing that reads like mind reading. Start small: swap broad blasts for a handful of micro groups and align each with a sending window that matches real behavior rather than a calendar habit.
Segment by what people did, not who they are. Recent clicks, abandoned carts, support interactions and content consumption reveal intent. Use event triggers to move people between cohorts automatically, and layer in recency so the highest priority messages reach the most active cohorts first. Personalize subject lines and previews to reflect the action that earned the message.
Timing is tactical: normalize send times to recipient timezone, apply predicted open models to pick the minute, and throttle frequency to avoid fatigue. Run A/B tests across small windows to learn whether mornings, lunch breaks or late evenings win for each cohort. Sequence follow ups with decaying urgency and watch for sweet spots where a single optimized send lifts opens and conversions.
Measure the lift at each stage and treat timing tweaks as experiments, not rituals. If a change moves the needle for one segment, scale it carefully and keep a suppression layer for those who prefer less. Try a three day pilot: pick one micro segment, test two send times and one subject tweak, then pick the winner and repeat. Small, consistent wins turn your list into a VIP room.
Design for Thumbs: Mobile First Emails That Load Fast and Sell Faster
Think like a thumb: emails arrive on small screens, often with one hand in play. Start with a single-column layout, bold hierarchy, and a single clear action above the fold so a scroll and a tap equals a sale. Tiny details — 16px body text, 22–28px headline, and tight preheader copy — keep eyes on what matters. Fast renders keep attention; slow emails get deleted.
Tappable targets beat tiny links. Make CTAs at least 44–48px tall, give them full-width on mobile, and use high-contrast colors with generous padding. Replace long nav bars with a concise secondary CTA or a small footer. Limit fonts to one web-safe family with inline CSS fallbacks and avoid heavy animation; animated GIFs are cute, but they can kill load time and focus.
Optimize assets — export photos at the exact display size, compress to 60–80% quality, and prefer progressive JPEGs or modern formats where supported. Strip unnecessary HTML, inline critical styles, and keep the total email payload under ~100KB if you want snappy opens. For tools and discrete boosts, check best Instagram marketing service.
Test across popular clients, preview in dark mode, and A/B button text ('Shop now' vs 'See deal') to find what converts. Use a loading budget, measure click-throughs by device, and iterate weekly: small changes to layout, CTA size, or image weight compound fast. Design for thumbs and you won't just survive mobile inboxes — you won't turn them into a conversion engine.
From Send to Spend: Automations That Earn While You Sleep
Automations are not set and forget tricks; they are the slow heartbeat that turns attention into orders while your laptop is closed. Start by mapping key moments in the customer journey where a timely email moves the needle: first impression, first cart hesitation, first purchase, and the return invitation. Treat each flow like a tiny conversion funnel with its own metric and a two-week experiment plan.
Build a welcome sequence that introduces value, a cart recovery flow that sounds human, and a post-purchase path that plants cross-sell seeds. Power those flows with behavioral triggers and dynamic blocks so messages feel custom without manual work. For inspiration beyond email and ways to amplify social proof and traffic consider Instagram social boost as a partnered channel to test.
Write subject lines that tease benefit, use preheaders as secondary headlines, and include one clear call to action per email. Use small sample A/B tests — subject line, send time, and CTA color — then pick winners and scale. Tag subscribers by behavior and assign revenue goals per tag so you can calculate return per flow. If a flow does not hit target in four iterations, pivot creative or change the trigger.
Metrics matter: track attributable revenue, conversion rate, and time to second purchase. Prioritize the flows that move the most dollars first; a superb cart recovery sequence often outperforms fancy fuzzy segmentation. Finally, automate but do not automate away the human touch. Schedule periodic manual checkins to refresh copy, replace stale offers, and celebrate the extra nights when your inbox is quiet and the cash register rings.
Aleksandr Dolgopolov, 08 December 2025