The Only Marketing Channel You Actually Own

For nearly three decades, people have been declaring email marketing dead. Yet, here we are, and email is as vital as ever, powering everything from booking confirmations to internal office communication. As a marketing tool, its reach is undeniable. Some e-commerce brands see as much as 20 percent of their total revenue come directly from email campaigns.

Sure, influencer marketing and social media get more buzz. They’re the newer, flashier ways to promote a business and can deliver fantastic results. But email is the reliable older sibling. It might not seem as exciting, but it consistently delivers. In fact, many marketers cite email as having the highest return on investment of any channel, often quoting figures between $36 and $44 for every dollar spent. A big reason for this is how affordable it is—many platforms let you message thousands of people for free or tens of thousands for just a few hundred bucks a month.

Beyond the numbers, there’s an intimacy to email that you can't find elsewhere. When you send a message, it lands directly in someone's personal inbox. You can address them by name. They’ve given you their trust and invited you into a conversation. For anyone with an , grasping this is the first step.

A Direct Line to Your Customers

Think about this: outside of your own website, email is the only channel you truly own. Everything else is built on rented land. People might see your posts on social media, or they might not. They could find you in a search engine, or they could miss you completely. The algorithms are always changing.

But your email list? That’s yours. It's a tangible asset, complete with invaluable customer data. You’re in control of the relationship, guiding people on their journey with your brand. You aren’t subject to the whims of an algorithm or a social media feed where a post disappears in less than a day.

I’ve seen this firsthand with clients. One company I worked with as a Fractional CMO generated sales from email marketing that were on par with what they saw from their Google Ads campaigns—a channel they were pouring about $100,000 into each year. The email marketing cost them next to nothing in comparison. The same principle applies to my own mastermind group; 100 percent of the applicants were already on my email list. It just proves that we do business with people we know, like, and trust—and email is a powerful way to build that connection. Years ago, I heard Joe Pulizzi, the godfather of content marketing, mention that a prominent blogger generated 98 percent of his revenue from his email list, not his blog. That’s the power of owning your audience.

Are Your Emails Actually Providing Value?

When people subscribe to your list, they're expecting something of value in return. If you want to strengthen that relationship, your messages have to deliver. The direct and personal nature of email means you have to be human. If you just bombard people’s inboxes with ads, they’ll tune you out or, worse, unsubscribe.

Earning that direct line of contact is a privilege that shouldn't be wasted. Too many businesses abuse this by sending aggressively promotional messages too frequently. This might lead to a few short-term wins, but it’s a bridge-burning strategy. When people unsubscribe or mark you as spam, it can even harm your ability to reach the people who want to hear from you.

It’s All About Segmentation

Here’s the thing: not everyone wants to hear from you with the same frequency. Some subscribers might want daily updates, while others only care about sales. This is why you shouldn't lump all your subscribers into a single group. A core part of running a smart is understanding this.

You can tier your list based on communication frequency. For example, some might get daily updates via an RSS feed, while others prefer a weekly or monthly newsletter. You can even use automation to help. If someone on your weekly list hasn't opened an email in a while, you can automatically move them to the monthly list. You can also tag people based on what content they signed up for or survey them directly to learn their preferences. Data shows that segmented campaigns get 30 percent more opens and 50 percent more click-throughs, and are responsible for about 30 percent of all revenue from email marketing.

It's a Journey, Not a Sales Pitch

Not everyone is ready to buy right away, and that’s perfectly fine. Marketing is a process, and it often takes more than one email to help move someone along. So how do you keep them engaged? Through storytelling.

Communication is about engagement, and your emails are a chance to build trust. Think about network TV in the ‘90s. On a show like or , there was a clear line between entertainment and advertising. If the characters suddenly started pitching a car brand mid-episode, viewers would have felt betrayed and changed the channel. The same applies to email; over-promotion feels like a betrayal of trust.

Now, consider the Super Bowl. The ads have become an event in themselves, something people actually look forward to because they're entertaining. That should be the goal for your emails. Can you create content so valuable or entertaining that people look forward to it? Some newsletters, like The Skimm, have done this so well they’ve grown to over a million subscribers, mostly through word of mouth. For anyone , creating value is non-negotiable.

Quality Over Quantity

A bigger email list isn't always better. You could buy a list to inflate your numbers, but those people have no interest in hearing from you. Sending emails to an unengaged list tanks your deliverability and can even get you banned from your email provider.

Growing your list organically is the only way to go. It’s also a smart move to periodically prune your list. I have a rule: if someone hasn't opened one of my emails in six months, I send an automated message to see if they’re still interested. If not, I remove them. I used to have a massive list with a 10-15 percent open rate. Now, I have a smaller, more engaged list with a 40-50 percent open rate. The point is to communicate, and that can’t happen if no one is reading your emails.

Intelligently Automate Your Communication

That “are you still interested?” email is just one example of smart automation. A modern can automate the entire customer journey, sending out valuable communications that build relationships while you sleep.

This functionality used to be reserved for big companies, but it's now available in most affordable email software. From my experience, very few small businesses take full advantage of it. When I check my own email stats, I see that my automated messages—the ones that go out based on user behavior—account for a massive chunk of my total sends. They are constantly working in the background to build trust, so when it's time to make a sale, the relationship is already there.

Ultimately, rethinking email means appreciating its power to build conversations without relying on an algorithm. It gives you the ability to direct the customer journey on your own terms and is an essential tool for any or established .