I’ve watched marketers chase the latest platform, the newest automation trick, the most sophisticated funnel for years now.
And you know what keeps winning?
Email. Plain, straightforward, sometimes boring email.
For every dollar you spend on email marketing, you make $36 back. That’s a 3,600% ROI. Some companies do even better—18% of businesses get more than $70 for every dollar they invest.
Meanwhile, social media marketing generates $2.80 per dollar spent. That’s a 180% ROI.
The math tells you everything you need to know.
Why Simple Email Still Beats Everything Else
Here’s what I tell people who think email is outdated: 4.5 billion people use email worldwide in 2025. That number grows to 4.8 billion by 2027.
88% of users check their email multiple times a day. 39% check it 3-5 times daily.
Compare that to social media, where your organic reach sits at 2% if you’re lucky. If you have 2,000 Facebook followers, only 2-5 people see each post you publish.
Your email list? You own it. Your social media reach? The algorithm owns it.
That’s why 80% of marketers say they’d rather give up social media than email. They know what actually drives revenue.
Step 1: Build Your List the Right Way
You need people to email before you can email them. Sounds obvious, but this is where most businesses get stuck.
Start with a simple offer.
Give people something valuable in exchange for their email address. A checklist. A template. A guide. A discount code. Whatever makes sense for your business.
Put signup forms in these places:
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Your website homepage
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Your blog posts (at the end works best)
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Your checkout page
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Your social media profiles
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In-person at events or your physical location
Make the form short. Name and email address. That’s it.
Every extra field you add drops your conversion rate by 11%. Keep it simple.
Step 2: Write Emails People Actually Read
Here’s something that surprises people: plain text emails outperform designed emails.
Research shows HTML email versions get 21% lower clickthrough rates. When you factor in open rates, designed emails get 51% fewer clicks than plain text versions.
Why?
Plain text emails look personal. They look like they came from a real person, not a marketing department. They feel like someone actually wrote to you.
Your email structure should look like this:
Subject line: Keep it under 50 characters. Make it specific. Create curiosity without being clickbait.
Opening line: Get to the point fast. No “I hope this email finds you well” nonsense.
Body: One main idea per email. Write like you talk. Use short paragraphs. Break up dense text.
Call to action: Tell people exactly what to do next. “Click here to download.” “Reply with your answer.” “Buy now.” Be direct.
Signature: Your name. Your title. A way to contact you. Done.
What to Write About
You don’t need a content calendar that maps out six months of emails. You need to be helpful and consistent.
Send these types of emails:
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Educational content: Teach people something useful about your industry
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Product updates: New features, new offerings, improvements
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Customer stories: How other people use your product or service
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Behind-the-scenes: What’s happening in your business
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Promotional offers: Sales, discounts, special deals
Mix these up. Don’t just sell. Help people, then occasionally ask them to buy.
Step 3: Send Emails at the Right Frequency
People ask me how often they should email their list.
The answer: as often as you have something valuable to say.
Some businesses email daily. Some email weekly. Some email monthly. All of them work if the content delivers value.
Start with once a week. That’s manageable for you and expected by your subscribers.
If people unsubscribe, that’s fine. You want engaged readers, not a big list of people who ignore you.
The average email open rate sits at 21.73%. If you’re hitting that number or better, you’re doing well.
Step 4: Segment Your List (But Keep It Simple)
Not everyone on your list wants the same thing.
Someone who bought from you needs different emails than someone who just signed up for your newsletter.
Create these basic segments:
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New subscribers (send a welcome series)
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Active customers (send product updates and loyalty offers)
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Inactive subscribers (send re-engagement campaigns)
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People who abandoned their cart (send reminder emails)
You can get more sophisticated later. Start with these four groups.
Segmented campaigns get 14.31% higher open rates and 100.95% higher click rates than non-segmented campaigns.
Step 5: Test What Works for Your Audience
Every audience responds differently.
What works for another business won’t necessarily work for you. You need to test.
Test these elements:
Subject lines: Try different lengths, different tones, different formats. See what gets opened.
Send times: Try Tuesday morning versus Thursday afternoon versus Saturday evening. Track your open rates.
Email length: Send a short email one week, a longer email the next. See what gets more clicks.
Call to action: Change the wording, the placement, the number of CTAs. Measure what drives action.
Change one thing at a time. Track the results. Keep what works, drop what doesn’t.
Step 6: Clean Your List Regularly
People stop engaging with your emails over time. That’s normal.
But keeping inactive subscribers on your list hurts your deliverability. Email providers notice when people don’t open your emails, and they start sending your messages to spam.
Every quarter, do this:
Identify subscribers who haven’t opened an email in 90 days.
Send them a re-engagement email. Something like: “We noticed you haven’t opened our emails lately. Do you still want to hear from us? Click here to stay subscribed, or we’ll remove you from our list.”
Remove people who don’t respond.
Your open rates will improve. Your deliverability will improve. Your results will improve.
Step 7: Track the Metrics That Matter
Most email platforms give you dozens of metrics to track.
You only need to watch these:
Open rate: How many people open your emails. Aim for 21% or higher.
Click rate: How many people click links in your emails. Aim for 2-3% or higher.
Conversion rate: How many people take the action you want them to take. This varies by industry and offer.
Unsubscribe rate: How many people opt out. Under 0.5% is normal.
Revenue per email: How much money each email generates. This is your most important metric.
If your revenue per email goes up, you’re doing something right. If it goes down, change something.
What This Actually Looks Like in Practice
Let me give you a real example.
You run a small consulting business. You have 500 people on your email list.
Monday morning: You write a 200-word email about a common problem your clients face. You explain the problem, share one solution, and link to a blog post with more details.
Takes you 15 minutes to write.
You send it at 9am.
110 people open it (22% open rate). 8 people click through to your blog post (7% click rate). 1 person replies asking about your services.
That reply turns into a $5,000 consulting project.
You spent 15 minutes and made $5,000.
That’s how email works when you keep it simple.
Why This Approach Beats Complicated Funnels
Marketing gurus sell complicated systems. Multi-step funnels. Sophisticated automation. Complex segmentation strategies.
Some of that stuff works. But you don’t need it to get started.
You need to:
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Build a list
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Write helpful emails
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Send them consistently
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Track what works
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Do more of what works
That’s it.
Email marketing generated 2,064 total conversions compared to social media’s 1,183 in recent studies. That’s 174% more conversions.
Email acquired 40 times more customers than Facebook and Twitter combined, according to McKinsey research.
The simple approach wins because it focuses on the fundamentals: clear communication, consistent value, direct calls to action.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Buying email lists: Don’t do it. These lists have low engagement, hurt your deliverability, and often violate privacy laws.
Sending too many promotional emails: If every email is a sales pitch, people unsubscribe. Follow the 80/20 rule—80% helpful content, 20% promotional.
Ignoring mobile: 60% of emails get opened on mobile devices. Keep your emails readable on small screens.
Writing like a robot: People buy from people. Write like you’re talking to a friend.
Giving up too soon: Email marketing takes time to build momentum. Stick with it for at least six months before you judge results.
Getting Started This Week
You don’t need a perfect strategy to start.
You need to start.
This week, do this:
Day 1: Set up an email marketing platform.
Day 2: Create a simple signup form. Add it to your website.
Day 3: Write a welcome email. Thank people for subscribing. Tell them what to expect.
Day 4: Write your first regular email. Share something helpful.
Day 5: Send it.
Then do it again next week.
And the week after that.
Email marketing works because it’s direct. You write something valuable. You send it to people who want to hear from you. Some of them take action.
No algorithm decides who sees your message. No platform changes the rules overnight. No competitor can outspend you into invisibility.
You own the relationship.
That’s worth more than any fancy marketing tactic.
Start simple. Stay consistent. Watch what happens.
Build an Email System That Sells While You Sleep
If you’re done overcomplicating your marketing and ready to make email your highest-ROI channel, Marrs Marketing’s Salesflows CRM gives you everything you need to run automated, revenue-driving campaigns without the tech headaches.
It helps you capture leads, send personalized emails automatically, and track results in one simple dashboard—so you can focus on writing messages that convert, not managing tools that don’t.
👉 Work with our team to build a simple, powerful email system that actually works.
