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Picture this: It’s 2030. Instagram has changed its algorithm seventeen more times. TikTok might not even exist. Some AI-powered hologram platform is the new shiny object.
But you know what hasn’t changed? Your email list. That direct line to your people who actually want to hear from you.
Today I’m sharing everything I know about email marketing: the timeless principles that built my multi-seven-figure business and the emerging trends keeping you ahead through 2026 and beyond. Whether you’re at zero subscribers or ready to level up, this is your roadmap.
And if you want to see how all of this applies specifically to your business type, I’m hosting a FREE live webinar called From Zero Subscribers to an Engaged List of Buyers, so grab your spot now!
My Email Awakening
I was standing in my kitchen when my entire understanding of business changed. I’d just hit 10,000 Instagram followers. Back when that was the magic number to unlock features, feel legitimate, feel like you’d arrived. I was running a photography business, hustling hard on social, and genuinely believed I was crushing it.
Then I got on my first call with a business coach, ready to blow his socks off with my Instagram success. He asked one question: “How big is your list?” I paused. “My to-do list is pretty long right now, actually.”
Silence. Then he clarified: “No, your email list.” I didn’t have one. I didn’t even understand why I would need one. What would I send? Who would want it? Wasn’t Instagram enough?
That’s when reality hit. If Instagram changed the algorithm tomorrow (and let’s be honest, it changes daily), my reach could tank overnight. If my account got hacked or shut down, I’d lose everything. I had zero way to actually reach my people. I was building my entire business on rented land.
That day, I listened to a podcast about email list building and everything clicked. Email gave me something social media never could: ownership. A real asset I controlled. A direct line to people who actually wanted to hear from me, on my terms, without an algorithm deciding if they’d see my message. That realization changed everything.
Five Timeless Truths About Email Marketing
Email is an asset, not a rental. Social media is like a cocktail party: loud, crowded, unpredictable. Email is a coffee date: invited, focused, one-on-one. For someone who values rest over hustle, having a marketing channel that doesn’t require showing up daily looks like freedom.
The ROI is unmatched. Email delivers $36 to $43 for every dollar spent. A single email can outperform weeks of Instagram posts. Simple Tuesday newsletters have driven more revenue in my business than elaborate Instagram campaigns. That’s straight-up leverage.
People prefer it. Ninety percent of people say they’d rather get updates via email than social. The inbox is where they read notes from friends and family. When you earn that space, you’ve earned trust. Email marketing is built on reciprocity. They opted in. They raised their hand and said, “I want this.”
You can personalize at scale. You can’t customize your Instagram feed for every follower. With email, you can segment, tailor, and make people feel seen. Even basic segmentation boosts performance because you’re treating people as individuals.
It’s timeless. Email has been around for 40+ years. It outlived MySpace, Vine, and Clubhouse. If I had to choose one marketing channel for the next decade, it’s email. Even though my email list is one-third the size of my Instagram following, I’d choose it every time. It drives actual results and creates real connection.
Six Email Marketing Trends Shaping 2025 and Beyond
Email isn’t just surviving as everything changes with AI and platform evolution. It’s thriving in ways that make building real connection more powerful than ever.
Trend #1: Hyper-Personalization
The future of email feels custom-written for the reader. Sarah signs up for Pinterest tips. Jessica wants podcast help. You send one newsletter, but Sarah sees Pinterest strategy while Jessica gets podcasting advice. Same email, different experience. Both feel seen.
Start simple: create two segments based on how people join your list. Customize one section of your email for each group. That small change makes people feel like you understand them. That’s where inbox intimacy soars.
Trend #2: AI and Automation
AI is a tool, just like your email platform. It’s not replacing your voice. It’s giving you back your time to be more present, more human.
Picture Sunday night. Your kids are asleep. You’re exhausted and need to write Tuesday’s newsletter. The old way? Staring at a blank screen for two hours or giving up entirely. With AI, you spend ten minutes brainstorming with ChatGPT to get angles and create an outline. Add your stories, your voice, your heart. You just bought yourself 90 minutes to rest with your family.
AI can brainstorm subject lines, create drafts, proofread, and analyze performance. But it can’t tell your specific stories, understand your audience’s deepest needs, or build genuine trust. That’s where you come in.
Beyond AI as co-creator, there’s automation. Email sequences nurture relationships on autopilot. Welcome sequences, birthday emails, re-engagement campaigns. These aren’t set and forget. They’re set up with care once, then maintain relationships forever.
My welcome sequence is about six emails. Once a quarter, I tweak it in about an hour. It’s reached hundreds of thousands of people. I still get heartfelt replies from people who joined yesterday. That’s automation with heart.
Trend #3: Interactive Emails
Email isn’t static anymore. It’s becoming an experience. Polls, quizzes, clickable carousels, even shopping without leaving the email.
Imagine you’re a health coach. Instead of telling people about breakfast ideas, your email has a poll: “What morning type are you? Early Bird Eddie, Slow Start Sally, or Snooze Button Sam?” People click their answer right there, instantly get a personalized recommendation, and feel seen.
Interactive emails boost engagement because they’re fun and invite participation. One great interactive email can generate more connection than dozens of plain text ones.
Start simple: add a GIF to make your email dynamic. Create a one-question poll using clickable links. Or use your P.S. space with “Reply with A if you want to learn about topic one or B for topic two” and actually field those responses.
Trend #4: Privacy and Permission
People are more protective of their data than ever, and they should be. An email address is permission to enter someone’s personal space. It’s reciprocity at play. They signed up, but recognize how precious that is. It’s not just a marketing opportunity, it’s a responsibility. How you handle that trust determines everything.
Only email people who opted in. Make unsubscribing easy. Don’t hide those links or make them covert. Be transparent about what you’ll send. Set expectations. If people aren’t engaging, send them a re-engagement email: “Hey, do you still want to hear from me?” If there’s no response, let them go with love.
A smaller engaged list beats a huge indifferent one every single time. It’s not about being the biggest, it’s about being the most meaningful. I don’t want a massive list of strangers. I want a true community who genuinely finds value and wants to be there.
Trend #5: The Newsletter Renaissance
Personal, handwritten newsletters are having a massive comeback. Social media has never been more exhausting. Email is where people go craving deeper connection and where creators go wanting to add more context.
Think of an email newsletter like a quiet corner of the internet where you have actual, heartfelt, intentional conversations. This is where you go deep instead of trying to stop somebody’s scroll.
Earlier this year, I started taking back all the writing for my email list. My newsletter every week is something I love to send. It’s where I go so much deeper than Instagram. Behind the scenes, unpacking stats, sharing my heart, testing ideas, inviting two-way conversation.
Some weeks I do long, personal emails with no links. No goal beyond serving and connecting. Some weeks I curate links to recent podcast episodes. I’m leaning on consistency and connection, not perfection. Letting go of past strategies about writing emails that convert. Getting back to the heart of writing content people actually want to read.
Think of your newsletter as a product you’re delivering, not just content you’re sending. That helps you make it valuable, stay consistent, and be more personal and conversational.
Trend #6: Omni-Channel Integration
Email doesn’t have to work alone anymore. Think of your marketing like a wheel. Email is the hub. All my efforts from podcast to blog, Instagram to masterclasses to YouTube, everything else is a spoke extending out. My main objective with all my internet efforts is to grow and serve my email list.
Someone subscribes via Pinterest? My email system knows, so the welcome email references how they found us. They click but don’t buy? Trigger a specific email sequence or retargeting ad. They buy? Automatically tag them as a customer so they get different emails.
This can sound complex, but most platforms offer simple integrations. Start with one. Connect your shop to your email list so purchasers trigger delivery emails. Link your webinar platform so registrants automatically get reminders. Set it up once and marvel at how it works for you.
These trends aren’t about abandoning what makes email great. They’re about enhancing personalization, trust, and value. The brands that win will pair the high-tech world we’re in with high heart and high-value content, using powerful tools to create more connection, not less.
Six Practical Email Marketing Strategies You Can Start This Week
Let’s make this actionable. Here are six strategies you can literally get started on this week. They don’t require 40 hours, a big team, or a massive budget. Just your attention and intention.
Strategy #1: Tend Your Garden
Think of your email list like a garden. You need to plant new seeds and weed out what’s not growing.
Keep building with intention. Think about what opt-ins or lead magnets are working that attract your ideal audience. You don’t want to attract just anyone. Create free resources your audience finds valuable that connect to the next step.
Simple works best. Think super-specific opt-ins: a checklist, a template, a quick tutorial. Whatever solves a specific immediate problem quickly.
Along with tending your garden, clean regularly. Pick out the weeds. Every quarter, identify subscribers who haven’t engaged in 90 days or six months. Before you opt them out, send a re-engagement email: “Hey, I’ve noticed we haven’t connected. My inbox is sacred and I don’t want to clutter yours. If you want to stay on my list to receive X, Y, or Z, hit reply and tell me what you’d like to learn. If you’re ready to part ways, no hard feelings.”
If there’s no response, remove them. But if they respond, you’ve just re-engaged a subscriber. This keeps your deliverability strong and ensures you’re only talking to people who want to hear from you.
Strategy #2: Get Personal Using Segmentation
Good news: you do not need to be a data scientist. Start with just two groups based on how people join your list. I always recommend having two different opt-ins so you can start collecting data.
Before my husband Drew became a stay-at-home dad, he had a health coaching business. Before we even named his company or created any offer, we created two different opt-ins to start growing his email list. His entire business was going to be about at-home workouts, no equipment required.
We created an opt-in for five ten-minute workouts you can do at home, then a second opt-in: our grocery shopping list and food prep strategies for the week. We put both out there. The grocery shopping list outperformed the at-home workouts 10 to 1. It was insane.
We got so much data and insight. It changed the entire way we created his business: his offers, how we talked about them, how we presented them, how we showed up on his website.
This week, identify your two most obvious segments or your two most traffic segments. Next email, consider: could I customize just one thing for each? I promise when you do this, your engagement will improve.
Strategy #3: Automate With Heart
If you do just one thing after reading this and you have a list, set up a welcome sequence.
Here’s a simple three-email framework:
Email #1: Send immediately after someone opts in. They’re most excited and most likely to open it. Share your story. Who you are, how you got there, what you believe, what sets you apart. People follow people, not businesses. This humanizes who you are and connects on a personal level.
Email #2: Send a day or two later. Highlight a core belief or something you wish people knew about what you do. Show what you stand for and what differentiates you. There’s a good chance many people do what you do. What makes you different?
Email #3: A few days later, give them a quick win. Deliver immediate value. Show them your emails are worth opening. Maybe it’s a tip they could use today. End with an invitation to reply: “What’s your biggest struggle? Hit reply. I literally read every email.”
Set this welcome sequence up once and it can run forever. My welcome sequence has been working for me for years. We’ve changed and tailored it over time, but I love that you can have leverage without losing your humanity.
Strategy #4: Befriend AI
This week, use ChatGPT to brainstorm something, whether email content or subject lines. Start inviting it in as your assistant.
Maybe you’re generating subject lines. Tell it about your email: “I’m writing to women entrepreneurs about overcoming imposter syndrome. This email is encouraging and comes from a personal tone. Can you generate ten subject line options for me?”
Then look at what it gives you. Maybe you like one, maybe you tweak them to sound more like you, maybe you hate them. At least you got your creativity flowing.
A lot of times I’ll create my first draft, sloppy and messy. Then I bring it into AI and ask: “Where am I unclear? How can I be more clear? Where can I inject more personality or personal stories?” I work with it on outlining and proofreading.
I never copy and paste the first result AI gives me. I use it to refine and inject more understanding, more heart, more opportunity to serve. The goal isn’t to sound like a robot. It’s the opposite. The goal is to get back your time so you can rest, live more, think strategically, be present with your family. That’s the anti-hustle dream.
Strategy #5: Design for Everyone
Make sure your emails work everywhere and for everyone. More than half of emails open on mobile. Pull up the last email you sent on your phone right now. Can you read it easily? Are the buttons big enough to tap? If you’re struggling, your subscribers probably are too.
Keep emails simple: single-column layouts, font size at least 16, buttons super tappable, short paragraphs, white space. Think about accessibility: high-contrast colors, alt text for images, clear readable fonts.
My favorite platform for creating emails is Flodesk. I think it’s amazing: female-founded, designed with intention, beautiful, and super easy to use. Check it out at jennakutcher.com/flodesk.
Before your next send, send a test and check it on all devices. Make sure the design is created with everyone in mind.
Strategy #6: Stay Human
My favorite metric isn’t actually open rates, it’s replies. I love when real humans hit reply and talk to me. A few years ago, I recognized I wasn’t even asking for that. So we now incorporate it consistently: “Hit reply. I am a real human on this side of the screen and I want to know what’s working for you.”
We used to send really highly formatted, beautiful emails with lots of images and buttons, headline text and underlines. They looked great, but here’s what we discovered: they don’t feel like they’re coming from a human. They feel like they’re coming from a business.
Over the last year, we’ve gone to more plain text. A lot of times just black text on a white background. Maybe one image, often not. If we include an image, it’s usually from my iPhone. What’s amazing is our engagement went up because it feels like I’m actually writing to you, not broadcasting at you.
Every email is coming directly from me. I’m writing them, telling the stories, thinking through what I want to say and why it’s important. Almost every email ends with a genuine question or invite to respond. And we actually read and reply to them. Not all of them, that would be impossible, but enough that people know I genuinely want to know.
Make sure you’re using email to serve, not just sell. Yes, email is amazing for promoting and driving sales, but most emails I send are pure value: teaching something, sharing a resource, telling a story. The selling happens naturally when you’ve built trust and shown up consistently.
Look at your past ten emails and check the volume between how much you’re serving and how much you’re selling. Serve, serve, serve, then sell through an invitation that makes sense for someone who’s subscribed.
Even if just two to five percent of your subscribers respond, that could be dozens or hundreds of real conversations. These conversations give you insight, create sincere loyalty, and often lead to testimonials or opportunities. They also make you feel connected to your work and your audience. For me, that’s invaluable as a creator.
What Actually Lasts
After nearly a decade of doing this work, of building this business and this podcast, I keep coming back to one question: what actually lasts in this ever-changing world?
Your Instagram posts disappear in hours. TikTok vanishes even faster. Even podcast episodes get buried in libraries. But the connections you build? Those are forever. My most meaningful connections live in the inbox.
Every single week for years, I’ve shown up in the inboxes of the people I care about most. I’ve shared my wins and losses. I’ve celebrated with you, cried with you, watched your businesses grow through the emails you’ve sent back. To me, that’s not marketing. That’s real relationship.
Your email list isn’t just a marketing tactic. It’s a direct line to your people, the people raising their hand saying, “I want more. I want to learn more, do more, be with you more.” The ability to show up and serve and build something meaningful that you actually own drives the biggest ROI I’ve ever seen in the online marketing space.
Your inbox isn’t just where we’re sending messages. It’s where you build trust, create community, and prove email after email that you’re seeing people as people, not just leads, not just numbers, not just a dashboard.
When you show up with email marketing authentically, adding value and speaking from your heart, you’re not interrupting someone’s day. You don’t need to be apologetic. You’re literally improving their life.
Your Next Step
You don’t have to do everything I talked about today. Pick one thing. Maybe it’s getting started. Maybe it’s setting up a welcome sequence, cleaning your email list, or ending your next email with a question that invites replies. Do that one thing and see what happens. Circle back to this post, then do the next and the one after that.
If you want specific step-by-step guidance on how to implement this for your exact business type, whether you’re a coach, product-based business, service provider, whatever, come join me for my free masterclass, From Zero Subscribers to an Engaged Email List of Buyers. I walk you through the exact system I use and show you how to customize it based on what you do.
Progress will always trump perfection. Consistency will always win over intensity. And connection will always lead to conversion. Always. If you don’t have an email list yet or you’ve been neglecting yours, hear me: it’s not too late. The best time to start was five years ago. The second-best time is today.
Before you get to work, close your laptop or shut down your phone for a minute. Make your screen go black. Think about your people. Picture each subscriber, just one of them. What are they genuinely struggling with? What do they not know? What do they need to hear today?
Now go write an email to that one person. Not a sales email, not a perfect email, not an overly polished one. Just write to that one person like you’re writing to a friend. Tell them something true. Give them something valuable. Invite them to respond. Let them know you’re really there and be there.
And hit send. That is inbox intimacy. That is the future of email marketing, and it starts right now. It starts with us. Your people are waiting.
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