Email gets written off as old-fashioned with surprising regularity. The data disagrees. With an average return of £36 for every £1 spent, it outperforms social media, paid search, and display advertising on return on investment. Businesses that ignore it are leaving measurable money on the table.
Why email works differently to social media
Unlike social media, where your reach depends on an algorithm's mood, your email list is something you own outright. No platform can decide to show your content to 5% of your subscribers. Everyone on that list gave you direct permission to contact them.
Email also reaches people in a different state of mind. Someone sitting down to check their inbox is paying attention in a way that someone scrolling a social feed simply isn't.
Building a list worth having
A list of 500 engaged subscribers will outperform a bought list of 10,000 cold contacts every time. Quality matters more than volume.
Practical ways to grow: offer something genuinely useful in exchange for an email address (a guide, a checklist, a discount), put a sign-up form on your most-visited pages, follow up with customers after a purchase, and collect emails at events or in person. The people who sign up because they want to hear from you are the ones who buy.
What makes an email worth opening
Most marketing emails fail for the same reasons: a weak subject line, no clear purpose, and a call-to-action buried so far down nobody reaches it.
Subject lines under 50 characters that create genuine curiosity or communicate clear value outperform longer, vaguer ones. Each email should have one primary goal: driving traffic to a post, promoting a service, or sharing a time-limited offer. Emails that try to do everything tend to do nothing. Short paragraphs, easy scanning, and one clear link round it out.
Segmentation
Sending the same email to your entire list every time is a fast route to unsubscribes. Segmentation means dividing your list into groups based on behaviour, interests, or purchase history, so the message feels relevant rather than broadcast.
Even basic segmentation, separating new subscribers from existing customers for example, lifts open rates and cuts unsubscribes.
Automation that runs in the background
A welcome sequence introduces new subscribers to your business over five to seven emails. An abandoned cart sequence recovers lost sales. A re-engagement campaign wins back customers who've gone quiet. Set these up once and they run on their own, generating revenue without ongoing effort.
Start small
You don't need sophisticated software or a large list to begin. A simple monthly newsletter to your existing customers, sent consistently, builds the habit and gives you data to work with. Measure open rates and click rates. Do more of what gets clicks. Scale from there.
At eHull, we help businesses across Hull and East Yorkshire build email strategies that drive real, measurable revenue. Talk to our team to find out what's possible.