Newsletters are dead. Email marketing isn’t.
Oct 07, 2026
Please, for the love of all that is good in the world, stop sending brand newsletters.
No one wants a generic, “here’s what we’ve been up to this month!” broadcast. To be perfectly frank, your readers won’t give a damn. Do you even give a damn?
They deliver little value, a lot of postulating, and inflate everyday operations to force content. It ends up reading like a quarterly board update that literally no one asked for. S-T-O-P.
The newsletter is dead.
But Mia, you harp on about how important email marketing is and its boastful ROI. How can you call time of death?
Specifics. A brand newsletter is dead, but email marketing is not. I mean, look at the uptick in Substack’s popularity over the last two years. People are hungry for considered, compelling long-form content rather than short-form brain rot. And let’s be so for real, a “brand newsletter” doesn’t fit the bill.
So, what do we do instead?
Email marketing for founder-led brands needs a reason to exist
Give people something worth signing up for.
Content fatigue is reaching a fever pitch and we’re inundated with AI slop. No one—trust me, no one—wants another “brand newsletter” loaded with superlatives a la ChatGPT.
Inboxes are clogged with recycled ideas, overproduced waffle, and AI-generated filler that says a lot without saying anything at all. Attention is scarce, and trust is earned slowly.
Some of the fastest ways to lose reader goodwill (and attention span) in the inbox:
- Booooring
- Long paragraphs about what the company has been up to
- Updates that feel like internal comms sent to customers
- Lots of “we” and “us” language that centres the business rather than the reader
Newsflash, your audience didn’t sign up to monitor your activity (and die of boredom in the process). They signed up for insight, education, perspective, resonance, or entertainment. And sometimes, all of the above.
Good email marketing is built on relationships, not updates
An inbox is not a noticeboard. It’s an intimate space for connection. Email works when it’s treated like a relationship.
Humour me and think back for a sec: when was the last time you actually read a “brand newsletter” in its entirety? Notice how easily you “select all” and hit delete on the emails you receive from brands? Case in point.
If your email doesn’t offer a clear reason to exist—a feeling, a thought, a new perspective, a moment of connection—don’t send it.
Strategic marketing doesn’t mean creating content for the sake of it
Stop smashing emails out for the sake of it and start treating them like a relationship.
If you don’t love the email you wrote, your audience will feel it. A far stronger place to start is writing what you actually want to write.
What’s lighting a fire under you right now? What are you irritated by? Curious about? Obsessed with? Write from there. Passion translates. Phoning it in does not.
This is one of the biggest gifts of email marketing that people forget.
Email works when it feels intentional, personal, and worth the interruption. Not sent just to prove consistency, but sent because there is genuinely something to say.
The Weekly Roundup, by Campaign Del Mar
Write letters, not brand updates: email marketing should feel human
The biggest reframe I can give you is this: write your email like writing to one friend or client. Just one.
Write in first person, use your name, and speak like a human, not a bot. Write how you speak. If you wouldn’t say it out loud to a friend, it probably doesn’t belong in someone’s inbox. When someone subscribes, they are inviting you in, not a company.
Drop the third person, the beige corporate tone, and the urge to sanitise every sentence. Your personality is the value here!
Why storytelling makes email marketing more memorable
Many businesses miss the magic of email marketing: stories. They’re often relegated to ‘fluff’, which is reductive and misguided.
Stories with suspense and cliffhangers release dopamine, which sharpens focus and memory. Honest, raw stories release oxytocin, which builds trust and empathy. Stories that make people laugh release endorphins, which support openness and connection.
This matters if you want people to remember you, trust you, and buy from you.
A few years ago, I went on a dodgy boat trip that looked nothing like the brochure. Awful day out, great lesson. It became a story about misaligned marketing and the “turd polishing” approach that company took.
A personal story carries insight far more effectively than a swipe file of tips ever could.
What to send instead of a newsletter
Here are some formats that consistently create engagement, replies, and sales. Feel free to mix and match.
- Curated Emails
Pull together the best thinking on a single topic, add your perspective, and explain why it matters. Make this the best damn email on your chosen topic. Check out Unfolded by Rachel Anderson, it’s a masterclass in great email marketing. - Trend Summaries
Share what’s happening right now in your industry, culture, or niche and share what it means from your point of view. Your interpretation is the value. - Conversation Starters
Ask questions, share your opinions, encourage replies. You can stay neutral or be opinionated. Inbox conversations build real relationships, and those conversations often end in sales. - BTS/Build in public thinking
Talk about decisions you’re making, lessons you’re learning, experiments that failed magnificently. People like seeing how someone thinks, not just what they sell.
Write your email marketing like writing to a friend or client.
Give your email its own ‘brand’
Once again, no one wants “our monthly newsletter”.
Name your email, brand it, and tell people what it adds to their day. What exactly will they get if they sign up?
Make sure your email has a dedicated landing page and communicate the value of it clearly. On your opt-in forms, do not just say “subscribe”. Tell them what they will receive and why it’s worth their attention. When you join the Campaign Del Mar list, you don’t get our “newsletter”. You get The Weekly Roundup, a weekly wrap-up of marketing news and campaign deep dives created for female entrepreneurs.
Oh, and if your website footer contains a generic “subscribe for updates”, change it to something more compelling.
You can keep sending newsletters that get skimmed and deleted. Or you can write emails people recognise, reply to, and look forward to. Only one of those builds a lasting brand.
Your email strategy is part of your bigger marketing strategy
If you’re reading this thinking, okay, but what should I actually be sending? That’s exactly the kind of question we work through inside The Village. Not with another generic template or a list of 47 subject line formulas, but by looking at your business, your audience and what you’re actually trying to make happen.
The Village is my private strategic advisory group for experienced founders and marketers who want somewhere to bring the decisions, ideas and work they want another set of eyeballs on.
Your email strategy might be one of them. So might your positioning, next campaign, offer, pricing, proposal or the idea you can’t quite get out of your head.
Bring it to the room. We’ll make it better.
