If your email results have been slipping, you’re not imagining it. Inboxes are more crowded than ever, readers are quicker to hit delete, and the filters standing between you and your customers keep getting smarter.
The numbers back it up. In a 2025 survey of 3,300 consumers, Attentive1 found that 81% ignore marketing messages that aren’t relevant to them, and 71% say those messages actively frustrate them. One in four are less likely to buy after receiving a generic email message.
At the same time, Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo now lean heavily on engagement signals and sender reputation to decide what reaches the inbox. An email nobody opens today makes it harder for your next one to get through.
So, it’s fair to ask: is email still worth the effort?
The good news is hiding in those numbers
Look closely and those statistics don’t say people hate email. They say people hate irrelevant email. That’s a very different problem, and a very solvable one.
The same Attentive research found that 96% of consumers are likely to buy when a brand sends them personalized messages. And email still pays for itself many times over: in Litmus’s 2025 State of Email survey2, 65% of marketing leaders reported $10 or more back for every $1 spent, and 30% reported $36 to $50 back.
No other channel lets you reach a specific person, in a space they check every day, with a message you control, for so little. The inbox is still wide open. It’s just raised the bar, and generic email no longer clears it.
What relevant looks like: a recent email campaign
We recently ran an email campaign for a healthcare technology client that serves cardiology practices. Instead of sending one message to their whole list, we wrote to a single audience: cardiologists facing a major change in how Medicare will measure and pay for their care.
The email didn’t sell anything. It acknowledged a real worry those physicians had, explained what was coming in plain language, and offered a free download with the industry information they needed.
The results:
- 66% open rate. Industry averages run in the low 40s, according to MailerLite’s 2025 benchmarks3
- 43% click-through rate. The same benchmarks put the average click rate at about 2%.
Those numbers didn’t come from a clever subject line or a lucky send time. They came from knowing exactly who we were writing to, what was keeping them up at night, and what would genuinely help.
How to get back into the inbox
You don’t need a bigger list or more sends. You need fewer, better emails.
Here’s where we’d start:
- Write to one audience at a time. Split your list by role, industry or need, and give each group a message written for them.
- Lead with their problem, not your product. The emails that get opened sound like they understand the reader’s day.
- Give something worth clicking. A checklist, a guide or a short report earns the click and the trust that comes with it.
- Sound like a person. Use a real name as the sender and write the way you’d talk to a client across the table.
- Keep your sending house in order. Clean lists, proper authentication and steady engagement keep you out of the spam folder.
- Update lists. Continue to add new names as often as you can. These should be people that you have met, spoken with or got as a referral.
Where MarketShare comes in
This is the type of work we do every day. Since 1986, MarketShare Communications has helped small and mid-sized businesses say the right thing to the right people. But more importantly, we build a strategy around your emails. We take the time to understand your customers, segment your audience, write emails that sound like you, and create the content that gives people a reason to open and click.
If you’d like the short version to keep on hand, download our one-page guide:
If your emails have gone quiet, let’s talk. We’d be glad to look at what you’re sending and show you where the opportunities are. Contact us at marketsharecomm.com.
2 Litmus’s 2025 State of Email survey
3 https://www.mailerlite.com/blog/compare-your-email-performance-metrics-industry-benchmarks