The Importance of Strategy and Context in Building Authority

Email marketing remains one of the most effective strategies in digital marketing, but it’s still surrounded by questions: What should I communicate? When is the best time? Do leads still check their inboxes? Is it still a valid strategy?

What we’ve seen recently is the change in lead behavior in the digital environment. Previously the challenge used to be reaching the lead. Today, it’s about capturing and maintaining their attention. With AI at the center of marketing workflows, competition increases, and standing out in the inbox becomes harder. As a result, the battle for attention has also increased.

Does Email Marketing Still Work?

Contrary to what one might think, email continues to be an extremely strategic resource because it’s a permission-based, intentional channel, often more qualified than other communication means. This is because, unlike social media campaigns, for example, the audience isn’t “rented,” isn’t interrupted randomly, and there’s a prior opening for the relationship.

A study by Statista revealed that the number of email users worldwide is expected to surpass 4.7 billion by 2028, showing that it is still one of the main channels for digital communication. It is estimated that by 2026, nearly 400 billion emails will be sent and received daily worldwide, every day.

Why is Email Marketing Still One of the Most Strategic Channels?

Even with new channels emerging, email marketing remains strong because it’s a permission-based channel. According to Hostinger Brasil, users who are part of your email list are up to 3 times more likely to interact with the content sent and become customers compared to social media. This happens because, while algorithms are unpredictable and can limit reach on social media, your email list is an asset you own, under your control. It also doesn’t depend on these variations and doesn’t randomly interrupt the user; there’s a prior intention for the relationship. Moreover, email marketing can generate engagement rates 5 to 10 times higher than those recorded on social media, according to a McKinsey study.

Another relevant point is the return: email marketing’s ROI can reach $36 for every $1 invested, making it one of the most efficient channels in digital marketing, according to Litmus. Despite these figures, email marketing is still often underestimated and continues to be one of the most important strategies within inbound marketing.

“My recommendation is always to integrate email marketing into a 360 strategy, combining online and offline channels. This broad vision helps in the effectiveness of actions and sustains the long-term evolution of brand presence.”

Rafaella Ferreira, Email Marketing Analyst at Ideatore Americas

Why Do Many Email Marketing Strategies Fail?

When we see inefficiency with this communication channel, the problem usually isn’t the channel itself, but the execution. The main mistakes include:

▪️Generic mailings: Saying the same thing to everyone without personalization, the email becomes “mental spam,” and no one reads it.

▪️Excessive sending: Filling up the inbox causes fatigue, annoys the client, and leads to unsubscribing.

▪️Lack of segmentation: Sending the right message to the wrong person at the wrong time.

▪️Brand-centered communication instead of lead-centered: If it doesn’t address a lead’s pain point, they have no reason to read it.

How to Improve Email Marketing Results?

When we think about optimizing email marketing metrics, it’s essential to start with the strategy.

Let’s reflect: A lead receives multiple emails every day, so what makes them open yours? Personalization and relevance. Understanding who your audience is and, most importantly, what they need is essential for delivering appropriate content that truly adds value to the recipient.

Ask yourself this question: “How does this content improve my lead’s life, and why should they consume it?”

Why Does This Matter?

Building a relationship of trust strengthens your brand’s relevance with the lead, generating authority over time; in other words, you’re not just trying to sell something all the time, but you’re creating a real relationship space. With this, your emails will be seen as a resource, not just a promotion. And the more relationships you build, the greater the chances of them being opened.

Understanding the right time to send the email and why is also essential for the effectiveness of the action, and this doesn’t just involve the day and time, also the context in which your lead is situated. Avoiding periods when they might be more busy or distracted is important, and it’s fundamental to understand market movements and the level of interest in that type of content.

Also, tracking your audience’s behavior and organizing actions in a commercial calendar with integrated campaigns and a well-defined funnel makes all the difference in performance.

This strategy is relevant because it continues to be one of the few channels where the brand communicates directly with an audience that has already opened the door to this conversation.

Are you fully leveraging the potential of this channel in your list?