Why We Kill Emails Our Clients Love (and You Should Too)

Every email you send that isn’t worth opening trains your audience to stop opening your emails.

We had an email ready to go for a client. The blog post was written, the email was designed, the subject line was in place. It was scheduled and sitting in the queue. And we didn’t send it.

The blog post was titled something along the lines of “3 Reasons to Give Monthly.” And when we read it through the lens of someone on the receiving end—someone who maybe donated once or signed up for the newsletter out of casual interest—we couldn’t come up with a reason anyone would click on it.

The strategy behind the post was sound: The organization wanted to increase recurring monthly donations. That’s a legitimate goal, but the content was the strategy stated too plainly. It was the equivalent of sending an email that says, “Here are three reasons you should give us money.” No story. No impact. No reason to care.

The Real Cost of a Mediocre Email

Most marketers think about email in terms of individual sends. Did this email get a good open rate? Did people click? But the real game is played across hundreds of sends over months and years. Every email either builds or erodes your audience’s habit of opening your messages.

When someone opens your email and finds something genuinely interesting—a compelling story, a useful insight, something they’re glad they read—they’re more likely to open the next one. When they open your email and find a thinly veiled ask or content that feels like filler, they learn to ignore you. Not dramatically. They don’t unsubscribe in protest. They just stop opening. Your emails start going from “Inbox” to “I’ll read it later” to invisible.

That’s why killing a mediocre email isn’t a loss. It’s an investment in your next email’s open rate.

How to Tell When Your Strategy Is Showing

There’s a useful test we apply to every client email before it goes out. We call it the “why would I click on this” test, and it’s exactly as simple as it sounds.

Put yourself in the shoes of a subscriber who has fifteen unread emails and is deciding which ones to delete and which ones to open. Look at your subject line and preview text. Ask yourself: Would I click on this? Not “would our most engaged donor click on this?”. Would a normal, busy, mildly interested person click on this?

Here’s what tends to fail that test:

• Content where the ask is obvious from the subject line. If I can tell you’re about to ask me for money before I open the email, I’m not opening it.
• Content that’s vague about what I’ll get from reading it. “Build hope that lasts for generations” sounds nice but doesn’t tell me what I’m going to learn or feel.

• Content that promotes a program or initiative without grounding it in a specific story or result. Programs are abstractions. Stories are concrete.

   

And here’s what tends to pass:

• A specific story about a specific person or community. “How one village in East Africa went from zero clean water to a functioning well in 90 days” gives me a reason to click.
• A result or outcome that makes me curious. “We didn’t expect this to work” is more compelling than “here’s what we’re doing.”
• Something that makes me feel like I’m getting insider access to the work, not just being asked to fund it.

The Compounding Problem of Back-to-Back Weak Sends

In this particular case, we had a second issue: The following week’s email was also promotion-heavy. It was about a new giving program—again, a legitimate initiative—but it had the same problem. Two emails in a row that led with asks and lacked stories.

One mediocre email in a sequence of otherwise strong sends is survivable. Two in a row starts to create a pattern. Three in a row, and you’ve taught your audience that your emails aren’t worth their time. Rebuilding that trust takes much longer than maintaining it.

This is why we look at the email calendar holistically, not just one send at a time. If last week’s email was an ask, this week’s email needs to be pure value—a story, an update, something the reader benefits from without being asked to do anything. The rhythm matters as much as any individual email.

What We Did Instead

We held the email. We waited for a week when we had a stronger piece of content—something story-driven that would pair naturally with a softer version of the giving message. The monthly giving initiative didn’t go away; it just got attached to content that gave people a reason to engage with it rather than delete it.

We also gave the client direct feedback about the blog content itself. Not every blog post makes a good email, and not every internal initiative translates into content that external audiences care about. Sometimes the most helpful thing an agency can do is say “this one isn’t strong enough to send” and protect the client’s relationship with their audience.

The Bottom Line

Your email list is not a megaphone. It’s a relationship. Every send is either a deposit or a withdrawal from your subscribers’ willingness to pay attention to you. Mediocre content is a withdrawal. A well-timed, well-told story is a deposit.

If you’re ever looking at an email in your queue and thinking “this is fine, I guess”—that’s your signal to kill it. Fine is the most expensive word in email marketing, because fine is what teaches your audience to ignore you.

Schedule a free consultation to discuss your advertising strategy.

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