Does Email Marketing Still Work? How to Use It Without Landing in Spam

The computer sat under the counter, covered by a plastic cover that had once been clear.

Caroline took twenty minutes to remember the password. It was the name of the street where her father was born, followed by the year he opened the bike shop. Ray had died in July. By September, the shop was hers.

On the desktop, between photos of pedals and scanned invoices, there was a file called warranty_customers_ALL.xls. Inside it: name, phone, bike model, purchase date and email. Two thousand one hundred and forty rows, the first from 2012.

Her father had asked for everyone's email to register the warranty. He had never sent a single message.

From here, this story splits in two.

The Answer, Before the Two Versions

Email marketing still sells, and it is one of the few acquisition channels where the business owns the audience: the list doesn't depend on an algorithm or a platform. It sells when the list is made up of people who have dealt with the company, the sends are useful and regular, the domain is set up correctly and every message has a clear goal. It lands in spam when someone blasts an old list all at once, with no warning, looking like an ad and with no easy way to opt out.

An acquisition channel is any path that brings in customers, and email is one of the cheapest to test when the contacts already exist.

First Version: Monday, Nine in the Morning

In the first version, Caroline is in a hurry. The shop needs cash, the kids' bike inventory has been sitting since the end of summer, and she has just discovered two thousand contacts.

She opens a free account with a sending tool, imports the entire spreadsheet and writes, in huge letters: "CLEARANCE SALE! This week only!" She adds six photos, three buttons, a coupon. She clicks send at nine on a Monday morning.

Some of the emails never arrive: addresses from 2013 that no longer exist bounce back as errors. Of those that do arrive, many go straight to the spam folder, because a sender who has never sent anything suddenly dumps thousands of promotional messages. Some recipients have no idea who this shop is and mark it as spam. One replies: "Where did you get my email?"

The next day, the tool suspends her account for too many complaints.

Caroline sells two bikes. And she reaches the conclusion a lot of people reach: email marketing doesn't work anymore.

Second Version: The Same Monday, Nine in the Morning

In the second version, Caroline opens the same spreadsheet and sends nothing.

She spends the morning looking at the list. She separates people who bought in the last three years from those who bought longer ago. She removes the emails with obvious typos. She sees that some customers bought three, four bikes over the years: the father, then the daughter, then the grandson.

Then she writes an email that sells nothing.

"Hi, this is Caroline, Ray's daughter, from the bike shop on Maple Street. My dad passed away in July and I'm running the shop now. He kept the contact info of everyone who bought a bike here, for the warranty. I wanted to let you know the shop is still open and ask: may I send you, once a month, maintenance tips and news from the shop? If you'd rather not hear from us, just click the link below and I'll take you off the list."

She sends it first to customers from the last three years, in small groups, over the course of a week. Before that, she sets up the shop's domain in the sending service (the so-called authentication settings, SPF, DKIM and DMARC, which the service itself walks you through step by step) so that mailbox providers know the email is legitimate.

Replies start arriving the same day. People telling the story of the first bike they bought from Ray. An older gentleman asking for a tune-up on his wife's bike. A mother asking if the shop still sold bikes with training wheels.

The following month, Caroline sends the first useful email: "Five signs your bike chain needs replacing." At the end, one line: "Full tune-up, book by replying to this email." The tune-up calendar fills up.

Only in the third month does she mention kids' bikes. To people who had bought one five or six years earlier. The kids had grown.

What Separated the Two Versions

The list was the same. So were the product, the price, the shop and the daughter. What changed was five decisions that apply to any business:

1. Permission before promotion. An old list needs to be reintroduced before it gets an offer. Explain who you are, why you have that contact and offer a one-click exit. That's also what anti-spam and privacy rules such as CAN-SPAM in the US and GDPR in Europe expect: honesty and respect for the recipient's choice.

2. Warm up gradually. Start with the most recent contacts and send in smaller batches. A new sender that fires off high volume all at once is exactly what spam filters look for.

3. A configured domain. Send from the company's own domain, not a free address, and complete the authentication your sending service points you to. Without it, mailbox providers tend to distrust the sender.

4. Write like a person. Short text, from one person to another, with a single ask per email. Lots of images, lots of buttons and lots of capital letters make an email look like an ad, even to the filters.

5. Segment by what you already know. Caroline knew the model and date of every purchase. Someone who bought a kid's bike five years ago is the right person to get the email about the next bike.

Three Kinds of Email That Sell and Where to Start

A reintroduction or welcome email. First step: write an email with no offer, explaining who you are and what the person will receive, and send it to your most recent contacts.

A useful newsletter on a fixed day. First step: pick a subject your customer wants to know about, such as maintenance, recipes, deadlines, care, and promise a frequency you can keep. Once a month, kept, is worth more than once a week, abandoned.

An automated sequence. First step: three or four emails that go out on their own after a purchase or a sign-up. If you don't have a list yet, a good way to start is a lead magnet that trades a free resource for contacts who buy.

To measure, track for thirty days how many people replied, clicked and, above all, bought or booked from each send. And how many asked to unsubscribe: if it's a lot, the problem is in the content or the frequency, not the channel.

The Question That Remains

There is a kind of business owner who looks at a contact list and sees a megaphone.

And there is another who looks at the same list and sees two thousand conversations nobody has started.

The first shouts once and burns the list. The second starts the conversation and builds a channel that belongs only to them.

Ray spent twelve years gathering an asset without knowing it was an asset. Almost every business has something like it sitting idle, a ready-made channel nobody has ever opened: the warranty list, the customers from five years ago, the partner who referred once and was never contacted again, the storefront that could become a channel.

The 100 Acquisition Channels Guide, by Luiz Philipe Campos, is for finding those channels. There are 100, organized in 10 parts, from referrals to offline, through content and search, newsletters, prospecting, communities and platforms. Each channel comes with what it is, a practical example, the first step to test it, who it works best for and what it costs to try. Along with it, a spreadsheet to score the channels and pick your first three, and a 30-day, day-by-day plan to launch the first one without doing what the first-version Caroline did.

Next step

Don't depend on a single way to win customers

Everything in this article works better when new customers arrive every month. Most businesses depend on two or three channels and suffer when one of them slows down. The 100 Acquisition Channels Guide shows 100 ways to win customers, a practical example of each one and the first step to test it spending little or nothing.

• ✓The 100 channels, one by one, from the best known to the ones almost nobody uses
• ✓A practical example and a low-cost first step for each channel
• ✓A simple way to choose the channels that fit your business now
• ✓Bonus: Channel scorecard
• ✓Bonus: 30-day test plan

Get the 100 acquisition channels guide for $49

One-time payment · Instant access · 7-day guarantee

Access is immediate: the PDF lands in your inbox right after purchase. The first channel you test can cost zero, like the list already sitting on your computer.

If it doesn't fit your business, Hotmart refunds your payment within 7 days.

Caroline and Ray are characters created for this text.

Frequently asked questions

Does email marketing still work?+

It does, especially for businesses that already have a base of customers or interested prospects. It's a channel where the business owns the list and doesn't depend on an algorithm. Results come from a permission-based list, useful content, consistent frequency and a clear goal in every send.

How do I keep my emails out of spam?+

Send only to people who have dealt with your business, set up domain authentication in your sending service, start with small volumes if the list is old, write short, personal copy and always include an easy link to unsubscribe. Remove addresses that bounce.

Can I email an old list of customers?+

You can, with care. The first send should reintroduce the business, explain why you have that contact and offer the option to stop receiving messages, in line with anti-spam and privacy rules. Start with the most recent contacts and only send offers once the list has warmed up.

Where can I find acquisition channels besides email?+

The 100 Acquisition Channels Guide brings together 100 channels in 10 parts, each with an example, a first step and a cost to test. It also includes a spreadsheet to choose your first three channels and a 30-day test plan. Access is immediate through Hotmart, with a 7-day guarantee.

Does it work for my type of business?+

Yes. The channels cover local businesses, service providers, online stores, B2B companies and professionals. The guide helps you pick the ones that fit your case.

How do I receive the guide?+

Right after payment, Hotmart sends the access to your email. You can read it on your phone, computer or print it.

What if I don't like it?+

You have a 7-day guarantee. If it isn't for you, ask for a refund through Hotmart within that period.

The 100 Acquisition Channels Guide

100 ways to win customers without depending on a single source of sales

Get the 100 acquisition channels guide for $49

One-time payment · Instant access · 7-day guarantee