Here are the key things to unlearn this year, and what to do instead:
1) The inbox is not a browsing environment
People don’t open email to discover.
In the inbox, people are:
→ scanning
→ clearing
→ responding
→ confirming
→ reducing cognitive load
They are not leaning back, exploring content, or waiting to be persuaded.
What to do instead:
- Design emails for task mode, not browsing mode.
- Reduce cognitive effort
- Make relevance obvious fast
- Respect attention as scarce
2) “Best practice” ignores context
Advice like:
- Keep emails short
- One clear CTA above the fold
- Personalise everything
Only works when conditions are right
When trust is low, expectations are unclear, or relevance isn’t established, these rules fall apart.
What to do instead:
- Optimise for clarity, orientation, and intent, not rules.
- Sometimes context beats brevity
- Sometimes recognition beats clicks
- Sometimes reassurance is the goal, not action
3) Attention is shaped before the open
By the time someone considers opening, they’ve already:
→ predicted intent
→ assessed effort
→ judged trust
→ compared you to everything else
Design and copy only matter after you’ve passed that filter.
What to do instead:
Change expectations over time.
-
Teach people what your emails are for
-
Use value to interrupt sales-heavy patterns
-
Let restraint be the differentiator
There are 9 more points I make, click below to keep reading.
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