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How to Do B2C Email Marketing Differently (and Better)

Picture of Beth O'Malley

 

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RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.

 

The Problem: Consumer Email is Broken

It might only be the first sentence in this blog, but it’s time for the cold, hard truth: most brand emails are shockingly bad.

It’s backwards. It’s outdated. And worst of all, it’s built on myths like:

“Add an emoji to your subject line, it’ll boost opens.”

“More emails = more sales.”

“Just copy what every other brand is doing.”

The result? B2C email marketing is broken, and consumer inboxes are stacked full of the same repetitive rubbish. People are tired.

In fact, in research that I ran in 2024, 94% of people said they expect “too many emails” when they buy or sign up to a brand. That’s not a perception problem; that’s reality.

And the kicker is that people don’t even unsubscribe.

Instead, they delete your emails, scroll past, or let their inbox rules filter you into oblivion. 

Over time, they build up inbox fatigue, or what I call inbox numbness, which can be fatal to your email marketing strategy.

That means that even if you’re doing something decent, your emails are competing with hundreds of lookalike subject lines plastering “20% OFF! FREE SHIPPING!” everywhere.

In short, consumers have become desensitised… so how can you do B2C email marketing (and do it better)?

 

Why People Actually Go Into Their Inbox

I’ll let you in on a little secret 

Consumers don’t use their inbox the way marketers think that they do. It’s nothing like Instagram or TikTok. Nobody opens Gmail for a quick dopamine fix.

People go into their inbox for specific reasons, not mindless scrolling.

That could include:

  • Checking for something specific (order confirmations, delivery updates, tickets)
  • To search (“discount code,” “returns,” “order history”)
  • To make sure they haven’t missed something important
  • To find a brand when they’re already thinking about buying

It really is just that simple. Nobody is scrolling for the sake of it or for fun, which means that if your emails aren’t working in these micro-moments of intent, they aren’t working at all.

This is also why live text matters. If your entire email is one big image, people can’t search for it later because they’ll type something like “discount code” into Gmail and you won’t be anywhere to be found. Accessibility and searchability aren’t nice-to-haves, they’re fundamental.

I break down the ins and outs of human brain behaviour in my blog Neuromarketing & Email: What the Brain Actually Does in the Inbox.

 

The Reality: Brands Are Fuelling Inbox Numbness

I promise I’m not scaremongering – take a look at your inbox right now. What do you see?

I’m going to guess it’s a lot of “20% OFF!”, “Your faves are here”, “Free shipping”, “Buy one get one free” and “£10 credit added to your account”.

So, basically, a bunch of stuff you’ll barely glance at before chucking it into the bin or junk.

Answer this, then: why are you doing the exact same thing as all of the brands clogging up your inbox?

These tactics used to stand out, but now they’re run of the mill table stakes. Free shipping isn’t exciting, it’s expected (and definitely not important enough to be the sole reason for and subject of sending an email).

The average consumer won’t pay for shipping, so shouting about it doesn’t create any value. You’re assuming that something standard and expected is motivating enough to drive someone to open your email – it’s not.

That’s not even including all of the potential design problems that could be holding your email campaigns back:

❌ Emails stuffed with massive hero images that don’t render properly on mobile

❌ Tiny fonts, inaccessible layouts, clunky navigation bars (why does your email need a website menu, anyway?)

❌ Every customer, whether they’re brand new or just purchased yesterday, receiving exactly the same blast

These aren’t opinions on what might be bad for your email strategy, they’re facts. I’ve tested this myself across 30+ consumer inboxes and tracked how brands treat different customer types. The result? 99.5% of the time, I got the exact same message whether I was a new prospect, an active customer, or had just bought.

It’s insane and it’s lazy.

If you’re B2B and you’re not using exclusion strategies (there’s a whole blog on that here), you’re wrecking your brand perception and training people to ignore you.

 

Why the Attribution Game is Broken

Another reason why B2C email feels so backwards is the way that success is measured.

You’ll see agencies bragging: “We made £100k this month from email!”.

It sounds great, right? Except when you dig deeper, the attribution is skewed:

  • Email is credited if someone bought within 30-60 days of being sent anything, even if they never clicked.
  • It’s treated as a numbers game: throw enough emails out, catch a few fish, claim the revenue.

 

Say it with me: email is not a direct sales tool.

Yes, you’ll get conversions. But email’s true role and strength is assistance: building awareness, nurturing, reminding, guiding.

Most of the time, people aren’t buying directly from the inbox – they’re influenced, nudged, reminded, then buying later. It might not sound as exciting but it’s the reality of buyer behaviour.

Putting all of your eggs in one basket by attributing every sale to one email is doing you a massive disservice. You should look at the whole picture and measure email’s role in the wider ecosystem.


How to Do It Better: Flip the Script

If your current approach to B2C email is broken, and this blog has put the fear into you, don’t worry – there’s a way to fix it.

Here’s where to start.

1. Stop shouting about sales – start providing value

Start thinking about email from the perspective of your audience by asking yourself (from their perspective): “What’s in it for me?”.

Don’t just tell me about your 20% off. Tell me why I should care.

Share something beyond the product. Recipes, ideas, lifestyle content, behind-the-scenes stories. The things that make your brand align more with a human-to-human approach.

Example: Turtle Bay (a UK Caribbean-inspired restaurant chain). Instead of “Book now, 20% off jerk chicken,” send me a recipe for jerk chicken at home. That’ll make me crave the real thing and want to visit. 

2. Respect the customer journey
You can’t just throw any old email at every old subscriber. It has to make sense and meet them where they are.

That means:
  • Exclude recent purchasers from irrelevant promos
  • Don’t send abandoned basket emails to people who’ve already checked out
  • Align your flows so service comms and promos don’t clash
3. Make your emails human, not corporate wallpaper

Nobody wants to open a cluttered inbox to read what is, in essence, a brochure rather than something that looks like it’s written to engage a human being.

Add personality, humour, and storytelling. Consumers connect with voices and stories, not giant hero images or bland statements.

Think about what truly gets your audience motivated and engaged, and focus on achieving that by speaking their language.

4. Think awareness, not dopamine

Inboxes aren’t entertainment platforms like Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram, which means that they aren’t opened for a quick dopamine rush or for fun.

Like I mentioned earlier when saying that people only open their inbox for specific purposes, your goal is to show up consistently, so that when someone is ready, they remember you.

Treat email as an awareness and nurture channel first, sales channel second.

5. Measure the right things

Shift your mindset from a sales-only focus to assisted conversions: how email supports the journey, not just last-click sales.

Track engagement signals like replies, time spent, scroll depth, searchability. These are the signals that someone finds value in your content and feels as though they made the right decision by opening your email in the first place.

Most importantly, stop fixating on open rates and start looking at your impact over time, because email isn’t a short game and it can’t be ‘hacked’.

 

Final Thoughts: Consumers Deserve Better

There you have it! Most B2C emails are boring, repetitive, and disconnected from reality.

Consumers don’t:

  • Want 12 near-identical “20% off” blasts a week
  • Trust brands who ignore context
  • Care about “free shipping” banners

Which means that if you can deliver on what they do want, you’re ahead of the curve and have a competitive advantage.

Here’s what they do want:

  • Value that feels worth opening
  • Experiences that align with their journey
  • Brands that treat them like humans, not segments on a list (that aren’t even segmented properly)

If you want to win in B2C now, you’ve got to do it differently and do it better. Not louder, not more often, and not with ‘hacks’ or quick wins… just better.



And if you want to stay up to date with the world of B2C emails and what works well (and doesn’t), you can subscribe to my newsletter, RE:markable, for weekly email marketing news, updates, insights and resources.


 

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RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.
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