08/2025

How To Innovate Your Email Marketing

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One of the biggest questions I get asked, again and again, is this:

“How do we improve our email marketing?”
“How do we take it further?”
“Where do we go next with email?”

And look, I love that energy. I love that people want to push the channel forward.

But here’s my honest response every single time:

Before you try to innovate, make sure what you’re doing is actually working.

Innovation means nothing without foundations

Let’s get really real for a second.

If you haven’t got your data right...

If your CRM is a mess...

If your deliverability is patchy...

If your segmentation is non-existent...

If your performance analysis is surface-level (*cough cough* just open rates and click rates)...

You’ve got no business “innovating” your email marketing.

You don’t get to skip the building blocks, or what I like to call the Email Hierarchy of Needs.

And this is where I’m going to link you straight to my The PPPP™ Email Framework & Ecosystem, because I created that to show exactly where your email priorities need to live.

If you haven’t sorted the layers underneath, testing quirky CTAs or trying interactive design isn’t going to save you.

Innovation should come when your house is built, stable, and scalable, not when the foundations are wobbling.

Ask yourself: Do we even NEED to innovate?

It’s a super fair question.

You do not need to innovate just for the sake of it. You do not need to be different if your current approach is already doing the job and you're hitting your goals.

Yes, you can always be better (that's called continual improvement and optimisation).

But if you have ambitious growth goals?
If you want to stand out in a crowded space?
If you want to transform how email works and is approached within your organisation?

Then yeah, innovation is probably on the table.

So ask yourself this:

Is what we're doing currently working (and get really clear on what working means for you)?
Are we confident in our CRM function, tech, list hygiene, and strategy?
Is email being maximised as a function, or are we just sending stuff and using it as a push channel?

Only when you’ve got those answers is it time to move forward.

What actually is innovation in email?

The biggest misconception I see every day:

“We’ve been innovating our subject lines and trying adding this or taking this out.”

No. That’s not innovation, that’s tweaking or optimisation or even testing (but you know I HATE subject line testing, so don't even get me started).

Innovation is the process of transforming creative ideas into something of practical value.

It’s not just improvement, it’s new, it’s inventive, it’s bloomin' uncharted.

So when we talk about innovating your email marketing, it’s not: Better subject lines.

Examples of innovation in email (things I've done):

Innovation in email doesn’t always look like some new shiny campaign or trick or trend in your inbox.
A lot of the time, it’s internal.

It’s changing perspectives or getting your boss to finally understand that “send to the whole database” isn’t a strategy.

It’s showing leadership that batch-and-blast belongs in 2005, and journeys, segmentation, and targeting belong in 2025. That shift alone, from campaigns to strategy, is innovation.

Sometimes innovation is in your data. Redesigning how you collect it, how you use it, how you actually connect it back into the CRM system. That’s innovation too. Because if your data doesn’t evolve, your email can’t either.

And yes, innovation can be outward-facing, the stuff your audience actually sees. Pattern interrupts are a great example: sending something so unexpected that it makes people stop deleting your emails.

Or, on the flip side, leaning into predictability, becoming the brand people want to hear from at a set time each week about a certain topic and that's it.

Innovation might mean stripping emails of all images and taking a word and story led approach. It might mean sending less, not more. It might mean making a bold new promise about how you’ll use the channel, and then sticking to it.

Innovation doesn’t always mean a flashy new format. More often than not, it’s the invisible shifts behind the scenes that completely transform how email performs.

Where do you start with email innovation?

Innovation in email isn’t something you’ll find hiding in the feature tab of your ESP (I have a love-hate relationship with Email Service Providers tbh).

It’s not a shiny new layout or template
It’s not a one-click shortcut or a clever hook to get them to open, because if they open they might see the offer, if they see the content, then they may buy (very unlikely if you just tried to trick them).
And it’s definitely not copying what your competitors are doing and hoping it sticks (pls don't do this).

If you want to innovate, you have to zoom out and look at the bigger picture.

Here’s where true innovation starts:

Purpose – Why are you innovating?

Is it to drive more revenue? Is it to assist growth in leads, enquiries, sales, revenue? What about impact? Build stronger customer relationships? Stand out in a crowded market? Too many businesses “innovate” because they feel like they should, without linking it to an actual business goal. Innovation for the sake of it is just noise and rubbish. Innovation with purpose creates impact.

Performance – Where are you right now?

Before you can decide what’s “next,” you need to know what’s holding you back. Have you done an audit? Do you know if your deliverability, data hygiene, or segmentation is strong enough to support growth? You can’t innovate on shaky ground, measure first, then move. For example, if your CRM & ESP are not integrated, sort that first, innovate later.

Process – Are your systems helping or hurting?

Innovation collapses if your workflows are clunky or your automations don’t work. If data isn’t flowing, if teams don’t trust the CRM system or data, if your segments are stuck at “everyone in the database”… then no clever subject line or interactive design is going to save you. Fix the process, then build on it.

Perspective – How are you treating email?

If you still see email as a campaign tool, something you “blast out” every few weeks, you’ll always hit a ceiling.

True innovation comes when you treat email as an ecosystem: an always-on, data-driven, multi-touch channel that supports awareness, nurture, conversion, and retention.

This is the difference between another “let’s try emojis in subject lines” idea… and a strategic reinvention of how email powers your business growth.

Where do you start?

I’m not going to give you a list of “10 innovative ideas for email.” (You will never find content like that here).

Because as soon as I write them down, they’re no longer innovative.

They’re recycled, they’re copycat and they’re someone else’s playbook.

Real innovation is personal.
It’s brand/business-led.
It comes from your strategy, your voice, your audience, your values and your market.

What works brilliantly for a D2C e-commerce brand might completely flop for a B2B SaaS company
What feels fresh in your inbox might feel gimmicky in someone else’s
What sparks delight for your audience might just irritate mine

That’s the point: innovation isn’t a template you can download!!!!

It’s a process of rethinking how email works for your business, your customers, and your growth goals.

So what does it actually look like?

Sometimes it’s:

Turning email into the central nervous system of your marketing, not just a campaign channel
Using email as an awareness channel not just a push channel.
Reframing journeys so the audience feels known, not “sold to”
Rethinking measurement, moving from “open rates” to real impact metrics like assisted awareness, time to first action, subscriber to customer rate or sales cycle acceleration.
Reimagining the role of email in your ecosystem: not just sales, but awareness, education, advocacy, and retention.

The crucial bit is before you can innovate, you need to audit what’s already there. But like REALLY audit what's there not just a little check.

Because you can’t break the rules until you know which ones you’re already breaking.

That’s the work I do. Helping you dig into their current setup, figure out what’s really working (and what’s just noise), and then build the foundations so genuine innovation can happen.

Your first step: Doing an audit

An audit isn’t “sexy” (I can try make it sexy though tbf). You don’t get fireworks, shiny templates, or viral subject lines.

But it is the smartest starting point if you want to innovate.

Because before you can build, you need clarity.

What’s underperforming?
Where are you over-relying on hacks?
Where is your data leaking?
How is your CRM system supporting (or stalling) growth?
What’s genuinely working, and what’s just “there because it always has been”?

Most teams don’t actually know and that’s why audits matter.

When I talk about an “email audit,” I don’t mean glancing at your last campaign report. I mean a deep-dive across every layer of your email ecosystem using my PPPP™ framework. You can do it yourself using the framework:

Pillars – Systems, Strategy & Data

The big, immovable foundations. What platform are you on? How clean is your data? Do you even have a strategy written down? If these aren’t aligned, everything else is built on shaky ground.

Pyramid – The Hierarchy of Needs

Once the foundations are sound, you look at the supporting layers: deliverability, compliance, data capture, automations, and alignment with other functions like sales and service. This is where you uncover the hidden cracks that stop email performing.

Principles – The Inbox Experience

The things your audience actually sees: subject lines, preheaders, design, copy, accessibility, branding. Here we check if the day-to-day emails match your brand promise and vlaues, or if they’re confusing, inaccessible, or uninspiring.

Plan – The Way Forward

And finally, you don’t just want a diagnosis, you want a roadmap. A good audit gives you both quick wins (the things you can fix today) and big transformation priorities (the shifts you need to make to future-proof email as a channel).

Innovation without this insight is just guesswork!

You can’t build bold, creative, effective email programmes if you don’t understand what’s broken, what’s working, and where the opportunities really lie.

That’s why the smartest first step will always be: do the audit first, then innovate.

A note before you go

These blogs are never here to sell to you. They’re here to educate, to inform, and to help you grow.

But… if you don’t want to do this on your own, you don’t want to do it alone, or you don’t even know where to start, that’s where I can step in.

In the last 18 months, I’ve:

Worked with over 50 businesses (B2B, B2C, SaaS, membership orgs, and everything in between)
Trained thousands of marketers, from beginners to senior leaders
Helped teams leave with not just knowledge, but confidence and a more innovative, sustainable approach to email

And yes, we always have fun along the way.

I do training, audits, workshops, strategy, consultancy, and advisory. If you truly need help and have some budget, I’d love to have a conversation.

If you’d rather DIY your learning, that’s cool too:

Either way, keep learning, keep challenging the “best practice” nonsense, and keep pushing email forward.

Beth 💜

Have a conversation with Beth

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