Email Isn’t Dead, Your Strategy Is

by Paiton McDuffie | Aug 26, 2025

Every few years, a new headline pops up declaring that email is dead. Social media was supposed to kill it. Slack and Teams were supposed to kill it. AI is supposed to kill it. And yet here we are in 2025, and email is still one of the highest-performing channels in B2B marketing. In fact, in 2025, B2B email marketing is reported to deliver an average return of $42 for every $1 spent. That’s a massive 4,200% ROI.* (Source: Omnisend)

The truth is, email isn’t dead. But a bad email strategy is.

Too many teams rely on tired playbooks, lazy automations, and one-size-fits-all messaging that make prospects roll their eyes and hit delete. The channel itself is powerful, but if your emails feel like noise, the problem isn’t email. It’s you.

The Tired Tactics Holding You Back

• Overused automation triggers: “Thanks for downloading our whitepaper! Let’s book a meeting.” Sound familiar? These transactional, sales-y messages turn interest into annoyance.
• Generic nurture drips: Sequences that insert a [First Name] merge tag and call it personalization. Prospects can spot them from a mile away.
• Focusing on vanity metrics: Measuring success by open rates instead of looking at pipeline influence or sales conversations.
• Prioritizing volume over value: More emails don’t mean more engagement. They often mean more unsubscribes. 

What a Successful B2B Email Strategy Looks Like

If the tactics mentioned above are stale, what actually works? The strategies that win in B2B today are grounded in relevance, timing, and authenticity.

• Personalized, beyond the merge tag: Real personalization is about context. Industry, role, challenges, recent interactions, etc. These details shape messaging that feels like it was written for them, not “everyone on this list.” More on personalization here.
• Value-first nurturing: Share insights, resources, or tools that help prospects do their jobs better. Be useful first, then credibility and need follow. More on content quality over quantity here.
• Human tone > corporate jargon: Write like you would if you were emailing a colleague. Skip the buzzwords. Be approachable. Be clear.
• Behavior-driven automations: Use meaningful signals (visited the pricing page, attended a webinar, interacted with sales) to send timely, relevant follow-ups. Stop automating just because you can. More on human-centric automation here.
• Segmentation that matters: Go beyond basic demographics like industry or company size. Segment by pain points, buying stage, or priorities so your messaging speaks directly to what matters most to the prospect.

The Mark of a Winning B2B Email Strategy

Great email strategies share a few things in common:

1. Emails feel personal, timely, and relevant, not canned or pushy.
2. They build trust and authority over time rather than pushing a deep CTA (booking a meeting or a call) in email one.
3. Automation enhances and supports relationships rather than replacing them.
4. Sales and marketing both have visibility into how email drives pipeline, not just opens and clicks.

Email isn’t dead, but bad strategy should be.

If your sequences look like they were written for “anyone,” or if your automations are designed to move leads down your funnel instead of solving their problems, or if your success is defined by open rates instead of outcomes, it’s time to rethink your email strategy.

B2B buyers don’t need more emails; they need better ones. And the companies that understand this will win.