Most marketing channels have learned to talk at people. Email, at its best, talks to them.
Of course, I’m speaking as an email marketer. I know the inbox isn’t sacred. We’ve all contributed to in some way, and definitely experienced, what Cory Doctorow calls the “enshitification” of platforms, and email hasn’t entirely escaped it. The automation, the endless “just checking in” sequences, the pressure to optimise every subject line. They all chip away at what made email feel human in the first place.
Yet, I’ll argue that email remains the most human marketing/ communication channel we have left. Getting a personal letter or handwritten note might top the list, but a genuine, thoughtful email isn’t far behind. It sits just below a real conversation, and when done right, it still feels like one.
For all the tools and tech we’ve built, nothing quite replaces that feeling. Not the ones written by committee or stitched together by automation, but the ones that sound like they came from a real person with a real thought to share. It’s easy to forget that behind every open, every click, and every unsubscribe, there’s a person making a choice.
Social media promised connection, and it delivered for a while. Then the algorithms took over. What started as conversations between people slowly became broadcasts to crowds, filtered through whatever the platform wanted you to see. Email never had that problem. You send a message, it lands in someone’s inbox, and they decide what happens next. No gatekeeper. No feed. Just a direct line from one human to another.
That’s probably why so many marketers, myself included, have fallen “back” in love with email newsletters. There’s something refreshing about writing directly to an audience that chose to be there. It’s not shouting into the void, it’s sharing with permission. Even when it’s a sales email, there’s still the chance to sound human, to respect the reader’s time, and to say something worth reading.
And yes, AI has entered the room now. It can write, design, optimise, and automate faster than any of us ever could. But curiosity still wins. AI can mimic tone, but it doesn’t feel the reader’s frustration or delight. It can guess what to say, but it doesn’t wonder why this message matters, or how it might land.
The most effective marketing emails I’ve seen weren’t emotional masterpieces. They were timely. Clear. Unobstructed. They respected the reader’s intent and made the next step easy. That’s what good marketing really does. It removes friction between a person and the thing they actually want.
The inbox isn’t a place of quiet dignity; it’s a reflection of whoever owns it. Some people live by inbox zero. Others have tens of thousands of unread messages and are perfectly content. It’s messy, personal, and inconsistent, which is exactly why it works. The inbox belongs to the user, not the platform, not the algorithm, not the marketer. When we write an email, we’re stepping into that chaos by invitation, not entitlement.
Maybe the future of email isn’t about more automation or clever segmentation. Maybe it’s about remembering what made it valuable in the first place. It’s not the metrics or the tools. It’s the trust that someone has given you a tiny piece of their attention. The least we can do is respect it.
So yes, AI will get smarter, and new platforms will rise and fall. But I suspect that email will stay, doing what it always has: giving people a place to talk to each other, one message at a time.
Make Your Email Marketing More Human
If this post struck a chord, and you’re looking to bring more empathy and clarity into your campaigns, that’s exactly what we do at Holistic Email Marketing.
Our consulting services help brands rediscover the human side of email. Building strategies that connect, not just convert. From testing and deliverability to copy, design, and automation, we focus on understanding your audience and crafting messages that respect their attention.
When marketing starts with empathy, every send becomes a chance to build trust.
Jonathan Pay - email marketing consultant 