Why no one’s reading your newsletter — and how to bring it back from the dead.
There was a time when brand newsletters felt authored. Penned by someone with a point of view, a voice you’d recognise in a blackout, and a first line that hooked you before you even knew what they were selling. You looked forward to it, like a regular check-in from a brand that felt more like a friend than a funnel.
Now most emails land with a dull thud. The tone is polite, the layout is pretty and the content reads like it was lifted straight from your Notion doc called “Q3 marketing calendar.” You scroll through it the way you scroll through everything else that lacks intrigue: quickly and without consequence. Let’s not blame the format.
It’s not the medium. Email isn’t dead.
It’s the execution that’s on life support.
The inbox isn’t what it used to be, either. Your newsletter now jostles for space with receipts, security alerts, calendar invites and emails from people your reader actually knows. If it doesn’t offer something, it gets ignored. Or moved to read. Or worse, unsubscribed.
The Decline of the Dispatch
Most brand newsletters read like they were produced, not written; briefed, templated, signed off, sent. Something to “get out the door,” engaging writing optional.
Newsletters have become too polished and too empty. They look good, but they don’t say much. A lot of brands are sending emails that read like press releases dressed up in a pastel template. The language is safe. The format is familiar. The result is forgettable.
Part of the problem is funnel logic. Readers can smell a nurture sequence before the hero image loads. When every email opens with “Hi [First Name]” and closes with “10% off,” it feels automated, and so you can’t begrude the audience for automatically deleting in return.
The other issue is clarity without point of view. Most newsletters tell you what’s in stock, what’s new and what’s on sale. But they don’t explain why it matters. There’s no sense of taste, no framing, no context, no reason for the reader to care beyond the transaction.
The AI Problem
AI didn’t kill the newsletter. But it handed every marketer the tools to send more, faster, with less thought.
When everything is grammatically correct, “on brand,” and perfectly aligned in the template, nothing stands out. Voice disappears. Personality flattens. Emails stop reading like they were written and start reading like they were formatted.
Email was already being misused before generative tools became mainstream, but AI has only accelerated that decline. It’s made it easier to send more, faster, without ever stopping to ask if the content is worth sending at all.
The New Inbox Reality
Your newsletter isn’t arriving in a vacuum. It’s fighting for attention against receipts, security alerts, calendar invites, and emails from people your reader actually knows.
If it doesn’t offer something (insight, entertainment, exclusivity) it gets ignored, archived, or unsubscribed.
Most brands will keep sending the same kind of emails and wondering why open rates keep sliding.
But there’s a formula to cutting through the inbox noise.
It’s not about sending more. It’s about sending right. And once you know how to structure an email that earns its place, you’ll never waste another send.
We turned this piece into a brand newsletter blueprint:
- The 7 hooks that get the highest open rates
- How to write subject lines that make people click before they think
- The “single CTA” format that increased clicks by 371%
- Our inbox psychology hacks (open loops, pre-header teases, curiosity triggers)
- Real subject line + pre-header combos you can steal
- The 10-second test we use to cut dead weight from every send
Continue reading on our Substack, Public Opinion.
