The Passive-Aggressive Art of Bad Email Marketing!
You’ve seen it. You’ve definitely deleted it.
The cold outreach email.
No value. No context. No reason.
Just a name you don’t know, from a company you didn’t ask to hear from, trying to sell you something you don’t need — like a sad little salesman whispering through your letterbox.
But just when you think you’ve escaped…Boom.
“Just circling back on this…”
“Not sure if you saw my last message…”
“Maybe you’ve been really busy?”
“Still keen to get your thoughts!”
Still keen to get my thoughts?
Mate, I didn’t ask you to be here.
The Guilt Trip Follow-Up. Somewhere, someone’s been taught that if a prospect doesn’t reply, you shame them into action.
You send the “gentle nudge.”
The “did you fall down a well?” message.
The “looping back in just in case this slipped your radar” email.
It’s manipulative. It’s lazy. And it’s the marketing equivalent of following someone round a shop muttering, “You still thinking about that toaster?”
Stop Writing to Your CRM. Start Writing to a Human.
Here’s a radical thought: if someone didn’t respond to your first email, maybe — just maybe — it wasn’t interesting, helpful, or relevant.
Maybe it sounded like every other generic AI-generated sales pitch from the dawn of time.
“Hi Adam, I noticed your company is growing and thought you might be interested in our synergistic solutions for scalable vertical integrations…”
No. No, I’m not.
There Is a Better Way! Want a better approach?
Offer value before asking for attention. Say something useful. Make it about them, not your sales quota. Write like a human, not a sequence template.
Better still: earn permission to show up. Build something worth subscribing to. Create content people choose to receive. Show your thinking. Share your insight.
And when you do follow up? Do it with humility. Not manipulation. A nudge is fine. A reminder is human. But don’t pretend we’re best mates because I opened your email once while eating toast.
What Your Follow-Up Says About You?
It tells me whether you understand relationships or just want revenue.
It shows me whether you’re playing the long game or just trying to hit Q2 targets with as many “just checking in” emails as possible.
And crucially — it tells me whether I want to work with you. Because if this is how you handle the introduction, what’s the service going to be like?
Email marketing isn’t dead. But bad email marketing? That needs to die quietly and take its guilt-trippy follow-ups with it.
So, if you’re reading this thinking, “Maybe I should just follow up on that email I sent last week…” Ask yourself this:
Would I reply to me?
#business #marketing #sales #realtalk #communication #bebetter #gethelp