Why I Stopped Sending Pretty Emails (And You Should Too)

Are your “beautiful” emails actually hurting your results?
When was the last time you replied to a perfectly designed newsletter?
What if the thing you’re spending the most time on… is the reason your emails aren’t working?

If this episode shifts how you think about email marketing, be sure to follow the show and share it with a business owner who needs to simplify their strategy.

For years, we’ve been told that email marketing should look polished, branded, and visually impressive. But what if that’s exactly what’s getting in the way?

In this episode, Kendra breaks down why she stopped sending “pretty” emails—and started seeing better results. Instead of spending time on templates, graphics, and formatting, she focused on writing simple, text-based emails that feel like a real conversation. The shift led to more engagement, more replies, and stronger connections with her audience.

When emails look like marketing, people treat them like marketing—they skim, ignore, or delete. But when your message feels personal and direct, it creates a different experience. People read it. They respond. And they stay connected to you over time. 

This episode will show you:

• How to increase engagement without spending hours on design
• A simple framework for writing emails that feel personal and natural
• Why plain text emails often outperform designed newsletters
• The mindset shift from “email blast” to meaningful conversation
• How to get more replies and stay top of mind with your audience

If you’re tired of overthinking your emails and still not seeing results, this approach offers a simpler, more effective way to connect and convert.

About the host

Kendra Corman is a marketing strategist and host of Imperfect Marketing, where she helps business owners simplify their marketing and focus on what actually works. With over 20 years of experience, she shares practical, no-fluff strategies that help entrepreneurs take action and get results. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Kendra Corman. If you're a coach, consultant, or marketer, you know marketing is far from a perfect science. And that's why this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Join me and my guests as we explore how to grow your business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned along the way. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect

Welcome To Imperfect Marketing

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Marketing. I'm your host, Kendra Corman, and today I'm really excited to be talking about email marketing, one of my favorite topics. But today we're going to talk about why I stopped sending pretty emails and why you should too. If you are struggling over email templates and does, oh, this doesn't, this title doesn't wrap well on mobile, but it's okay on desktop and adjusting font sizes and things like that. So it looks good on dark mode and light mode and all

Why I Stopped Pretty Emails

SPEAKER_00 0:55

the modes, right? I've got some good news for you, right? I stopped sending pretty emails and my results got better. Been not sending pretty emails for probably five years now. Maybe more. It's always dangerous, don't get me wrong, to believe that you are your target audience and that you're the one that buys your products. I get it. But I am my target to an extent, right? I have to be careful with some of that. But overall, like it's business owners, right? It's people that are time constrained and don't always have the time to do all their marketing or don't know what steps to take next. Now, 25 years, 20 plus years of marketing. I do know what steps to take next for the most part. Um, although sometimes it's a little bit of experimentation. However, I'm still buying services, right? I still buy

Top Of Mind Beats Perfection

SPEAKER_00 2:07

services too. And so I'm always looking to see what it is that I was engaging with, what I wasn't. And the second it looked like a newsletter, unless it had really, really, really good content, I deleted it. And by really, really, really good content, I mean somebody that I knew wrote something that I wanted to see. I got rid of the headers, I got rid of the graphics, I got rid of the GIFs, the gifs, whatever you want to call them. And so if I wasn't engaging with these pretty emails, why was I sending them? So I want you to think about for you, the last time you engaged with a beautifully laid-out designed email, or one that felt like it was written to you from somebody. Just think about that, right? You're probably gonna tell me the one that felt like it was written to you that was an email that was text probably resonated more. Right. And a lot of email marketing, I hate to say it, is just showing up, right? They see your name and your subject line. Even if they hit delete, they see your name and you stay top of mind. The number of replies I've gotten from emails that are totally unrelated to the topic in the email for different types of business, just because I stayed top of mind is crazy. Why do pretty emails hurt more than they help? And I'm gonna caveat this. Yes, nonprofits, a lot of times you can send pretty emails, it's all good. Um, e-commerce, yes, pretty emails are important to an extent. But even e-commerce, the plain emails still win over. Yes, you can have pictures and stuff like that, but people want to feel like they're being talked to, not sold to, right? So when you think about

When Design Hurts Deliverability

SPEAKER_00 3:47

designed emails and email newsletters, it feels like marketing. It feels like you're being sold to, and your reader's guard goes up immediately. They often unfortunately end in the promotion and spam folders, even though some of the text-only ones do too. And I think one of the things that people really struggle with is they they spend more time on the design and the layout and the wrapping of the headlines. Sorry, the wrapping of the headlines is a recent hot button for me because someone was like, it's not wrapping right on my phone, or it doesn't look right on my desktop. And I'm like, okay, try it on your phone. Oh, it looks perfect over there. It's like, yeah, we've got a design for responsive, right? So clearly that's a hot button for me right now. But when it comes to it, you're spending more time on the design than the actual content. And that is not where you should be spending your time. We really want the design to not be a barrier to sending consistently. If you've got too much production every time you send, then you're not gonna send your emails often enough, right? If the prettiness becomes the priority, then you're losing the connection with your reader. And I really want your reader to be the priority. So when you get rid of the design, what happens, right? So I have minimal design. It's mostly text, sometimes an image. If I've got a specific photo or GIF that GIF, whatever you want to call it, is better. The hyperlinks are there, but it's not a button, it's not a visual experience. These things show up

Write Like One Person Matters

SPEAKER_00 5:19

on both mobile, dark mode, light mode, all the things without looking strange. I think I got an email from a pretty big company. I'm gonna say CVS. And my phone's on dark mode. I couldn't read their email. This is CVS. I mean, this is a pretty big company, and I'm a pretty big customer of theirs. I love to coupon, learned it all on TikTok. But when I get their emails and I'm on dark, if I it's on my phone, I delete it because I can't see anything because it's not showing upright in dark mode. Again, it's that overly designed piece. If it was just text, the text switches perfectly between them. Now, I'm not saying that CVS should go to text-only emails because I don't think necessarily that that's might be the right move for them simply because of all the the uh products and things like that that they have, but it's definitely worth a thought, right? If somebody who is regularly opening up their emails, if they're not on desktop, deletes it, right? So I want you to think about that. So, in addition, so hyperlinks are present, but they're not a visual experience, right? For for my emails. My emails are written to one person. We all talk about this repeatedly. I strongly recommend, I don't know if I have it back here right now, but Ann Hanley's um um book, Everybody Writes, great book, talks about how you should be talking to that one person. If you're having a conversation with that one person, your emails are gonna be much more effective. And some of my emails that have been the most effective were just a story. Last year, a little bit, well, around this time, I went to Bucky's on my way down to uh Florida and I posted about their marketing. I got more replies about that than any other email I've ever sent. Um, I've not been back to Bucky's since, but I do hope to be there again soon, maybe one day, because I think my nearest one is over 300 miles away. So I don't, I don't get going there often. But I want your emails and when you think about email newsletters, right? To think about them as emails. Feel like you're sending them to a friend, not a marketing department. I want you to think about your next email, right? If you're gonna send your list, you haven't sending your list in a while, you're not gonna apologize for any of that. I just want you to sit down. I want it to be text in a link or text in two links, have a PS. That's it. I want you to write it like you're talking to a

One Idea One Email One Action

SPEAKER_00 7:57

person, one person, whoever it is that just bought your service or is thinking about your service or that you just had a presentation to, or somebody that you want to book you for a speaking gig, something along those lines. And then only one idea per email. I want you to focus on one idea, one theme, one story, and tie it to one call to action. And then I used to really be annoyed. Well, I'm still really annoyed when people call them email blasts. They're not blasts, they're emails, they're personal. And newsletter is starting to become nails on a chalkboard for me, too, because it's not about newsletters either. And it's really about starting a conversation and getting people to reply or to take the action in the email that you want them to take. So let me leave you with this. Your audience wants to hear from you. Okay. Do you hear the capital letters on you? Um, they don't want to hear from a graphic artist, unless you're a graphic artist, of course. I want you to try and just send one plain text email this week. Just one to your list, like you're writing to a friend and see what happens. Thank you so much for joining me.

Send One Plain Email This Week

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Short episode today. I hope you enjoyed it. But stop sending pretty pretty emails um just like I did. And hopefully your response rate will go up just like mine did. Thanks so much and have a great rest of your day.