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Why daily emails still beat everything else in 2026
About twice a year, I sit down to take the temperature of email marketing in the marketplace.
I already know it works from experience, but I’m constantly re-assessing what other people are saying and experiencing with it so I can make both my approach and my marketing for it more effective.
After a fair bit of time spent researching this morning, here’s where things stand as we approach the middle of 2026.
Email still returns about $42 for ever $1 spent on average across every single industry on planet earth. And the good news is, “average” probably isn’t you. In the coaching, consulting, education, and personal development world, it’s more like 45:1 or better (because you’re not just sending promotions, people actually want your content).
Still some 35 years after it’s invention, email marketing revenue is growing. Up $1.3B just this year. Meanwhile, organic reach on social media just got clocked over the head with a baseball bat.
So let’s talk about daily emails.
When I decided to start emailing daily again I knew two things would happen:
- Open rate would decrease.
- Unsubscribe rate would increase.
And I was right. That’s true today from my own experience as well as with the research across all industries. But there’s an interesting twist to this that most people fail to mention.
The more you email, the more people click.
Not just across the board on average, but for each individual email you send, more people will click. Why? Because the people who stick around tend to really enjoy engaging with your content.
So the whole open rate / unsubscribe thing is a feature, not a bug. Daily sending prioritizes the people on your list who are willing to do the work and derive some benefit from it.
Whether they buy from you or not.
Daily readers are the movers and shakers of the world. They buckle up, learn, implement, and get results. While the people who can’t be bothered are well… too busy doing other things to be bothered by your daily emails.
And that’s fine.
They weren’t going to be a great customer or client for you anyway.
Then there’s the immeasurable benefits. The ones you won’t find on a spreadsheet. The way it makes you a better writer, thinker, and entrepreneur. The way it makes you more of the kind of person who shows up regardless. The way it forces you to become even more of an expert at what you do because now you’ve got to write about it in a new and interesting way each and every day.
The way it eventually becomes something that’s easier to do than it is to not do.
A lot of people land on sending weekly newsletters because it feels like the easy and safe bet. And there’s plenty of people out there who’ve made it work. But in my experience, a lot of those folks are either selling social growth (teaching top of funnel from top of funnel). Or their selling newsletter business models.
But as I’ve been saying from day one on Threads…
For coaches, consultants, practitioners, guides, etc… a once-a-week email, on it’s own, will never build a strong enough relationship to carry your sales in a sustainable way.
Here’s why:
The mere exposure effect — sixty years of research shows we prefer things that are familiar. Even when we can't explain why, even when we don't consciously remember the exposure, your name landing in someone's inbox every morning is doing work whether they open it or not.
Para social connection — when you share a real story, a hard week, a belief some people will resonate with, readers start to get to know you. And people buy from people they know, like, and trust.
The long tail — replies that shows up three years later: "I think I'm finally ready to work with you." That email didn't come from a clever subject line. It came from showing up, over and over, until the timing was finally right.
And more…
So that's the gist of my bi-annual email checkup.
Email is still the highest leverage thing most people aren’t doing enough of in their business, and daily emails, written by you, in your real voice, is the number one way to turn the ideas inside your head into a profitable online business.
So I’m curious…
Where are you at with your email list? Do you have one? Do you write daily? Do you want to write daily? Do you write occasionally and wonder why it’s not working how you’d expect?
Write back and let me know, I’m genuinely curious where you’re at.
Selfishly, because I’m going to start prioritizing email marketing related content inside my Skool community, and I’m here fishing for ideas.
Seriously, write back and let me know.
Best,
Kevin Hood