Why Your Emails Aren't Getting Opened (And It's a Copywriting Problem, Not an Email Problem)

A recent email study revealed that the average email open rate across industries in 2026 is 28.6%, with the lowest at 14.5% and the highest at 42.4%. The average click-through rate was 2%.

Humour me for a moment because I'm about to sound like a total wanker.

…mine are higher every single week.

Most beauty businesses aren't hitting those numbers. Their emails aren't getting opened, not because email doesn't work for them, but because the copy loses the reader before anyone even sees the offer inside.

Here's what I think people genuinely sleep on: email is the only marketing channel you own outright. Your Instagram following can disappear with an algorithm change. Your email list is yours. The people on it chose to be there, and said, in the clearest possible way, that they want to hear from you. Which makes it all the more frustrating when the copy doesn't give them a reason to open.

The problems are consistent. So are the fixes.

Your email is not the census. It's a conversation.

Most salon and clinic emails read like quarterly reports. Long, comprehensive, covering everything, read by nobody past the second paragraph.

The rule: one point per section, no more than three updates per email. If you have six things to share, that's two emails. A clinic sending a monthly update with five sections and a new product launch buried in paragraph four is leaving bookings on the table.

The subject line is the only copy that matters if your emails aren't getting opened

Your subject line should do one of two things: promise specific value or tease a mystery the reader can only solve by opening.

• "How to avoid the most common retinol mistake" promises value.

• "She cried in my treatment room (in a good way)" teases a mystery.

  
  

What it should never do is summarise the email. If the subject line tells them everything, there's no reason to open.

Your subscribers' inboxes are full of emails that sound like emails. The subject lines that break through are the ones that don't finish their thought. Cut the sentence before it resolves. The incomplete thought is one of the highest-converting subject line structures - not because it's a trick, but because the human brain hates an open loop.

First name personalisation catches the eye and outperforms generic subject lines when the email earns it. I repeat, when it earns it.

"[Name], your skin is begging for this" works because it's specific and direct. Used on every send, it starts feeling like a robocall. Reserve it for high-value, targeted sends, and it does its job.

The preview text is not an afterthought

It's the sequel to your subject line. Your subject line opens the loop. Your preview text makes it unbearable not to click.

Most beauty businesses either leave it blank (their email platform then fills it with their own name, which is genuinely not a reason to open) or summarise the email (which removes all curiosity before anyone's clicked anything).

Write them together. Test them together on your phone before every send. If the preview cuts off before it lands, rewrite it.

SL: "The skin thing you Googled at 11pm" PT: "We have the answer."

SL: "Why your skin looks different in winter" PT: "It's not your products."

SL: "The retinol question we get asked every week" PT: "Finally, a straight answer."

SL: "She almost rescheduled. Then she read this." PT: "We're glad she didn't."

SL: "The one thing missing from your skincare routine" PT: "It's simpler than you think."

These examples land the pattern interrupt cleanly, have a story hook that makes you need to know what happened and close the loop just enough to make clicking feel inevitable.

Consistency is a copy strategy

Whether you're emailing weekly, fortnightly or monthly, sending on the same day, at roughly the same time trains your list to expect you.

They start to look for you. The open rate lifts not because the copy suddenly got better, but because the relationship did.

Full transparency: I'm writing this at 6:45pm on a Sunday for a 9:30am send tomorrow morning. We're human. We miss weeks. Don't beat yourself up about it. Miss one, send the next one.

But consistency is what builds memorability and anticipation. It's what makes someone see your name on a Monday morning and look forward to opening it.

If the writing is the part that keeps sliding to a Sunday night panic, that's exactly what an email copywriting retainer with yours truly is for. The strategy is yours. The words? Covered.