You’re fed up with how much your dog sheds and decide it’s time to buy a new vacuum cleaner.
While scrolling through your favourite websites in the morning, you notice a flashy banner ad for Vacuum Cleaner 2.0, the latest in vacuum technology, or so they claim… The bright colours, poorly designed layout and bold text of the advertisement makes you weary to click through.
What if it’s spam? What if I click on it and a virus takes over my computer?
All legitimate thoughts.
Now, instead of clicking that pesky banner ad or pop-up that obnoxiously follows you wherever you browse, you decide to do your own research. You type in “best vacuum cleaners for pet hair” into Google and scroll through the results.
Already on page one of your search engine results, you see a variety of relevant articles including:
“The Top 10 Pet Hair Vacuum Cleaners for 2020”
“What Pet Owners Should Look For in a Vacuum Cleaner”
“Vacuum Cleaner 2.0 Full Review: How It Did On Pet Hair”
So, you click through and start reading all the valuable information, tailored specifically to what you were looking for. And, not surprisingly, you find a vacuum cleaner that piques your interest. 2 clicks later, the vacuum cleaner is in your shopping cart, you complete checkout and wait for your package to arrive in the mail.
Guess what?
This is exactly how your customers do their shopping as well.
Instead of spending thousands on online advertising budgets that don’t convert, you need to shift your focus to content marketing. Meeting your customers where they want to be met is the most effective marketing tactic that’s proven to increase conversions and lead to more sales.
Yes, there’s more work involved in content marketing than online advertising. But, that’s where I come in. Contact me to find out more about how targeted content creation will maximize your lead generation and increase your sales.
If you think content creation isn’t that important, think again. Give the people what they want and you’ll be surprised at just how great the results will be.
Related: the best content repurposing tools
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Why your “not sales email” still feels like sales (and how to fix it)
I see this mistake constantly. Teams build what they call a “nurture sequence” or “educational email” and it’s still fundamentally a sales message with a thinner disguise. The subject line might say “3 mistakes teams make with their data,” but the body is 60% pitch, 30% filler, and 10% genuine help. Your reader spots it immediately. They’ve been sold to before. They know the smell.
The real difference between a sales email and a non-sales email sits in your intent stack, not your word choice. If you’re writing because you want that person to understand something useful, and you’d be fine if they never bought from you, the email reads differently. Your sentences are shorter. You skip the false urgency. You don’t repeat your value prop three times. You end the email without a call-to-action sometimes.
Here’s what I changed in my own consultancy around 2026: I stopped viewing non-sales emails as a funnel tactic and started treating them as a communication tool. That shift meant I could send an email about Google’s latest algorithm change to 8,000 people without mentioning my services once. No guilt. No sense I was leaving money on the table. Because the person reading it gets value whether they ever hire me or not. Some of those 8,000 will remember my name when they need help. Some won’t. Both outcomes are fine.
The technical execution matters too. Non-sales emails work best when they:
- Lead with the insight or tip (subject line included). Don’t bury it under three paragraphs of context.
- Use data, case studies, or examples from real projects, not hypothetical scenarios.
- Acknowledge a real problem your reader faces, but don’t position your product as the only solution.
- Sign off with a single, soft touch option. A link to a resource. A way to reply if they have questions. Not “book a call now.”
By mid-2026, the teams winning with email are the ones treating their non-sales messages as content distribution, not lead magnets. They’re building trust through consistency and usefulness. That takes longer than a hard sell. But the people who respond want to work with you, instead of just being at the top of your funnel because you bombarded them with value bait.
I measure non-sales email success differently now too. Not by click rate or conversion. By reply rate to my open invitations, and by how many people actively ask me questions. That tells me the email landed as intended.
More questions
How do I know if I’m still writing a sales email in disguise?
Read your email out loud. If you cringe at any moment, or feel like you’re overselling, it’s a sales email. Also: count your sentences that mention your service, product, or offer. If it’s more than one, trim it. Real non-sales emails might have zero mentions. Your reader’s problem and your solution should feel separate in the message.
Can I use non-sales emails to qualify leads?
Not directly, but people self-qualify by how they engage. If someone replies with a specific question about your industry knowledge, they’re signalling interest. If they just read and move on, that’s fine too. You’ve kept the door open without forcing them through it.
What if I have nothing to teach? My product is too niche.
You always have something to say about the problem your niche customer faces. Talk about industry changes, budget shifts, common setups that fail, tools that work together. Your non-sales emails don’t have to be breakout insights. They just have to be honest and useful to the specific person reading them.
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Free resource: The Sales Call Recap Email Prompt Pack.
Free resource: The Sales Email Nurture Sequence Template.
