Email is one of the most powerful, complex, and misunderstood channels in digital marketing — and yet, it has no formal education path.
There is no university degree for email.
No standardized curriculum.
No safe playground to experiment, break things, and learn.
Most of us learned email the hard way: by shipping campaigns, fixing mistakes at midnight, and slowly building confidence through repetition. And while that hands-on learning is valuable, it also comes with a serious limitation.
Most full-time email specialists only ever work inside the tools their employer uses.
If you work at a company on Salesforce Marketing Cloud, that’s what you know.
If your company uses Braze, HubSpot, or Klaviyo, that becomes your entire universe.
That’s not a failure of the individual — it’s a structural problem.
It limits résumés.
It limits confidence.
And it makes hiring unnecessarily hard.
Companies struggle to find “experienced” email talent, while talented email professionals struggle to gain experience outside of a single ecosystem.
As a freelancer, I’ve had the rare privilege of working with 37 different ESPs and multiple third-party tools. Not because I’m special — but because freelancing forces breadth.
That experience fundamentally changes how you think about email:
But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
That level of exposure is almost impossible to achieve in a single-brand, full-time role.
I’m not a salesperson.
I don’t “push” tools.
I don’t promote things I don’t understand.
But when I can work with a tool — when I can build real templates, connect it to a design system, test edge cases, and understand its strengths — I become its strongest advocate.
That’s why I actively pursue partnerships with ESPs and third-party tools that offer:
When I can show clients real use cases, not just logos or feature lists, that’s not marketing fluff — that’s trust.
And yes, that’s free, authentic marketing for the platform.
Email is still treated like a second-class channel in education.
No structured onboarding.
No neutral learning environments.
No way to “try before you commit.”
So I’ve made this my mission:
To push ESPs and email technology providers to open their doors to builders.
Not just agencies.
Not just enterprise clients.
But designers, developers, and email specialists who want to learn.
Because the next generation of email builders won’t come from locked demos and gated sales calls.
They’ll come from curiosity.
From play.
From experimentation.
If we want better email,
If we want stronger teams,
If we want fewer “unicorn” job descriptions and more real talent —
How do we expect people to learn, if we never let them touch the tools?
That’s the question I’ll keep asking.
And that’s the mission I’m building toward.
This mission is also what led me to start a new blog series called The Email Freelancer Pathways Project.
Over the years, I’ve seen how wildly different email careers can be — and how hard, confusing, and non-linear many of those paths are. There is no “typical” email journey, yet we rarely talk about what it really looks like behind the scenes.
To change that, I’m collecting stories from email professionals through a short survey — not to compare paths, but to make the reality of email careers visible at scale. The goal isn’t just storytelling. It’s evidence.
Because when enough voices come together, we can push email platforms to open their doors to email builders — to provide sandbox access, partner programs, and safe environments where people can actually learn by doing.
If email has no formal education, then access to tools isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s essential.
If you work in email in any capacity — whether you’re a lifelong freelancer, a side-hustler, a full-time employee, a studio owner, or someone quietly dreaming about building your own thing — your experience matters.
👉 Take the survey here: https://lnkd.in/gJF79QhQ
Your story could inspire someone just starting out, reassure someone who feels stuck, or highlight possibilities others haven’t even considered yet.
And collectively, these stories can help move the industry toward a future where email builders aren’t locked out of the tools they’re expected to master.
Let’s show the world how many ways there are to be an email professional — and why access matters.
📩 Connect with me on LinkedIn or send a message.
With very strong feelings about this mission 💥
Annett
Founder, EmailBoutique.io
