4 Email Marketing Challenges and How to Tackle Them

MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit in Las Vegas started yesterday in full force and HubSpot is here to keep our readers in the loop of the hottest email marketing discussions. Independent consultant Jeanne Jennings opened the advanced email marketing workshop with a very pertinent question, “What is your biggest email marketing challenge?”

Here are the four comments participants shared and some ways you can tackle these challenges:

1. How do you increase engagement if you have a limited list?

There are different ways in which marketers can increase engagement across their small email lists. Start by expanding your company’s visibility on the Web. For example, you can be more active at guest blogging for online industry publications. You should also develop a more robust social media program that will serve two purposes—it will not only help grow your reach, but also show your followers that you are posting great updates (and thus encourage them to sign up for an email newsletter). Lastly, consider offering incentives to your email subscribers to share your offers with others.

2. Should my company do multivariate testing?

As an email marketer, you should not only be open to experimentation, but you should be constantly testing different variables to improve engagement and increase conversions. In A/B testing, you are splitting your list and testing at least two variables. Multivariate testing, on the other hand, is dynamic and works with HTML emails (as opposed to text-only ones). But what should you be testing? Variables can include anything from different offer formats and topics, to small tweaks on your landing pages, to subject lines and email signatures.

3. How do you achieve effective results without being repetitive?

The best way to tackle this challenge is to be constantly creating remarkable content and repackaging it in ways that draw people in. Develop creative content offers based on customer surveys, industry trends and other insights you have access to. Be open to feedback and take suggestions from your audience. Often times, your customers ask the very same questions your prospects are interested in.

4. How do I better understand frequency and timing?

Many marketers struggle with finding the best timing and frequency at which they should be engaging in email communication with prospects. HubSpot’s social media scientist, Dan Zarrella, recently discovered that Tuesday at 11am is one of the worst possible times to send your email campaigns. If you want to hear more real data about frequency and timing issues, tune into Dan’s upcoming webinar, The Science of Email Marketing.

What are some of the email marketing challenges you have encountered? Shared them in the comments and we will track down the most educational answer!

Photo Credit: Schlüsselbein2007

Posted by Magdalena Georgieva on Tue, Jan 25, 2011 @ 06:00 PM