
Are you putting all your time, energy and hard-earned cashola into email marketing and seeing little, to nothing in return?
Don’t throw in the towel just yet. Here are the top 6 hurdles we see retailers stuck at, and ultimately, how you can overcome them!
In this blog, you will learn,
- Where people too often get stuck with A/B testing
- The trick to retaining email subscribers
- How many are too many emails
- How to avoid sending irrelevant content
- The 80/20 rule with email content

A/B Testing
A/B, what?
The main challenge for A/B testing is defining which results are actually true, and which are illusory.
Kissmetrics give the perfect example of how easily people can be misled.
Think of A/B testing like flipping a coin. If you flip in 10 times and get 7 heads and 3 tails, is heads really the winning result? A/B testing is designed to be like a science experiment, you need to be specific in what you are testing before you will get meaningful results. And it may take more than one round of testing to get a true result!
So what can you test for? Here are some examples:
- Short vs long subject line
- Percentage discount vs dollar discount
- Question vs non-question
Retaining Subscribers
Email marketing can be a real nightmare if you find yourself losing subscribers faster than you can add them to your list.
I think the easiest way to overcome this challenge is to think about it from their perspective, why are they unsubscribing?
Many of the challenges listed in this blog are reasons for people to unsubscribe. People either unsubscribe because you’re not giving them what they originally signed up OR they have lost interest.
If you can overcome the following challenges retaining subscribers will be a walk in the park.

How Many Is Too Many Emails
How many emails are too many? Well, that’s a great question!
Don’t send enough and you are missing an opportunity. Send too many and you risk the deadly ‘unsubscribe’, or worse, SPAM COMPLAINTS :/
I can’t give you a definite answer here. For some, it will be as many as five emails a week and for others, two a month will get the job done.
It really comes down to the content of your emails and what you’re hoping to achieve.
Remember promotional emails will quickly become tiresome. Try to break it up with interesting content like offering them some great blogs to read or resources for the job.
And once again it comes down to testing. Find a balance by testing different frequencies and segmenting less-active subscribers into new lists to target them less.
Are You Sending Irrelevant Content?
If I’m a twenty-year-old female that subscribed to your list for the latest fashion deals, am I really going to care about cheap football boots?
Know who your audience is and go crazy with your segmentation. A strangers email is a gift, don’t abuse it by wasting their time with stuff they don’t care about.
Trust me I have enough retailers/businesses competing for my attention through email. If you can’t offer me something valuable, I will unsubscribe.

Less About You, More About Me
The only thing more annoying than too many emails are emails that just blab on about a product or service.
Yeah, cool, interesting, but what’s in it for me?
Some people are so good at talking about themselves that they don’t realise nobody is listening. Are your emails full of all the great things you can do or offer without even acknowledging who you’re talking to?
When writing copy for your emails you should focus on what the reader can achieve, their end goals and their interests.
This isn’t just about email marketing, IT’S ABOUT ALL MARKETING!
When writing content we should always think about the 80/20 rule. 80% about them, 20% about you and your business. Show an interest in your followers and they will return the attention. Talk to subscribers like they’re your friends!

Low Click-Through Rates
Low click-through rates could be compared to spending hours getting all dressed up to go out only to have your friend cancel on you.
They love your subject line, open the email and then, nothing…they leave you high and dry.
Low click-through rates can have a lot to do with all the above challenges, but there is also one other important thing to mention.
Humans have evolved to be advanced, highly intelligent creatures who have mastered space travel and eating with utensils rather than our hands.
Yet despite this, we still won’t click on a call-to-action unless it is right there in our face. Low click-through rates may be due to multiple factors, but it’s no lie attractive and relevant CTA’s make a huge difference, as do attention-grabbing subject lines.
No more excuses! There isn’t any reason you can’t do email marketing, trust me!
Overcome these challenges and you will be more than on your way to smashing email marketing.
Are you ready to get serious with email marketing?
You’ve consumed everything marketing-related that Google has to offer, but nothing sticks out? Tired of running in circles chasing sales?
A lot can change in just 21 days!
In October we are kicking off with the third round of our 21 Day Challenge. Curious to learn more? Head on over to the landing page.
