Ask Us ANYTHING: Your Q4 Cheat Code😳 Regifting Rules and the Gift Bag Debate 🎁 | Ep. 442

0:00Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast from marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for Ask Us Anything from the Do This Not That podcast. This is our short episode where all week long we get in questions, we get in work questions, we get in super ridiculous questions, and we try to tackle one of each. If you want to submit one, you'd be an extremely cool human. Just go to jschwedelson.com. There's a button that says podcasts. another one that says ask us anything and i love getting the questions because without it we can't do this show so let's jump into let's do the work question first we got a question from kendra from livingston new jersey oh i always feel bad for people from new jersey new jersey is an underrated state and why do i feel bad um not that you ask kendra because it's like it's like new york's kind of armpit or something no offense and the reason i say that is like the new york jets and the New York Giants, the football teams, okay?

1:05That's what they're called, the New York Jets, the New York Giants. Do you realize they play their games at the same stadium and the stadium is in New Jersey? How insulting is that? That you have two NFL teams. There's no NFL team in New Jersey that's named New Jersey, but the two ones out of New York play in New Jersey and they're called New York teams. That's a joke. What is going on? Anyway, New Jersey, here's some love for you all. Anyway, all right. Kendra, what's your question? Jay, we are trying to come up with content that will give us a boost going into the end of year and we feel stuck.

1:39Anything that works particularly well this time of year? Okay, good question. And I got something good for you. That's been good for everybody. Whether you are a consumer marketer, a nonprofit marketer, a business to business marketer, there is one content type that crushes it more than anything by a landslide, and that is calendar content. What do I mean by that? Let me first give you the stat on how well it does. From November 1st through January 15th, this is the number one content type in terms of what drives downloads, signups, contact capture, whatever you want to call it. That is calendar, downloadable calendar formats.

2:23On the business side, okay, this is 300 % higher than any other content type during that November through January 15th period. On the consumer side, 200 % higher. And for nonprofit, over 160 % higher according to World Data Research. Now, what do I mean by that? So on the business to business side, this is magic. This is gold. My organization has been putting out the best and worst days to send out email calendar now for over 10 years. It's easily our most downloaded piece of content every year. And this is when we do our heavy push. But for anybody, the easiest thing that you can do to make a calendar content on the business to business side is an industry event calendar.

3:03You make a PDF. Okay. You go out and find all the industry events. Okay. That are key to your industry, whatever they are. And then on the calendar, you have a special designation for your events. Like put the webinar dates that you're going to have. Okay. Put whatever events that you're going to be exhibiting at and you kind of carve it on a different color on the calendar. or whatever other cool stuff you want upon the calendar, layered in with all the industry stuff. Oh, this is when a new law goes into effect. This is when a big conference is. This is when something else happens. Who cares, okay?

3:34You make the definitive industry events and information calendar for your industry, and then you push it crazy hard. Hey, it's available now. It just came out, just released. Let's go. And if you're not doing this, and you should be doing this annually, people will become excited about it every year. and this is how you can grow your database. Everybody loves these calendars. They print them out. They put them on their wall. It is great. Now, on the consumer side, you're like, well, I can't do this. Yes, you can. Okay, let's say that you are in some sort of lifestyle category like, I don't know, nutrition or wellness or whatever.

4:09You come out with the 365-day wellness calendar, the 2026 glow-up calendar for daily skincare and self-care, whatever, Your 2026 hydration challenge calendar. I don't care what you sell or what service you provide. You can make this downloadable content piece, which will crush it for your category. And the same thing, a lot of the nonprofit folks are out there like, well, this doesn't apply to us. We can't do that. That's true. The nonprofit world's perfect for this. Okay. You could put in the 12-month calendar reminding people of the impact that your nonprofit's having each month, okay? Or all the different ways that you can participate annually.

4:49Some days you give this month, it means this. You know, some days you have these volunteering events, you layered in there. Whatever industry you're in, now is that moment. You make a calendar. This might take you an hour to make the calendar. And then you ride this content for the next two months. It will crush it for you. This is a no-brainer. All right. Let's get into the ridiculous question. we got a question from jared from sacramento all right what do you got jared jay do you think regifting gifts to other people is bad um well okay so i have something about this but in general here's the problem with regifting i'm not against it at all okay but generally speaking um if you're regifting it because you think the gift is horrendous then that's not cool because then you're giving somebody else a pile of garbage.

5:45Now, if you're re-gifting something because you already have the thing, right? Okay. And you really like it. Great. That's fine. But the problem with re-gifting is the whole return policy thing and all of that. I'll never forget one of my relatives re-gifted something to another one of my relatives. And when they did it, they were like, dude, we're the family that gave this to you. That was so awkward. It was amazing. I love all things about that. But here's what happened the other day. I want to know everyone's take on this. So we went to some sort of a party thing, right? And we brought this little gift for the people that are having the party, me and my wife.

6:25And we came in and we gave the gift and it was in a gift bag, okay? And I went to hand it to this dude who's having the party, whatever, and I gave it to him. And he goes, hey, did you re-gift the gift bag? I said, what? And he's like, this gift bag, is this one that like you got and whatever? And by the way, it was. Who cares? And I'm like, yeah, we reuse gift bags. Like, what's your deal? He's like, oh, I don't know. It's a little weird. That's what he says to me, a little weird. I was like, what are you talking about? First of all, anybody who thinks that reusing a gift bag is weird is a loser.

7:06And I hope that dude is listening because you're a loser. I don't care if you're listening. Listen, I didn't want to be there to begin with. Sorry, don't care. It was a horrendous party. That's what I'd say about that. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Please, uninvite me. Disinvite me. I don't care. But if anybody out there sheems anybody else for reusing a gift bag, what do you do? You get it, and then you take it out, and then you throw out the gift bag? Who does that? I don't even think if you're like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk and you have a billion dollars, you would do that. That's just not what a human being does.

7:44And if somebody to call somebody else on is a giant, epic, loser, tool, nerd, dweeb, geek, horrendous human, I don't know what I'm talking about. There you go. I said it. All right. What did we get out of today? We got to make a calendar. That's important. Regifting is fine if the gift is not terrible. and anybody that shames you on reusing a gift bag is unfriend material. And if this wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to, I don't know, leave it a review. That would be awesome. You'd be my best friend. And we'll check you in the next one later. You did it. You made it to the end. But wait, the party is not over.

8:24Listen, I want to keep hanging out. Subscribe to this podcast. And if it wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to, give it a five-star review. Why not? But you know what? but I want to do even more with you. Go to gurumediahub.com and we can partner there. You can find out about all of our free events, all of our stuff. And if you're epically bored, go to jschwedelson.com and we can stay connected. You can find my newsletter and everything else I got going on. Thanks for being here and hope you subscribe.