Ep. 177 - BAD: YOUR EMAIL Program is NOT READY for 2025! 🤮 Eating FISH at the Airport? 🤮 Ask Us ANYTHING

0:08Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately. You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. We'll also dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwetelson. Let's do this, not that.

0:39We are back for Ask Us Anything from Do This, Not That. presented by Marigold. This is our short episode where we try to answer one work question and one ridiculous question that we get in all week long. And you can go to jayschwedelson.com and you could submit a question by clicking on podcast and then ask us anything. We love it. We love the questions we get in, the work ones, the ridiculous ones. They're fun. So let's jump into the work one first. We got a question from Carlos from Seattle. love Seattle been there many times I was in an earthquake in Seattle it was a big earthquake it was 7.1 whatever Richter scale earthquake this is so embarrassing I was on stage at a conference I was giving a speech I was on microphone all of a sudden the earthquake hits I didn't know it was earthquake I thought it was a bomb I didn't know what it was in this big convention center so I freak out on the microphone I start cursing I'm like everybody run for your lives I was like George Costanza and Seinfeld.

1:37Like I was the least calm person. It was the opposite of what you're supposed to do. And I'll never forget. We get outside of the convention center. And then I bump into the woman who was in the room next to me giving a speech. I'm like, how did you handle it? She was, oh, I had everybody get calm, get under your table. It's going to be okay. And I'm like, she's like, what did you do? I'm like, I don't know. I was like, what did I do? I ran for my life. I was like, you're on your own, everybody. That's terrible. So if there's a really serious problem, don't look to me because clearly I'm not that guy.

2:10Anyway, what is your question, Carlos? Carlos said, looking ahead to 2025, are there any key shifts that marketers should be preparing in their strategies and the tools that they're using for their marketing? Well, that's a pretty big question. It's a good question. I'll tell you one massive thing that I think every marketer needs to be making sure is set up, which I don't think a lot of marketers do. And it's related to your email sending infrastructure. So everybody there sends out emails, your newsletters, your promotional emails, all this stuff. And with a lot of the changes that are coming to the way that receiving email infrastructures are looking at email performance and how you're going to stay in the inbox, they're going to be looking to see if people can reply to your email?

3:00So let's say you send out a newsletter. Can somebody reply to that newsletter and say, hey, this is really interesting. Tell me more about blah, blah, blah. And is your sending infrastructure set up to receive those replies? And do you have a mechanism or a person or some sort of AI thingamabob that's set up to reply to those messages? Because that is where it's all heading. A reply to an email, a promotional email, a newsletter email, any email that's sent in mass, a reply is getting exponentially more valued by these email infrastructures in terms of determining whether or not an email should stay in the inbox.

3:42And a lot of email sending platforms are not set up for it. You need to go and be like, can we receive replies? Can we reply to those replies? Where do they go? And the reason that this is going to be the biggest topic, or not the biggest topic, but a huge topic in the world of email marketing in 2025 is that with the upcoming changes to Apple's iOS, their operating system on the phone, and the impact it's going to have on the mail app, where about half of all email is read is on that mail app, they're going to be massively prioritizing interactions, replies between brands and individuals and how they determine if your email is going to go into the buckets that they are setting up.

4:28So if you're sitting here like, what's this guy talking about? And you're like, I don't even know if we can receive actual replies to our emails that we send out. You need to be in contact with your platform. You need to really explore this, have this set up. And then the most important thing is you need to encourage the replies in your marketing, whether you're a consumer business marketer, you need to be, Hey, reply to this and let me know what you think, or reply to this, get the special discount code, you know, reply to this and get our free guide to whatever reply to this and let us know what you think.

5:02You need to be encouraging those replies because the more replies that you get, the better the likelihood is that you're going to say in the inbox, that you're going to say in the primary tab as it relates to iOS. And you're not just going to be going into all these promotional buckets and junk folders and things. So to me, I think it's something marketers are sleeping on. I think it's a big shift that's happening now. And for 2025, I would be focused on that. All right, before we get to the totally ridiculous question, I got to let you know that this podcast is sponsored by Marigold. Speaking of great email sending platforms, that is Marigold.

5:38What are you doing? You're on the wrong platform. I know it. You're on the wrong platform. Why? Because you're not on Marigold. I use Marigold. It is a roll-up of all of the best platforms, Sailthrough and Campaign Monitor and Cheetah Digital and MyEmma and all these other ones. It's awesome. You go to meetmarigold.com if you're a consumer marketer, a business marketer. I'm telling you, small, medium, large. I don't know why you're not using them. I've used them for years. Could not recommend them higher. The people there are awesome too. They're just great people. Sometimes you have a vendor that you work with like, oh, those people are annoying.

6:12Nope. Great people. Check them out at meet Marigold or DM me and I'll introduce you to somebody. DM me on LinkedIn and I'll connect you to somebody over at Marigold. All right, let's get into the ridiculous question. Got a question in from Brianna from New Orleans. New Orleans, love New Orleans. Can't get out of there with out feeling a little bit tired after a few days. But anyway, what is your question? Jay, what is your go-to airport food? Well, that's an interesting topic for me because I used to go to the airport and treat it like, ooh, relaxation mode. I'm going to go and maybe find something really good to eat.

6:55And then I had a horrible experience. So I was in Newark and I just had a really great client meeting and I got this client. I was feeling really good. I'm like, I'm going to go get something really good to eat. And I went to, um, a sushi restaurant in Newark and I ate sushi. And then I got on the plane and, uh, we, we, I was like, oh no, I don't feel well. Right. I do not feel well. And I went to the bathroom on a plane and it was like, it was like a dance party in there it was not going well in that bathroom i'm like oh my god i do not feel well so now we pull away from the gate okay and i'm like this ain't this is not this flight could be a massive problem so i get the stewardess to come over because we hadn't taken off yet we'd pulled away from the gate and i said to her go listen i gotta get off the plane and she's like we pulled away from the gate i'm like you don't understand i am not feeling well and she's like just just deal with it i was like no no i gotta get off and she's like you do know everybody in this plane is gonna want to kill you basically is what she said i'm like i'll live with that i gotta get off the plane so we went back to the gate i think collectively how many people want to fly 150 people i don't they they were not happy with me every single person was very very upset because they end up getting delayed i don't know hour or however long they got delayed because of me.

8:23I got off the plane violently ill. Um, bonus lost a few pounds that night. Uh, but anyway, ever since that experience, which is way too much TMI for anybody listening right now, I scaled it back. So when I'm in the airport now, it's like really basic stuff because that was a horrendous experience. So I'm like the most boring airport food guy of all time, because you only got to go through that one time in your life to realize dude sushi in the airport is a big fat no-go you're not going to change my mind i don't care what you tell me basically fish in the airport don't do it just don't do it skip it get a piece of chicken i don't know i guess i'm turkey do something else tuna fish no chance anyway thanks for being here hope you leave this thing review hope you found it useful i really do and if you didn't register for guru conference It's the world's largest free virtual event.

9:19You stink. That's my cell. You just stink. I'm not even going to tell you that there's going to be no seats. It's free. It's virtual. It's two days. Sarah Jessica Parker is going to be there. I'm going to be there. It's going to be awesome. Why are you not registering? GuruConference.com. Come on. Check it out. Don't eat fish in airports. You did it. You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over. Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketers. and hook us up with a five-star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time.

9:53Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100 % free, visit guruevents.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Damon John, Martha Stewart, and me. Guruevents.com. Check it out.