Ep. 183 - SECRETS of TOP CMOs & CEOs (easy tactics to INSTANTLY boost email OPEN RATES!) 🏈 I STINK at Fantasy Football and DON'T SPOIL Love is Blind UK for me!!😡 Jay’s SCOOP

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.

0:40We are back for Do This, Not That, presented by Marigold. And I'm excited to share some tips today about aspirational marketing. What? This is like game changer stuff. It's so easy. It costs you nothing. And it couldn't be simpler to test. Okay. What does this all mean? Listen, in life, what do we all want? We all want a promotion. We want our businesses to grow faster. We want to be wealthier, healthier, smarter, more fashionable. We aspire to things. And we just finished this big review of a ton of marketing campaigns that we're focused around leveraging aspirational marketing tactics, and it was really, really eye-opening.

1:18So here's some secret sauce type stuff. If your database on the business side is made up of people that are, let's say, director level, that's their titles pretty much, your director level, you should be talking to them at the C level, okay? If your database is, let's say, on the consumer side, beginner level, you should be talking about expert level stuff. Why? Because we all, whether it's business or consumer, we want access to the next level. We want to know what the next level is reading, what the next level is doing, what the next level has access to. So let me give you some examples of what I'm talking about.

1:57But first, let me give you the that. In email specifically, subject lines that mention aspirational elements increase email open rates 28 % on the business side, 24 % on the consumer side. So let me give you examples of exactly what I mean. So on the business side, if the subject line said the CFO guide to automation, okay, But your database is not made up of CFOs. It's made up of people in accounting that are maybe managers, senior managers, directors. But what do they all want to be? They want to be a CFO one day. So when they see a subject line, when I am a senior manager in the accounting department and I see a subject line that says the CFO guides automation, I'm like, oh, I want to check that out.

2:46Because if I am able to read that and understand it, learn about it, maybe this is going to let me level up. or on the consumer side, what top chefs use in the kitchen. But your database is made up of, you know, the everyday person who cooks, you know, they just bought some basic pots and pans. They're not the top chef, but what do they want? They want, what are the top chefs doing? So that way I could learn from it. I could do it. I can get better, right? So if you saw an email that said top CMOs, favorite podcasts, well, I'm not a CMO, but if the CMOs are all listening, these podcasts, what are they?

3:20The five favorite newsletters of Fortune 500 CEOs. Well, that would be cool to be a Fortune 500 CEO. What newsletters do they read? The biggest influencers love this new brand. I want to know what they're into because whatever they're into is probably the hottest new trend. You aspire, right? Whether you know it or not, you aspire to these things and you react to these things. And that's why the percentage of people that open up emails goes up over 25 % just by positioning your emails and your content, the title of your content the same way. So you don't want to tell people where they're at right now in life.

4:03You want to give them access to the information, to the tips, to everything of where they want to get to. So what does aspirational marketing really do? It taps into ambition, goals, and dreams. It creates an emotional connection, right? By aligning your message with the recipient's desires and their values. And then also it builds your brand identity. All of a sudden your brand is now associated with this ultimate level of thinking of the type of products that you have. And it creates this quality in the individual's mind that, wow, I want to buy this stuff. I want to use these products and services because that's where I want my business to get to.

4:47That's where I want my career to get to. And it's not just subject lines. It's everything. You want to also try to get testimonials that you could use in your marketing that are aspirational. Okay. Have testimonials that show people that they can get the thing and get to the place that they want to be. Right. So for example, this, that's pretty wild. All right. This, that's pretty wild. You have standard testimonials versus aspirational testimonials, okay? Standard testimonials versus aspirational testimonials. We studied 300 different landing pages that had testimonials, and we broke them down.

5:27They were broken down to two buckets, standard versus aspirational. The aspirational testimonials on landing pages increased conversion rates by 17 % versus a standard testimonial. So what does that mean? A standard testimonial would be something like this. Easy to use and saved us thousands, a game changer. Or another standard testimonial would be most comfortable hoodie ever, right? An aspirational testimonial would be Acme product was instrumental in my promotion to chief revenue officer. Or Acme product helped me achieve my fitness goals faster than I ever imagined. These are aspirational like, wow, if I buy this product, I'm going to achieve my fitness goals.

6:08If I use this service, maybe I'll become chief revenue officer. People want to dream. You don't wake up and say, I hope I stay in the same job for the rest of my life. I hope I never get a raise. I hope I stay the same weight and I never, ever do anything in the gym ever again. I hope I can never learn how to cook anything. Nobody says that. You wake up in the morning, you're like, I'm going to do these things to get here, there, or wherever. However, show people a peek behind the curtain of what the most successful people and companies are doing, and then you win. All right. Before we get into, since you didn't ask, the crazy, ridiculous portion of this podcast, I need to let you know this podcast is presented by one company, one amazing company called Marigold.

6:53What's that? What's a Marigold? It is an email sending platform that has loyalty marketing, retention marketing, and this is where you're like, ah, I'm zoning out. This is an ad. No, I feel it. Your email sending platform is not that good. You don't like it that much. It doesn't do what you want it to do. It doesn't have all the features, all the bells and whistles. Marigold does for consumer, for business senders, okay? For small, medium, and large companies. I am telling you, I've been using Marigold for years. I send out billions of business and consumer emails. You got to check them out at meetmarigold.com.

7:25That is meetmarigold.com. And if you want me to introduce see them directly, just DM me on LinkedIn. I will connect you. Amazing platform, meetmarigold.com. All right, let's get into since you didn't ask. I have nothing planned to talk about here. So I'm just going to share with you what is going on with me right now. So very upset because last night I did my fantasy football draft. I've been in the same fantasy football league for, I don't know, 25 years or whatever. And to be honest with you, I should be out of this league because I watch football, but I'm not like, oh my God, I have to sit on my couch all day Sunday.

8:01I'm into it. I like the Dolphins. But when you do a fantasy football draft, you have to know all these players. And by like, I don't know, you do 16 rounds, which is ridiculous. By the third round, I don't know who anybody is. I literally don't know who anybody is. And then what happens is there's a chat going on. So then you pick a person to go on your team. And then all the other people in my league make fun of me. Oh, Jay's an idiot. He doesn't know what he's doing. And it's like demoralizing. But I guess I do it to stay connected with these people. I don't even know what I'm talking about.

8:28What else is going on with me? The other thing is that, so The Bachelorette had their most recent episode and I didn't see it. Okay, I'm not kidding. The reality show. And I follow everybody on Instagram and social media. And now I can't go on Instagram because I'm not up to date. So if I go on Instagram, I'm going to see everything. And this is a very annoying thing about social media for any show that you watch it's that instantly it's on social media so if you're not like saying up to date on everything then you can't look at social media we need like a maybe there's a filter out there that you i don't know do something so when you go on social media you're not caught up that like you don't see all the stuff is this a problem i don't think this is a real life problem it's a problem for me it's definitely a problem because I watched some epically horrible shows.

9:18All the reality, oh, that show, don't get me started, is Love is Blind UK. I am not done with it. I know all the episodes are out there. Another shining example of why I have to avoid social media. I am in the wedding parts where people are either going to get married or not. And this is awesome. I'm strong, strong recommendation. Love is Blind UK. All right, listen, I have absolutely no idea what we just talked about. And in terms of aspirational, I aspire to be somebody that watches much more intellectual TV. I'm going to watch what is intellectual. I have no idea. Masterpiece theater. Is that still around?

9:51I'm going to watch that because that seems smarter than what I normally watch. I appreciate you being here. A couple of things. Pre-reg is open for our new free giant crazy event called Eventastic. The world's largest event about events is going to be free. It's going to be virtual. That's eventastic.com. And then we have Guru Conference coming up. free virtual email event, guruconference.com. Sarah Jessica Parker is going to be there. I'm going to be there. A lot of people are going to be there. Check it out. You're awesome. Keep it real. You did it. You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over.

10:26Subscribe 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. Lastly, 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.