Ep. 278- Email & Social TEMPLATES are GARBAGE! QUICK Fix! 🛒 Self-Checkout FAIL! 📺 Love is Blind UPDATE!!😳 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 podcast presented by marigold and you know what we get excited about stuff and then we get unexcited about stuff this is human nature i bought sneakers the other day and i usually don't even care about this stuff but i bought sneakers and i was hyped about them i'm like oh they're pretty cool and then for like two days i'm walking around i'm like i dig my sneakers a couple people were like hey i like your sneakers and then after a few days i didn't care nobody else cared. And this is exactly the way it works with our social media templates and our email templates.

1:11And I have some new data to share about this idea of the habituation effect, right? The habituation effect is a huge deal in marketing. And I don't think that we are really focused in on it and it's actually ruining our performance. So what is the habituation effect? It basically means that when people see or experience something repeatedly, they start to notice it less and less over time. And this happens all the time in a marketing. What do I mean by that? So I hate templates of any kind. I hate email templates. I hate social media templates. You know, templates are the thing that like, oh, we're going to redesign our template.

1:51We're going to put our images here. We're going to put our logo here. This is going to be the background color. this is how it's all going to be structured and the problem is when we put our new templates into motion we email them out or we put them on social media our new templates there they work they work and then we're like great it works but what we don't realize is that there's massive fall off really fast and there's something that we can do about that fall off to make sure that our performance stays really high and there's some new data out about this so first off there's a study from ResearchGate that found that effectiveness of an advertisement can decrease by up to 50 % after only five exposures, okay?

2:31And World Data Research found that 60 days after a new email template is introduced, the boost in performance is less than 10 % as compared to the prior template that was being used. Meaning like after two months of you using your new template that you're so hyped about. It basically does not give you any additional boost because it becomes wallpaper. And then the same thing for social media. It's even a shorter window that 45 days after a new social media template is introduced, the boost in performance is less than 10 % as compared to the old social media formats. Think about it for webinar.

3:09And this is for, by the way, business and consumer templates, email templates and social media templates. But I always think about webinar emails. They're so funny to me because we all copy each other and they're total garbage without even looking at your inbox right now. Okay. If I said to you, I want you to imagine what a webinar, uh, promotional email looks like. And in your mind, you could probably see these two circles, right? With these random people's heads in them. And it says, Hey, register for our webinar. There's a big like text block in that email. And these two random circles of people, You've never heard of them before.

3:44You don't care who they are. And that is the webinar email promotional template. And the same thing on social media. You see that rectangular social media post with the pictures of these two random people who are going to be at this webinar with some sort of like blue background saying, register here. It's epically boring. Nobody cares. Okay. So what do we need to do? And what is really the problem? The problem is you work hard. You make this new template. You send it out. Okay, great. And guess what? It gives you a boost. It does really well. Why does it do so well? Because it's new. Okay. We like new things.

4:21It's working because it's new. It's not working because you came up with the greatest template of all time. It's just not boring in that moment. But a month from now, two months from now, it is boring. It's the same thing with your social media posts. You're like, oh, wow, we can do this new format that we put out on Instagram or on LinkedIn, it did so well. Let's now do this forever. Okay. And that is how you become wallpaper. That's how you become boring. And that is the habituation effect. Okay. So what do you want to do? What is really, really important? You want to have a rotating template system.

4:56Okay. So instead of relying on one email template, you use about three to five different formats and you rotate them all the time. So you might have emails that are super text heavy, that are written in a personal style. You might have a visual heavy newsletter. You'll have an interactive email as another one, maybe a short punchy email that has memes in it. You have a rotation of radically different formats that you are using, whether you're a business marketer or a consumer marketer. And then once in a while, you sprinkle in the surprise format, something that is completely different. Maybe it's a super long email that's storytelling.

5:37Maybe something has absolutely no images whatsoever. And then you do the same thing on social media. You need to have a rotation. You know, Mondays, maybe it's like a tweet style text post. On Tuesdays, maybe it's a carousel post. Wednesdays, a behind the scenes video. Thursdays, it's a meme or a GIF. Okay. And so on and so forth. You need to analyze how they're all doing. You need to refresh formats. You cannot just say, oh, we have a new template. Great. It checks every best practice box. It did really well in those first two weeks. So now let's use it for the next six months. That is how your performance goes in the garbage.

6:18That is how you become wallpaper. That is why people stop engaging with you. It's like when you go on a diet, okay, a new diet, and you're like, okay, great. I'm going to get all my foods ready for this new diet. And the first week, you're like, I could do this forever. I love this food. I love these portion sizes. I can do this forever. I love this diet. And then three weeks later, you're like, I can't take it. This diet stinks. I'm starving. I want to go eat the old way I used to eat. This is boring. that is exactly what's happening with your email and social media that's out there and you need to have a rotation you can't just rely on these boring templates all right before we get into the ridiculous portion of this thing called since you didn't ask which is always ridiculous i want to let you know that this podcast is exclusively presented by marigold now i use marigold for all my email sending.

7:13I send out billions of emails, but they have a new piece of content. This piece of content is bananas. It is my favorite piece of content for the year. It just came out. It is the 2025 Consumer Trends Index. Marigold, okay, they surveyed over 21 ,000 people, asked them all this stuff about why they feel connected to brands and all these specific tactics. And you can get access to this report that just came out. It is ungated. You don't have to fill out a form. All you got to do is go to meetmarigold.com slash CTI. That is meetmarigold.com slash CTI. There is no form. You can download it right there.

7:57I am telling you, you will get so much out of this thing. It is the 2025 Consumer Trends Index. Hopefully you check it out. All right, let's get into since you didn't ask. All right, so I just got over the flu, or I'm still just getting over the flu. It's probably why I sound like garbage. And I was at the pharmacy this week trying to get like some Motrin, whatever. I felt so bad for this dude. Oh my God, why am I telling this story? I don't know. So I felt so bad for this dude. So it was one of these pharmacies that have self-checkout. So I'm like behind him. There was like actually a long line.

8:32And the dude was, apparently he had stomach issues. I'm not judging, who cares, okay? He had stomach issues and he was trying to buy, I guess he was trying to buy some Imodium AD. It happens. That's called life. But the self-checkout thing wasn't working. The self-checkout thing wasn't working. And the lady that was helping everybody when your self-checkout doesn't work, your self-checkout never works, was really far away. And the dude's like, he's trying to get her attention. Like, hello, I need to check out. I need to check out. and she like yells from across the way um what are you trying to buy what do you need what's what's going on and he's like trying not to say you know i just gotta get this thing whatever and she's like what what is it and i'm like why don't you just walk over and help this dude like what what do you want to announce whatever so then the guy just holds it up as if it was like you know this like trophy goes this is what i'm trying to buy okay this is what i'm trying to buy and he up the boxes of Moni, maybe I felt so bad for this dude.

9:37Why does everything have to be a disaster? Oh, speaking of disaster. Wow, this is a hard left turn right here. I started watching Love is Blind, which I know you're not watching. It's a great season. It's on Netflix. But I've lost all faith in humanity because even if you're not watching, it doesn't matter. They have these guys and these girls that date, right? And there's a wall in between them. They can't see each other. So they could only date by talking. That's the way they get to know each other. So there is this guy who's an absolute clown that's on this season his name is dave i'm not ruining anything he is a tool okay and i'm only a few episodes in but this guy is a tool every time a new girl walks in that he has to like meet or say hello to okay the girl walks in and she'll go hi how are you and then he goes hi what's wrong with you that's his opening line what's wrong with you implying that for them to go on this show something's got to be wrong with them or why are they still single what's wrong with you that is his opening line is that the rudest thing of all time oh but the only thing even ruder that this clown dave does he said this i almost had to turn the tv off but i didn't because i watch horrible tv okay this girl walks in the room okay and they go hi how are you whatever and uh dave goes how old are you and she goes i'm 30 and he said, this is his instant reaction.

10:58Oh, so you're not attractive anymore. Are you kidding me? Oh my God, first of all, if I was her, I would have given him the F-bomb and then I would have been like, peace out, smell you later, and I would have walked out of that room. Who do you think you are? Like, in what universe is that a normal thing or an acceptable thing or even an acceptable thought to have a little and say it, have it come out of your mouth? You are a tool. Anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about. Listen, I appreciate you. What I would really appreciate is if you leave this thing a review. You will be my best friend.

11:34It helps us circulate this thing, makes it go all around with the algorithms. If you can follow the show, you would rock because it actually does matter. I appreciate you. And if you want to partner with me in any way, shape, or form, you just go to jschwedelson.com. We could hang out. There's all sorts of stuff going on there. We could connect. Thanks for being here. and go watch Love is Blind. Later. 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.

12:09And 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 guru events.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Damon John Martha Stewart and me guru events.com check it out