Is Performance Down For Everyone? ➕ Dating Advice? ASK US ANYTHING! | Ep. 337

0:01What up? Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast for marketers. I'm Jay Schwetelson. Let's dig into some tips and some randomness.

0:36so let's do the work question first we got a question in from jared from somerville massachusetts do you know what goes on in somerville i do i know what goes on in somerville massachusetts this is so weird they have a uh fluff festival a marshmallow fluff festival it's called uh what the fluff i think it's in the summer um why do i even know this because i don't know if everyone out there has had fluff, you know, that like marshmallow kind of spread stuff. But when I was a kid, um, I definitely was not the most healthy thing that my parents gave me for lunch, but when they would pack me a lunch for school, I would have peanut butter and fluff sandwiches.

1:19This is what I would eat. And I ate it like every single day. I love peanut butter and fluff. I think about that now that's actually gotta be one of the most unhealthy things. Someone could pack you for lunch, but I loved it. I haven't had that in a very long time. I'm going to have that tonight. Does anybody else like fluff or is that just completely and totally disgusting? Anyway, Jared, that's more than you bargained for. What's your question? Jay, our email performance overall has really dropped in performance the last few months. Our metrics look terrible. Is this what others are seeing also?

1:54Well, yes and no. So we've been looking at this a lot for all of our agency clients and we send out thousands of campaigns and right now in general because there's a lot of uncertainty in the economy that's not a political statement there just is there's uncertainty in everybody's minds whether you're a business professional you're a consumer whatever you're doing and so we're reacting to marketing very very differently we're looking at our spend very differently so right now marketers really need to not be looking at vanity metrics, right? Oh, we got our open rates really high, or our database is this size, or whatever other nonsense.

2:32Because vanity metrics are not going to ring the bell. You're not going to drive revenue with vanity metrics during these uncertain times. So let me give you some data on what others are seeing. And I have some tactics specifically that are working right now that are not always working. So first off, email marketing performance. If you are sending to your entire database, engaged and unengaged people, people that are actively opening, clicking on your emails, along with people that are not actively opening and clicking on your emails, you're sending to your whole database, that is seeing a drop in performance.

3:04So for example, non-engaged contacts, people that have not opened and clicked on an email in over 120 days for both business and consumer marketers, we've been seeing about a 15 % decline in open rates and about a 20 % decline from that same population in click-through rates for those non-engaged contacts. Now, the good news on the other side of that, if you just siphon off and you only market, for example, to your Engage database, those people that have opened and clicked in the last 120 days, we're actually seeing a rise in performance of open rates and click-through rates for both business and consumer of about 15 % overall.

3:47And what that really means is that in uncertain times, all of us, we're really doubling down on things that we feel comfortable with, right? That as long as we're getting good pricing from the existing companies that we buy from, whether it's consumer brands or business partners, whatever, we feel comfortable with that. And so all of a sudden, just jumping on board with an email that you get from a database that you haven't interacted with in six months or a year, it's much more unlikely. So when you say your metrics are down, I would be looking at siphoning off your engaged versus non-engaged and really focusing in on how can I get more business from my engaged contacts?

4:31Because those are the people that you're most likely to get business from during this difficult time. Now, there are some tactics that are working very well right now in the last 90 days. A couple of those things. First off, weekend email performance. Sending out promotional emails on Saturday and Sunday. We're actually seeing Sunday do really, really well. But weekend email performance for both business and consumer marketers. Business marketers sleep on this so much. click-through rates are up for consumer emails on the weekends about 20 % over the last year over year. Okay. Same period last year versus this year up about 20%.

5:10And business to business emails on weekends are up about 35 % click-through rates year over year. So if you're not sending on the weekends, you're missing the boat. And the big mistake that people make is they compare weekends to weekdays. Oh, weekdays do better than weekends. No, no, no. You need to be sending out on the weekends and be sending out on the weekdays. And it's not that one does better than the other. You need to have a strategy for both. A couple other things that are working really well right now on the consumer side, flash sales, these 24 hour sales, anything really right now, that's a sale, an aggressive sale, especially those that have urgency are doing really, really well in the last 90 days.

5:49We're seeing flash sales. It's even working in the SMB category. Also, if you're a coach or you have some sort of masterclass business, flash sales are doing incredibly well in the last 90 days. We're seeing about a 20 % rise in engagement. Some of the other things on the business side, we're seeing webinar show up rates have gone up really high for Fridays. So they've increased about 25 % year over year. So if you're not testing having a webinar on a Friday, I think you're missing out on some really high engagement. But in general right now, the theme is this is not the time to try to wake the dead in your database.

6:24This is not the time where you want to re-engage everybody. This is the time where you want to lock in and focus on your engaged contacts, those people that care about you, that know you, that are comfortable buying from you, that have bought from you before, because they're the best potential you got to get more revenue right now during kind of uncertainty. All right. I have a ridiculous question coming up that we're going to tackle. But before we do, I want to let you know this podcast is exclusively presented by Emma. Emma is an amazing email sending platform from Marigold. I've been using Marigold for years.

6:56I send out billions of emails, consumer and B2B. They're incredible. And just for listeners, this podcast, we got an offer 50 % off for three months. Talk about saving some bucks during uncertain times. JaySchwedelson.com slash Emma. That is the place where you can get 50 % off for three months, jschwedelson.com slash Emma. I'm telling you, if you are trying to save some dollars and get the best in class email sending platform, this is it. All right, let's get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast. So for some reason, which I will never understand, we get a lot of people filling out our form, our ask us anything question form and putting in that they want dating advice.

7:41And the funny part about that is I'm a big loser. I've been married for 21 years. I don't know anything about dating, but here I am. I always get these questions about dating advice. So we got a roundup here of three questions about dating. Do not listen to me, but I will give you my input. I have not read these. So this is going to be shooting from the hip on my answers, but I'm going to give you my real view. Here we go. Jay, what do you do when someone is perfect on paper, but boring in real life? Well, then they're boring. I mean, that's not a thing. Perfect on paper just means that they like, you know what?

8:20They have a good job. They have a nice apartment. I don't know. What does perfect on paper even mean? That's nothing. It's irrelevant. If they're boring, they're boring. And you can't unboring somebody. Okay. you keep like oh you know what i bet i'll get them to do this they're gonna be less boring no boring people are boring sorry you're boring all right what's the next question jay what's the etiquette when your friend is dating someone terrible and asks you for your honest opinion well that's a tough one here's the deal in my opinion with that um if if your friend really likes the person like oh my god i love this person person's amazing blah blah blah they're really not asking you your opinion when they ask that question.

9:01What's happening there is they want you to say back to them, that person is amazing because they're so into the person. They want to get excited that you're excited. They're not really asking your opinion. Now, if the person is on the fence and it's like, I don't know, this person's okay, not great, I can't tell, whatever, that is when you really want to give your opinion, okay? Because that's when your opinion matters because the person's on the fence, you say, that guy's a tool or that girl's annoying or whatever, give your real opinion. But if the person is totally head over heels, then you just got to rock with that and say, oh yeah, they're great.

9:34Whatever. That's my, that's my do sense. All right. The last question, Jay, how do I say, I don't want to go to their friend's wedding when we've only been dating for two months? Okay. Well, here's the story. If you really like the person that you're with for two months and they invite you to a wedding, then you're stoked. You're like, yes, this is great. They like me a lot. They want me to be there with their friends and the family and whatever. They want to introduce me around. This is a great next step in our relationship. And you would be fired up to go. If they invite you and you're like, I don't want to go.

10:09I don't even know if I like this person that much. This is super awkward to have to be with this person with all these family members, friends, whatever. This is pushing our relationship too fast. I'm not into it. So it has nothing to do with how do you tell the person you want to go. It's a litmus test on, hey, do I even like this person? And if you don't like the person, get out of it. Life's too short. Don't stay in relationships when you don't like the person. What are you doing? Anyway, what are we doing? That's even a better question. Listen, Eventastic. It's coming in just a few days. This is our large free virtual event about all things events, in-person events, virtual events, webinars, public speaking.

10:48Andy Cohen from Bravo is going to be there. It's virtual. It is free. There will not be on demand. If you want to register for this thing, we only have a few hundred seats left. It is free, virtual. You go to eventastic.com. That is eventastic is the worst way to say it. Eventastic.com. I hope to see you there and keep it real 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 and hook us up with a five-star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time.

11:26Lastly, 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.