SPECIAL SERIES ==> Pricing Beats Loyalty 💸 What To Say During Uncertainty <== | BATHROOM Break #56 COLLAB: The Marketing Millennials + Do This, Not That

0:01Welcome to a new special series called The Bathroom Break. That extra 10 minutes, you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom or both. But I don't recommend both, but that's your choice. This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwetelson, from the Do This Not That podcast and subjectline.com. Each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out.

0:34we are back for the bathroom break jay swettleson here i'm here with the daniel murray from the marketing millennials daniel i got a question for you so me and daniel made plans we're actually going to be going out to dinner and i need to know like i can't get involved with one of these really long dinners like do you order like dessert and coffee and all this crap i just need to know what I'm really getting involved with here for real. No, I do not. Um, I'm more of like a go find dessert after, so I won't involve you in that go find dessert after part of it, but no, I'm not the, it's kind of annoying when you like ask for the bell and then someone like at the last minute goes, actually, can I get a coffee?

1:14And it's like, you're the only one to do that. Um, so what is that personality trait that you're that person that doesn't read the room and realize Everybody's ready to go. Like, are you just a narcissist? Who are those people? I don't know. I have no idea. But talking about uncertain people and uncertainty, what are we talking about today? So, you know, we'll never get political on this show. But there is no debate on the planet that for the next few months, there's uncertainty in the economy. That's not debatable. and whether you market to business professionals, market to consumers, you always have to get in the mind of who you're marketing to.

1:56And there are some things right now in your marketing that you need to be doing. It's not like maybe I should do it or not that I don't think enough marketers are doing. They're just hoping it's going to all go away and you're going to lose a lot of business. So Daniel, as you release uncertainty, what should everyone be thinking about in their marketing? one thing is transparency and it can go both ways i think one way to do it is like being clear that there with a promo bar or something on the website that there's not going to be any price hikes in your pricing either you're eating the cost or your business doesn't do that or two like hey would they due to tariffs maybe hitting like this product could see a price hike in the future so it might be strategic for you to get it now so at least the someone who was planning on buying something knows and you're transparent ahead of time instead of being the brand who raises prices 10-15 % out of nowhere when someone's going to buy that now someone it's out of someone's price range or something so the transparency of like actually stating no price hike or actually there's a price hike is something you should be thinking about on your landing page because people don't know what has tariffs.

3:14They just know tariffs or uncertainties happening in the economy. So like be upfront with the customer. Yeah. And I would throw in there, be very aware of what's going on in your category. An easy hack to do right now, make a list of, let's say all your competitors and get their URLs. Take 10 of your competitors' URLs and every day go into ChatGPT and say, is there any new information on any of these URLs? They're my competitors related to price changes, discounting, any mention of tariffs. You do that prompt into ChatGPT, the free version. And every day when you do that, you're going to actually see, is my competition out there talking about X, Y, and Z?

3:55Because we need to be living in the moment right now. There's a lot going on. And if you're trying to just hope it goes away, you're going to lose. Because right now, loyalty is out the window. We care about discounted pricing on SaaS products, on direct-to-consumer products. Pricing beats loyalty in uncertain times. Yeah, and I think, I mean, going on pricing, like if you can't go too far on discounting, the way to do this is double down on messaging on value and length of value and how much value that they're going to get out of this product. and how much they're getting out of this product too.

4:39So double down on why people need this product, how are they going to – that's the time to double down on that type of messaging if you can't – because you can do – you'll have this for three, five years. This is three in one. You don't have to buy these two other products if you buy this. Things like that will help them reframe the cost in their head during this time right now. I also would say about reframing, if you haven't revised your own internal expectations in terms of sales and pipeline, you are making a huge mistake. I will tell you right now, if you're out there trying to sell a B2B product, a lot of brands are not going to have new vendors go through procurement.

5:28They're just not. And if they are, it's going to take a lot longer to get through. Or on the consumer side, if you haven't factored in the fact that you're not going to have the same sales as you thought you were going to have starting in January, you're just playing a game with yourself. So management of expectations is really, really important. And especially with the sales cycle, your sales cycles are going to get longer. The last thing is double down on your existing client base. That is the easiest place to get business when things are uncertain. Go aggressive after your existing clients, your existing customers.

6:03Retention is everything right now. And I mean, you just said it because they're already in your system. You're in their system. So they can purchase more things you can upsell to them. But I also will state one thing is like, I know I said upfront that you need to be transparent with like on your landing page and on your front facing. but I also think that you need to do this on your own channels as well. Like telling your customers, your email list, like being up front in those places too. Like you should make people aware what's happening during this time and make ease their nerves. And the best way is to ease your current customers nerves that like, cause with software, especially like they want to be part of a software that's going to last for a long time.

6:56and if they don't know you're affected, customers don't know everything, you could lose a customer who thinks you might go under because of this uncertain time. Because people usually buy softwares that they know are going to be in business for a long time. It's just logical choice for a lot of people. And from a content perspective, talk about uncertainty. Have downloadable information. How is uncertainty affecting your market? webinars about uncertainty in your industry. Everybody wants to know what's going to happen, right? That is the moment that we're in. So to just talk about regular stuff, you're not going to get the traction that if you actually talk about what is going on.

7:43So it's just critical to be of the moment always. And this is a moment. It just is. I would add one more thing to add to your landing page. if you do this and you are locally sourcing and locally doing things like us-based something like be like that's a time for you to double down on that if you're someone who's like a us-based like us-based products like go hard and saying like hey we're local we're we're us-sourced we're us-based like go hard with that messaging right now because that would be because then it provides certainty to your customer that, hey, they're not going to be affected by all of this craziness as well.

8:32All right. So back to the original question about all the dinner stuff. So are you going to be like, okay, let's get appetizers and then you're going to try to order for the table like a bunch of appetizers? Or do you just kind of ride solo like I'm getting this over here? Are you just somebody that tries to take control of the appetizer portion of the meal? because I need to know what I'm getting involved with. Well, I think, I mean, your wife is taking care of the restaurant. So if it's a restaurant that is like, has food coming out whenever, then that's a different story than we're sitting at a restaurant where, to be honest, Jay does not know what's going on in his social calendar.

9:15So you ask him what he's, I one time asked him where he's going on vacation and he told me the wrong spot. and I'm like, how do you not know where you're going? So he doesn't not know what's going on in his social plans. Just FYI. Oh my God, this is a constant battle in my house because the way it works, I don't know how you and Ari organize it, but Ali sends me meeting invites and then I just accept on my calendar, but sometimes I miss the invites and all this stuff and it's a mess. Do you just have like a shared calendar? How do you do it? Yeah, we have a shared email that has a shared calendar.

9:51um yeah i need to do that it's just it's easy but sometimes we both miss it too but we only do it for like big things that are happening um like like um this doctor appointment's happening or this like we're going out with this person please block it off like um because otherwise we will i have a million things like haircut whatever yeah jay remember to get a haircut remember to get your dermatology appointment. Remember to get your dentist appointment. You couldn't be more right because, you know, Ali's a dermatologist, but she doesn't want to be my dermatologist because she gets freaked. Like, what if she missed something?

10:31So she's like, why haven't you made your skin check with so-and-so doctor? And I got to do that. It's a whole, I mean, it's a whole thing. Well, now you know what to do today. Right. Listen, a lot of information shared today. I don't know what we said, but we definitely said it. And listen, go follow Daniel's the marketing millennials podcast. It's incredible. Toss the guy a review. He's awesome. And we'll see you at the next. Daniel, come on, man. I got to get back to work. Get out of there. All right. While he's still in there, this is Jay. Check out my podcast. Do this, not that for marketers.

11:05Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out. Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. go follow the Mark and Millet podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the bathroom break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email, subject line, to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out. Later.