What’s Up THIS WEEK: Email Fails, Taylor Swift Wedding News? Email TIP! 🎁 What's Up This Week | Ep. 461

0:00Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast from marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for What's Up This Week from the Do This Not That podcast. This is the short episode of a breakdown of what's going on in business and marketing and pop culture. Let's jump into it. So, are you one of those people that when someone buys you a gift, you try to snoop around and see and try to find the gift and open it secretly to see what it is? Well, if it is, if you are, you stink.

0:37But Lowe's, the home improvement store, they did a survey and they found that 57 % of kids found or opened the presents that somebody got for them early that are in their home. So what they did, which is kind of a cool marketing tactic, they went ahead and they made these giant boxes for loyalty members only where the boxes have like things on the outside that say like coffee maker or whatever. And you go and pick them up for free. And then you shove your presents that you got for your family in these boxes. so nobody wants to open those. Part of their survey also found how many times on average do you think Gen Alpha humans, young people, ask about presents during the holiday season?

1:17It's 51 times. What type of survey is that? How do they find out that data? That's weird. There was an email marketing fail. Oh my goodness, this was ridiculous. So this suit company sent out this email. They were trying to promote these suits that you wear, you know, like men's suits that you would wear or whatever. And they decided that they were going to really be edgy. This is the problem sometimes when people try to be edgy, they go too far and they don't understand what funny is. So they were trying to do this big suit sale and they were trying to give 45 % off. So when they sent it out, they put in the subject line, this is not a joke.

1:59This was the subject line to this really large email they sent out, grow the, and then F dash dash K up, grow the F dash dash K up and buy a suit. That was their subject line. And then you open it up and there was no context whatsoever. And it said, here's the 45 % of Black Friday suit deal. Well, this blew up sideways. The New York Post picked it up. It got picked up everywhere. And then by 8 PM that night their ceo had to send out an email saying we apologize we're so sorry you know i don't know why the uh everyone's radar on what is like edgy and fun like i what is the meeting that goes on there hey i got a great idea i think we're gonna get a huge open rate why don't we put the f word in our subject line and and insult everybody because that's going to get people to want to buy a suit what is wrong with people how is that what you come up with this is ridiculous Anyway, what else is going on?

2:57Speaking of email, there is some new data from World Data Research on a tactic that crushes it right now and is something that you probably haven't tested. And it could not work better for business and consumer marketers. And that is double personalization in the subject line. What does that even mean? So if you were to get a subject line that said something like pet parents of anxious dogs, here's some calming treats. right? Pet parents is one segment, right? Another segment is that it's, you have an anxious dog. Those are two different personalizations, very specific things or mid-market CMOs, Q1 pipeline fix.

3:38Mid-market is the size of the businesses you go after. And the CMO is the title or job function you're going after. It is double personalization, right? Home cooks who meal prep, Beauty fans with sensitive skin. You're not just saying beauty fans. You're not just saying people with sensitive skin. You're saying beauty fans with sensitive skin, right? Finance teams at high-growth startups. When you do double personalization, you're including two elements in the subject line. Consumer email open rates go up by about 29%, and business-to-business email open rates go up by about 24%. Ooh, I just, like, tweaked out.

4:17I don't know what just happened to my brain. said the same thing three times. Cool. Anyway, that's kind of like double personalization to say the same thing three times. No, but this idea is great because what you always want to bake into your mind is the sooner you tell somebody who they are, the faster they want to engage. And if with double personalization, which is more than just that single personalization, they're like, wow, this is really for me. And for you, you may get a lower open rate, a lower click-through rate by doing this, but anybody that reacts to this, consumer or business, is so much further down the funnel.

4:50They're like a more qualified opportunity because they have narrowed down on who they are and you've narrowed down on who you're trying to reach. So this is a great one if you're really trying to convert some new leads, new pipeline, new sales. All right, let's get into some ridiculous things. What is going pop culture-wise? Well, I had put in my newsletter that I tried The Beast in Me on Netflix. That's the show with Claire Danes. And I quit after 20 minutes. And I got slammed saying, it's a really good show. You need to go back and watch it. So that's what I did. I went back and I'm now almost done with The Beast in Me on Netflix.

5:30And I need to undo what I said. I was wrong. I usually am wrong. It's very good. The Beast in Me is very good with Claire Danes. It's like a psychological thriller. I give it, it's worth watching. It's not going to give you the holiday vibes. I'll tell you that right now, but it's worth watching. I have yet to jump into Stranger Things. I'm having a really hard time caring. I don't know why. I mean, I know I should care. I don't know if I should care. Maybe I should care. Another thing I don't know, I have to get on board to get excited about, but I'm not there yet. There's a lot of talk about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey have picked their date and their location.

6:05Apparently, it's June 13th, 2026 in Rhode Island. do I care about this yet no I don't hit me up June 12th we'll see what's going on and the thing that I wanted to mention this last week or whatever but I forgot to and it really bothered me did you see on the music charts that on the country music charts the billboard U.S. singles that an AI generated song by some by it's not by a human it's called walk my walk it was released by an AIR artist called Breaking Rust. It hit number one on the Billboard country charts. This was not made by a human. Now, I went and listened to it. It was good. It was.

6:47I mean, if somebody told me that was made by a human, I'd be like, yeah, I believe you. Why would I not believe you? But this, I think we got to do something. I think Billboard, whoever else does any other charting, I don't think, this is my opinion, we should allow AI-generated songs to be factored in to the charts. I mean, maybe they have another chart. I don't know. But I didn't like it because what if you don't know? The whole thing stinks. It just stinks. It takes jobs away from people, and I don't know what to tell you. So, yeah, that's what's going on. Listen, I hope you're having a great start to the holiday time of year.

7:26I hope you're getting some rest. I hope that you are also still grinding. I kind of grind right until about the 20th. That's really when I try to push as hard as I can. So I'm still in it. I appreciate you. Drop me a comment on this thing. Leave me a review. Let me know what you think of all this stuff. Hit me up with an email. DM me. Go to jschwedelson.com. You're awesome. See you later. You did it. You made it to the end. But wait, the party is not over. Listen, I want to keep hanging out. Subscribe to this podcast. And if it wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to, give it a five-star review.

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