Email Marketing Rules You Can Finally Stop Following | Bathroom Break #122

0:07Welcome 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. We are back with another episode of The Bathroom Break, and I'm here with the Bob the Builder.

0:47I mean, Jay Schwedowson. Thank you for coming on this podcast, Bob. The reason I'm calling him Bob and he'll tell you why I'm calling it Bob. But yeah, you could tell everybody why you're Bob the Builder today. All right. So right now I'm recording live from the lobby of my daughter's dorm building. I just moved her into college and I put together a dresser. It was so demoralizing because so I put this dresser together and it took me over two hours and I was sweating so much. And this other dad had the exact same dresser for his daughter. It took him like 28 minutes. And I felt like the biggest loser on earth.

1:30I didn't get high fives like, yeah, you did it. I got like, why did that take you so long? So I don't know what that means about me, but are you good at building stuff? No, I'm terrible at building stuff. But I also, Jay sent me a picture and he was sweating so much because it's so hot in the dorm. Yeah, I was. I lost weight putting together a dresser. Who knew? I don't need Ozempic. No, I'm terrible. I'm terrible at building stuff. I'm terrible at building stuff. And that's not a skill of mine. Well, let's jump into these things. There are a couple of things in the world of marketing that I'm very happy to report are dead or dying.

2:08And I want to share one of those. I know you've got a big one. I'll just jump right into it. So I saw this study from GetResponse and it brought me so much joy that one of the things in marketing that's dying is double opt-in for email databases. You ever sign up for a list and then as soon as you sign up, you get an email that says, in order to actually get on the list, you have to click this button to basically double opt in. Now, everybody used to say, this is the right way to do it. It's great for privacy, but here's what GetResponse said in their thing and what I believe also. First of all, it's garbage for marketers because so many people don't realize they have to go back to their email.

2:46It's not that common. Everyone knows they have to go back to their email to then double opt-in, that there's about 30 to 40 % of his database on average that doesn't take the action. So you're actually upsetting about 30 to 40 % of the people that think they signed up for something, but then in fact don't get to do it because they didn't go and click that thing. And what do you do with these people that are living in between? But the other thing, which is amazing in this study, it showed that spam complaints are higher on a percentage basis when you have a double opt-in list than when you have a regular single opt-in list.

3:19And the reason being is the people that do actually take the action to double opt-in is a subset of people that are all about privacy and all about whatever. Then if you email them just a little bit too much or it's not exactly what they wanted, they're the ones who take action to report you as a spam complaint. So the year-over-year number of companies that are actually requiring double opt-in has dropped almost nothing. Nobody's doing it and I'm thrilled. So if you're out there doing it and they're making you do it, share this episode with somebody because that is fresh. So Daniel, what's one that you're seeing that's dying?

3:51I think it's been dying for a while and people have been like overly indexing on it, but requiring business emails. And I'll give you like a couple of reasons why I like personal emails. I think one, personal emails are like credit cards or like numbers that you keep forever where like your phone number basically because nobody really gets rid of a personal email address but people are switching companies all the time. So requiring it is pretty dumb but also like in the B2B world or in any world like people are like Meta has a better match rate on a personal email versus a business email because nobody's putting their business email on Facebook.

4:38and even I even on LinkedIn like a lot of people aren't even putting their their personal uh their business emails because they're going to switch jobs and then they'll like have no access to their social so when you're targeting with an email match they are requiring business emails is not and a lot of people don't want spam in their business email like I get emails all the time like I think one of the biggest unsubscribe rates and I don't know if you see this is like people getting annoyed that i'm i'm emailing their business email like people are okay with getting more emails than their personal email than their their business email but i think that's something that you should reconsider i think there's other ways to do it where you can add like a double form uh like a form of the email and then a double form to get more information on the person but i wouldn't um require business email because one will lower conversion rates into it's just a bad way to read.

5:40It's hard to retarget with that email. Yeah, and I want to just jump on that. So first off, we did an analysis and we looked at year over year, the number of B2B companies that are requiring work email is dropped by about 20%. And here's the other thing about it. It was that a lot of people are out there and they're switching jobs. They don't have a job. And that's when they're trying to better themselves. That's when they're trying to learn things and consume content. And when they go to your site and they try to download that guide and they can't do it is they don't have a work email address.

6:07When they eventually do get that job, you're the last company on earth that they're going to want to turn to. So it really, it's a negative signal in that person's mind. Now, I'll say there's a caveat here. If you're doing demo requests, that's a little bit different because demo requests usually lead tie-in to your work calendar. But other than a demo request offer, I think the work email is going, as a requirement, is going to fade more and more and more. So Daniel, let me ask you a question. Back to the original thing about building stuff or whatever. You have a kid now. There's a lot of stuff that you get for a kid.

6:40Well, you have to put it together. That's a lot of parts, a lot of things. Does Ari do that for you? Are you just totally incompetent? I've done a couple of things, but when people come visit family members, I'll say, hey, I have something. Could you help me with something? And they're better than me. Yesterday, I got this little push thing for my son and to help him like, cause he likes walking a little bit now. So it's just pushing that you push around and I opened the box and it required like 10 tools that you do, like that I don't have a toolbox, like 10 tools to build this. Like who, like, if you're going to give me a box of stuff, give me the stuff to build the thing.

7:24Like why do I have five different tools to build my kid's toy? It's ridiculous. I'm getting you a toolbox for a gift. That's a fact. You'll never open it. And people will never listen to this episode either. That's what we do. But listen, everybody go and follow the Marky Millennials or follow Do This, Not That. Leave a review for Daniel. He loves it. Tell him that he's not a tool, but he should have tools. And we'll see you at the next one. 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, each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing.

8:04And I 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