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EP. 42- PROVE Email Marketing WORKS! l Ask Us Anything

Michael GuinooDecember 20, 2023July 14th, 20252 min read

In this short holiday episode of “Ask Us Anything”, Jay and Kristin Nagel tackle a work question about proving the effectiveness of email marketing and a lighthearted question about whether there’s anything Jay doesn’t like about the holidays. Listeners can expect tips on using “holdout groups” to quantify email marketing performance and a funny discussion about Jay’s inability to properly wrap presents.

Main Discussion Points:

– Using a “holdout group” to prove email marketing effectiveness by isolating a segment of your list and not sending any emails to them, allowing you to clearly see the incremental lift generated by the emails.

– Jay shouts out Houston and recalls an odd experience ice skating at a mall there.

– The podcast is sponsored by Marigold, an email marketing and loyalty platform.

– Jay reminisces about growing up near the Long Island town Sayasset.

– Jay admits he’s terrible at wrapping holiday gifts, no matter how hard he tries. He uses too much tape and paper but is oblivious to his lack of skill.

And MASSIVE thank you to our Sponsor, Marigold!!

Marigold is a relationship marketing platform designed to help you acquire new customers and turn them into superfans with their best-in-class loyalty solutions. Don’t take my word for it though, American Airlines, Honeybaked Ham, Title Boxing, and Notre Dame University are also customers!

Regardless of your size, check out Marigold today to get the solution you need to grow your business!

Transcript
Jay Schwedelson:

Foreign. We are back for our short Wednesday episodes of Ask us anything on do this, not that.

And I'm here with one of our lead producers, Kristen Nagel, who is awesome. How are you, Kristen?

Kristin Nagel:

Great. How's it going, Jay?

Jay Schwedelson:

It is going. It really is. You know, it's been interesting. We're getting a lot of questions in these days. By the way, you can give us any question you want.

@jschweddelson.com There's a big button that says ask us anything. And then you could put in your questions. And each week we answer one work question and we answer one ridiculous question. And it's kind of fun.

And so Kristen gathers those questions all week and we, we try to tackle them. So, Kristen, let's talk about the first one, which is a work question. What do you got this week?

Kristin Nagel:

All right. First question is from Jenny in Houston. And Jenny asks, how can you prove the effectiveness of email marketing to others internally?

Jay Schwedelson:

First of all, Houston. Love Houston.

I think they have a skating rink that I was at once, nice skating rink in the mall in Houston, which is both great and weird all at the same time. But the question is, how can you prove your effectiveness of email marketing? Now, obviously, you send out an email, consumer business doesn't matter.

You get some responses, you get some sales, you get some whatever that shows effectiveness. But, you know, how do you go beyond that? And that's the question.

And something I don't think that marketers do enough of is leveraging what's called holdout groups. What's a holdout group? So let's use some round numbers.

And your database may not be this big or it may be way bigger, but let's just use a round number. Let's say you have a database of a hundred thousand people in your database and you want to send out.

Could be if on the consumer side, you're promoting a sale. On the business side, let's say you're promoting a piece of content that's also on your website, but you're going to promote it via email.

Okay, so a holdout group is where you would take, let's say 20% and you want to do a true sample. Take a 20% sample of your file. So if you're 100,000, take 20,000 of these people and put them to the side.

They're not going to get these emails that you're about to send out. They're not going to get any of those communications. They are going to be a holdout from everything that you're thinking about doing.

And Then you take the balance, the 80,000 people, and you send them that email cadence. The if you're selling consumer product that one touch, two touch, three touch, whatever, and you generate your sales and whatnot.

On the business side, you do the same thing.

You send your, oh, download this piece of content, download this piece of content two or three times, whatever, and then you take a step back, a few weeks later, say, how many sales did I get from the people that I did email? Right.

How many downloads of the content did I get from the people that I did email verse, the people that lived in my holdout, that were not exposed to any of those communications?

And then you will see what was the actual impact of what I just did within my own database, within my own universe, within the market that I am targeting, and you'll see actual real data. And you could do the same thing. Let's say you're prospecting, okay, and you're going to net new populations.

You can isolate out a group of people from the same database that you're going to be marketing to and just don't communicate to them. And then analyze how many sales or interactions or downloads did you get from the holdout group, Right?

And by the way, if your holdout group, for whatever reason, does better than whoever you marketed to, whoa, we gotta. We gotta have a meeting here, because that should not be the case. So a holdout group is a real powerful way to show quantitatively what's going on.

So that's one way I would think about how to show performance. So, Kristen, before we get into the ridiculous question, you know, I always love a good ridiculous question.

I want to let everybody know that this podcast is presented by Marigold. Oh, come on. Marigold. I love talking about Marigold because it's a platform I use, my company uses.

We send out a boatload of emails, and now billions of emails. And it just works. And it's easy and it's intuitive, and my team loves using it. And if you don't know what Marigold is, is it a flower?

I should know that I don't know.

But beyond it being a flower, which it very well may be, it's also an incredible platform for loyalty programs and email marketing and all this stuff. Small companies, big companies, medium companies, they all have a solution for all of them. So check it out@meet marigold.com.

that is meat marigold.com. all right, now on to the ridiculous question. All right, Kristen, hit me. I'm nervous. What is it going to be?

Kristin Nagel:

All right, this ridiculous question is from Mark in sat. Do you know where that is?

Jay Schwedelson:

Oh, my God. Sayasa. Come on now. Sayasa is in Long Island, New York. I grew up in Long island, okay. I moved to Florida when I was 15.

Sayasit is the town over from Jericho where I grew up. It's Sayaset.

Kristin Nagel:

Okay? Mark from a town over from Jericho asked, is there anything about the holidays you don't like?

Jay Schwedelson:

So first of all, is there anything you don't like about the holidays?

Kristin Nagel:

That's hard. No, I think it's the best time of the year.

Jay Schwedelson:

Okay. It's. It's absolutely the best time of the year. But here's something I realize I'm horrendous at. I cannot rap a present. Effective.

Are you a good rapper?

Kristin Nagel:

I love wrapping gifts, but I will.

Jay Schwedelson:

Say, are you good at it? Are you good at it? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Not good.

Kristin Nagel:

But I do like rap.

Jay Schwedelson:

My wife will be like, I need you to wrap these four gifts and I'll go in the other room and I'll take all the stuff, all the wrapping paper, whatever, and I will. When I say I try, I am giving it like maximum effort. And, and then I come and I. They look amazing to me.

And then I stack them up and I walk back into the room where my wife is as if I am I. I should be celebrated. I should be cheered that people should throw a parade for how amazing my rapping skills are. I cannot wait for the compliments to be showered in.

And every time I'll get my kids will say, it's me too. Like, that looks terrible. You use way too much tape. What's wrong with you? That doesn't even like. It's out of control.

I've never gotten positive feedback, not once in my life about my rapping skills, not once.

Kristin Nagel:

It's about what's under the wrapping. Let's be real.

Jay Schwedelson:

That is true. But apparently I use too much paper. I I over tape. I'm an over taper. I don't know if that's a thing, but I admit it. I'm having a moment. I over tape.

Leave me alone. Don't at me. If anybody asks me about taping, that's weird. It's weird. Stop it. Oh, my goodness. I don't know what we talked about today, but we did.

We talked about it. Find out more about all this stuff@jweddelson.com follow Kristen and me on LinkedIn if you want to be bored. And yeah, that's it. We did another one.

Thanks a lot. 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.

Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100 free, visit guruvents. Com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Damon John, Martha Stewart, and me. Guruevents. Com. Check it out.

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Transcript
Jay Schwedelson:

Foreign. We are back for our short Wednesday episodes of Ask us anything on do this, not that.

And I'm here with one of our lead producers, Kristen Nagel, who is awesome. How are you, Kristen?

Kristin Nagel:

Great. How's it going, Jay?

Jay Schwedelson:

It is going. It really is. You know, it's been interesting. We're getting a lot of questions in these days. By the way, you can give us any question you want.

@jschweddelson.com There's a big button that says ask us anything. And then you could put in your questions. And each week we answer one work question and we answer one ridiculous question. And it's kind of fun.

And so Kristen gathers those questions all week and we, we try to tackle them. So, Kristen, let's talk about the first one, which is a work question. What do you got this week?

Kristin Nagel:

All right. First question is from Jenny in Houston. And Jenny asks, how can you prove the effectiveness of email marketing to others internally?

Jay Schwedelson:

First of all, Houston. Love Houston.

I think they have a skating rink that I was at once, nice skating rink in the mall in Houston, which is both great and weird all at the same time. But the question is, how can you prove your effectiveness of email marketing? Now, obviously, you send out an email, consumer business doesn't matter.

You get some responses, you get some sales, you get some whatever that shows effectiveness. But, you know, how do you go beyond that? And that's the question.

And something I don't think that marketers do enough of is leveraging what's called holdout groups. What's a holdout group? So let's use some round numbers.

And your database may not be this big or it may be way bigger, but let's just use a round number. Let's say you have a database of a hundred thousand people in your database and you want to send out.

Could be if on the consumer side, you're promoting a sale. On the business side, let's say you're promoting a piece of content that's also on your website, but you're going to promote it via email.

Okay, so a holdout group is where you would take, let's say 20% and you want to do a true sample. Take a 20% sample of your file. So if you're 100,000, take 20,000 of these people and put them to the side.

They're not going to get these emails that you're about to send out. They're not going to get any of those communications. They are going to be a holdout from everything that you're thinking about doing.

And Then you take the balance, the 80,000 people, and you send them that email cadence. The if you're selling consumer product that one touch, two touch, three touch, whatever, and you generate your sales and whatnot.

On the business side, you do the same thing.

You send your, oh, download this piece of content, download this piece of content two or three times, whatever, and then you take a step back, a few weeks later, say, how many sales did I get from the people that I did email? Right.

How many downloads of the content did I get from the people that I did email verse, the people that lived in my holdout, that were not exposed to any of those communications?

And then you will see what was the actual impact of what I just did within my own database, within my own universe, within the market that I am targeting, and you'll see actual real data. And you could do the same thing. Let's say you're prospecting, okay, and you're going to net new populations.

You can isolate out a group of people from the same database that you're going to be marketing to and just don't communicate to them. And then analyze how many sales or interactions or downloads did you get from the holdout group, Right?

And by the way, if your holdout group, for whatever reason, does better than whoever you marketed to, whoa, we gotta. We gotta have a meeting here, because that should not be the case. So a holdout group is a real powerful way to show quantitatively what's going on.

So that's one way I would think about how to show performance. So, Kristen, before we get into the ridiculous question, you know, I always love a good ridiculous question.

I want to let everybody know that this podcast is presented by Marigold. Oh, come on. Marigold. I love talking about Marigold because it's a platform I use, my company uses.

We send out a boatload of emails, and now billions of emails. And it just works. And it's easy and it's intuitive, and my team loves using it. And if you don't know what Marigold is, is it a flower?

I should know that I don't know.

But beyond it being a flower, which it very well may be, it's also an incredible platform for loyalty programs and email marketing and all this stuff. Small companies, big companies, medium companies, they all have a solution for all of them. So check it out@meet marigold.com.

that is meat marigold.com. all right, now on to the ridiculous question. All right, Kristen, hit me. I'm nervous. What is it going to be?

Kristin Nagel:

All right, this ridiculous question is from Mark in sat. Do you know where that is?

Jay Schwedelson:

Oh, my God. Sayasa. Come on now. Sayasa is in Long Island, New York. I grew up in Long island, okay. I moved to Florida when I was 15.

Sayasit is the town over from Jericho where I grew up. It's Sayaset.

Kristin Nagel:

Okay? Mark from a town over from Jericho asked, is there anything about the holidays you don't like?

Jay Schwedelson:

So first of all, is there anything you don't like about the holidays?

Kristin Nagel:

That's hard. No, I think it's the best time of the year.

Jay Schwedelson:

Okay. It's. It's absolutely the best time of the year. But here's something I realize I'm horrendous at. I cannot rap a present. Effective.

Are you a good rapper?

Kristin Nagel:

I love wrapping gifts, but I will.

Jay Schwedelson:

Say, are you good at it? Are you good at it? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Not good.

Kristin Nagel:

But I do like rap.

Jay Schwedelson:

My wife will be like, I need you to wrap these four gifts and I'll go in the other room and I'll take all the stuff, all the wrapping paper, whatever, and I will. When I say I try, I am giving it like maximum effort. And, and then I come and I. They look amazing to me.

And then I stack them up and I walk back into the room where my wife is as if I am I. I should be celebrated. I should be cheered that people should throw a parade for how amazing my rapping skills are. I cannot wait for the compliments to be showered in.

And every time I'll get my kids will say, it's me too. Like, that looks terrible. You use way too much tape. What's wrong with you? That doesn't even like. It's out of control.

I've never gotten positive feedback, not once in my life about my rapping skills, not once.

Kristin Nagel:

It's about what's under the wrapping. Let's be real.

Jay Schwedelson:

That is true. But apparently I use too much paper. I I over tape. I'm an over taper. I don't know if that's a thing, but I admit it. I'm having a moment. I over tape.

Leave me alone. Don't at me. If anybody asks me about taping, that's weird. It's weird. Stop it. Oh, my goodness. I don't know what we talked about today, but we did.

We talked about it. Find out more about all this stuff@jweddelson.com follow Kristen and me on LinkedIn if you want to be bored. And yeah, that's it. We did another one.

Thanks a lot. 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.

Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100 free, visit guruvents. Com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Damon John, Martha Stewart, and me. Guruevents. Com. Check it out.