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

Daniel Murray: Welcome to a new special series called the bathroom break. That extra ten 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.

Jay Schwedelson: This collab is gonna be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the marketing millennials and me, Jay Schwedelson, from the do this not that podcast and subjectline.com. Each episode in the series, we are gonna go over quick tips about different marketing topics. And if you wanna be in the bathroom, fine. Just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out. We are back for the bathroom break. Jay Schwedelson 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 gonna be going out to dinner, and I need to know like, I 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.

Speaker 3: No. I do not. 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 kinda annoying when you, like, ask for the bell and then someone, like, at the last minute goes, actually, can I get a coffee? And it's like, you're the only one to do that. So What is

Jay Schwedelson: 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 or what what is who are those people? I don't know.

Speaker 3: I have no idea, but talking about uncertain people and uncertainty, what are we talking about today?

Jay Schwedelson: So 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. And 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 gonna all go away and you're gonna lose a lot of business. So Daniel, as it relates to uncertainty, what should everyone be thinking about in their marketing?

Speaker 3: 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 your website that there's not gonna 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 someone who was planning on buying something knows and you're transparent ahead of time instead of being the brand who raises prices 15% out of nowhere when someone's gonna 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. They just know tariffs or uncertainties happening in the economy. So, like, be upfront with the customer.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah. And 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 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? There come 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 gonna actually see, is my competition out there talking about x, y, and z? Because 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 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.

Speaker 3: 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 gonna get out this product and how, like, how much they're getting out of this product too. So double down on, like, why people need this product, how they're gonna like, that's the time to double down on that type of messaging if you can't. Because you can do, like, it you'll have this for three, five years. Like, you like, this is three in one. Like, you don't have to buy these two other products if you buy this. Like, things like that will help them reframe the cost in their head during these these this time right now.

Jay Schwedelson: I 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, you know, b to b product, a lot of brands are not gonna have new vendors go through procurement. They're just not. Okay? And if they are, it's gonna take a lot longer to get through. Right? Or on the consumer side, if you haven't factored in the fact that you're not gonna have the same sales as you thought you were gonna have starting in January, you're just playing a game with yourself. So management of expectations is really, really important. And especially with 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. Retention is everything right now.

Speaker 3: And, I mean, you just said it because they're already in your in, like, in your system. You're in their system, so you 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 upfront in those places too. Like, you should make people aware what's happening during this time and make ease their nerves. The best way is to ease your current customers' nerves that, because with software, especially, like, they wanna be part of a software that's gonna last for a long time. And 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 gonna be in business for a long time. It's just logical choice for a lot of people.

Jay Schwedelson: 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 gonna get the traction than if you actually talk about what is going on. So it's just critical to be of the moment always, and this is a moment. It just is.

Speaker 3: 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 in 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 certain teacher customer that, hey. They're not gonna be affected by all this craziness as well.

Jay Schwedelson: Alright. So back to the original question about all the dinner stuff. So are you gonna be like, okay. Let's get appetizers, and then you're gonna try to order for the table, like, bunch of appetizers? Or do you just kinda ride solo, like, I'm getting this over here? Are you somebody that tries to take control of the appetizer portion of the meal? Because I need to know what I'm getting involved with.

Speaker 3: 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 is so does not know what's going on in his social calendar. So That's true. You ask him what he's I 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 No. I'm not. He does not know what's going on in his social plans, just FYI.

Jay Schwedelson: 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, you know, I I just accept on my calendar. But sometimes I 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?

Speaker 3: Yeah. We have, like, we have a shared email that has a shared calendar.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah. I need to do that.

Speaker 3: 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. Like like, this doctor appointment's happening or this, like, we're going out with this person. Please block it off. Because otherwise, we won't

Jay Schwedelson: million things. Like, haircut, whatever.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Jay, remember to get a haircut, remember to get your your dermatology appointment, remember to get your dentist appointment.

Jay Schwedelson: You couldn't be more right because, you know, Ali's dermatologist, she doesn't want to be my dermatologist because she, like, gets freaked. Like, what if she missed something? So she, like, she's like, why haven't you made your skin check with so and so, doctor, and I gotta do that? It's a whole I mean, it's a whole thing.

Speaker 3: Well, now you know to do it today.

Jay Schwedelson: 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 Marking 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 gotta get back to work. Get out of there. Alright. 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, and I hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out. Back from my bathroom break.

Daniel Murray: This is Daniel. Go follow the Mark and Melanias podcast, but also tune in to 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 wanna hear. Peace out. Later.