In this short midweek podcast episode, host Jay Schwedelson tackles a work question about deciding when to redo your company’s email newsletter program. Tune in to find out if it’s time for a redo of your company’s newsletter program and learn tips and tricks to make it more engaging. Jay shares his own experiences, including variations in delivery, subject lines, and content, to help you rethink and revamp your email newsletter strategy. He also addresses a ridiculous question about what to do with holiday gifts you don’t like from someone close to you.
Key Discussion Points:
– Deciding when your email newsletter needs rethinking
– Keeping ugly holiday gifts to avoid offending the gift giver
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!
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Transcript
Foreign. We are back for another short episode of do this, not that.
Remember, we got our long episodes on Friday, but all week long because everybody's awesome. We get random questions in and we get work questions and we get meaningless, ridiculous questions.
And on our Wednesday short episodes, we tackle one work and one ridiculous question each week. So this week we got our work question in first. Let's do that one first. We got our work question from Stacy from Buffalo. Very cold.
Very cold in Buffalo. And the question is this. I'm debating if we need to rethink our email newsletter program at our company. How do you decide when you need a redo?
Oh, I. I went through this. I had the same issue. I will tell you how I decide when. We're probably needing a redo, especially with our newsletter. This happened to me.
So I was in my inbox, I'm scrolling through, and I see my company's email newsletter come to my inbox. And I scrolled past it and I said, nah, I don't want to read that. You know what? And then I said to myself, oh, my goodness, this is terrible news.
Because I realized I did not want to read my own company's newsletter. I thought that's how boring I thought my newsletter was. And that instantly became my test for any content that we do that.
If you are not interested in.
In reading the content that your own company puts out, opening the newsletter that your own company puts out, that is the moment that you pause, you say, whoa, we need to do a redo here. We need to rethink the time.
We're sending it out, the day of the week, we're sending it out, the subject line that we're using, the pre header that we're using, and certainly whatever the content inside is. Because I promise you, if you're not interested, a lot of people aren't interested.
And when you're rethinking the newsletter that you're sending out, the other thing you should also think about is you don't need to have the kitchen sink in your newsletter every single time. People think a newsletter is also a digest of like 10 different things. A newsletter could be one article and maybe one tip for the week.
It could be really short, and I promise you, people will like it even more with less.
So if you are finding that there's a lack of engagement with your newsletters, that you don't want to engage with your own newsletters, then go back to the drawing board a little bit. Rethink all of it. Because that is the moment you got to Hit pause. In my opinion.
Okay, before we get into the ridiculous question this week, let me tell you something cool. This podcast is exclusively presented by Marigold Love Marold. They are a platform that I use to send out my emails.
We send out zillions and billions of emails from my agency. We use them all the time. I've been using them for years. They're terrific. Great customer service, great delivery, great. All of it.
It's also great for loyalty marketing programs, relationship marketing programs, and if you are thinking about a new platform for your marketing efforts, your loyalty programs, doesn't matter if you're small, medium, or large, you need to consider Marigold. Seriously. So go to meet marigold.com. that is meet marigold.com. that's who I use. That's who I recommend. Check them out.
Okay, now let's get into the ridiculous question of the week. What is the ridiculous question? So we got a question in from Barry from Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland rocks. Sort of rocks.
Well, the Music hall of Fame is there. Cleveland Browns are there. What else there? It doesn't matter. So, Cleveland. Yeah. What's up, Barry? What's the question?
Question is, do you keep holiday gifts you don't like? If it's from someone that is close to you? That's a tough one right there. I'll tell you. I am in one situation.
Hopefully the person just never listens to this podcast because that would be awkward. So we got a gift of a vase. Do you say vase or vase? I don't know. We got a gift of this vase from somebody that we're really close to, my wife and I.
And the vase is really ugly. I mean, it is like, ew. Like, what? Is why? Right? But we're like, we can't get rid of it because the person's like, really?
We're really tight with them and. But we don't want to put it out because it's so horrendously ugly that, you know, it's embarrassing.
So what we have landed on, which is probably pretty stupid, I think, is whenever we know they're coming over, we put it out, and then as soon as they leave, we put it away. That is how I've handled this situation now, talking about that publicly. The odds are that somebody will know them, possibly.
I hope they don't listen. Thankfully, most of my friends and family ignore what I do, which is amazing. So that's how I handle it.
I don't think that that's the best course of action, though. You may actually just want to call person up, say listen, really appreciate the gift, but it's not my style. So I'm going to get something different.
That's what a normal person would do. But no, me, I'm very surface level. I put it out, I put it away. That's how I roll. Don't judge me or judge me. It's fine.
Anyway, make sure to check out our long episode on Fridays. Go to jschweddelson.com so we could be, you know, drop me a note or whatever.
Give this a five star review and and put out ugly vases and vases if you want to. Why not? 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.
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