EP. 66- EBOOKS are BORING and Your Consumer Offer is MEH! l Jay’s Scoop

Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. Also, dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this, not that we are here.

Do this, not that is back. You know, I could never have gotten through medical school. My wife is a dermatologist and she's real smart, and I couldn't have done it.

First of all, I couldn't gotten through those classes. I mean, science class, forget about it. But, you know, the world of medicine, everything is very, very specific.

And you have to call things by the right names. And there's a reason I'm telling you all this. It does relate to what we're going to talk about.

Like, if you can't say something is rosacea, if it's actually acne, you can't do that because that would be a problem. But that's why I love being in marketing, because we could do whatever we want, basically.

And it actually has a huge impact on the results of our marketing by what we are naming things. And I think that marketers are overlooking this. Call it a tactic or call it just a missed opportunity. I'll give you an example.

What I mean, if I was promoting a piece of content. Forget about what the content's about. I don't care what it's about. And I said to you, you have to download one of these four things.

You have to pick one. Which one would you download first? A guide, an ebook, a report, or a white paper? Which one would you choose to download first?

Guide, ebook, a report, or a white paper? I. I would download the guide. That's the one. I mean, that one sounds like the best one to me. Ebooks sound boring.

Reports sound like homework, and I haven't downloaded a white paper in, like, 10 years. Okay, now why does that matter? Because we really have the ability to name things, whatever it is that we want to name them.

And this is not just on the business side. This is on the consumer side as well. And I'm going to give you some examples. All right, let's say you are promoting a piece of content.

You can name it. Please, you try to tell me what is the difference between an e book and a guide. I want you to explain to me the difference.

Now, somebody out there is going to be like, no, no, no, no, no. An ebook is 35 pages and has chapters and what? No, who really? What are you, the content police? Nonsense.

And the reason it matters in a huge, huge, huge way is that what you name your content can radically change the outcome of how much it is consumed. So we did this big study, consumer and B2B. And let me give you some examples. All right?

So we analyzed if we name something an ebook versus naming something a guide, for example. And so you can call it either the Small Business Owner's Ebook for success or you can call it the Easy Guide to Small Business Success.

When you name something a guide rather than an ebook for the exact same piece of content, we see a 30% higher consumption rate because ebook equals boring. It does. When's the last time you downloaded an ebook and read it? I mean, who does that? So what you are deciding your content actually is matters.

And there's no. You're not going to go out there and be like, oh, I named it a guide. So it was like, well, this is actually an ebook. So I have a problem with that.

And whoever, if you find the content, please tell them they're a big loser. I mean, who are we kidding here? Another version of that is, and this one's awesome. We're testing this a lot. A checklist versus a cheat sheet.

Now, you might say those are two different things, but they're really not. What is the difference between a checklist as a piece of content and a cheat sheet? I mean, come on. But here is the big difference.

Promoted head to head, same information. The cheat sheet had a 40% higher consumption rate.

What I'm trying to raise everybody's awareness of is look at your content and rethink what is the optimal format name that you can call it right now. On the consumer side, we see a lot of the same stuff. I'll give you a great example.

If you have a sale that you are pushing and you're sending out that email, right, and you put in that subject line, what are you going to call the sale? What's it going to be called when they open up the email when they get to your destination page or on your social posts?

So let's say it's a sale where you're trying to really push the fact you're letting people have access to something early. So we did the study of if the promotion is called early access versus Preview, early access versus preview, which one does better?

It's the same thing. Giving somebody early access or you're giving them preview.

Early Access generated a 25% higher overall engagement when you're promoting it as early access rather than just a preview. All right, another one. Another great example is really trying to let people know this thing's about to end or there's not a lot of it left. Right.

So we looked at Last chance as the promotion title versus Almost Gone. Last chance, Almost gone. You're saying the same thing. Basically, Almost gone crushes Last chance by 30%.

30% increase when you promote it is almost gone.

So really what you want to be thinking about is because all these metrics can be all over the place for you, it's not going to always hold everything I just said, but what you really just want to look at and be like, okay, what am I promoting? I'm promoting a white paper. Well, is it really need to be called a white paper? Because we know that's not going to do well.

Or this thing is a checklist. Should we call it a cheat sheet? This thing is a blog post. Should we call it an article? I don't know.

But if you're not testing what you're calling the content type, I think you're missing a really important variable that can change the outcome of your campaigns.

So before we get into since you didn't ask, which is the portion of this podcast that, I mean, there's no other word than ridiculous when I share what's going on in my life or whatever, I do want to let you know that this podcast is exclusively presented by Marigold. Marigold is an email sending platform, a loyalty marketing platform.

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So if you want to check out this 50% off offer on an incredible email sending platform, loyalty marketing platform, you got to go to jschweddelson.com marigold cool. All right, now let's get on to. Since you didn't ask, so why do I say, ah, because you know what's on my mind? What's on my mind is Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day is coming up. And you know what? I. Every time I do, since you didn't ask, I always say, you know what I can't stand? Because I can't stand anything, apparently.

I don't understand why I can't stand anything. But anyway, this is what I can't stand. Why? And it just got me thinking about Valentine's Day.

Because what happens on Valentine's Day is people go on Facebook and they'll post these gushing posts about how much they love the person that they're with. Whoever they're with, they're dating their significant other, their husband, their partner, I don't care.

And they'll be like, this is the greatest person. We've been together for this many years. I couldn't be without you. You're amazing. They'll show some cake or flowers. They got some nonsense.

And I believe. And I'm going to get heat for this. I don't care.

I believe that there is a direct correlation between how much people post on Facebook saying that they love and they're so into their significant other, if they do that a lot, that those are the people that I think have issues in their relationship. What do you think about that? Oh, I said it. Yeah, it's weird. It's like, you see these people posting, posting, posting. They love each other.

Love each other. Oh, my God. Oh, my. And then six months later, you'd be like, oh, did you hear? So and so is not together anymore. Yeah. Whole big drama.

And I believe the over posters about their relationship are the people most likely to be out of a relationship. I said it. There you go. Hot take by me. So, yeah, that's one Valentine's Day. Oh, the other Valentine's Day thing, that's. That's on my mind.

So sometimes I call the florist, right? And a florist, and I'll order flowers for my wife. You know, Valentine's Day, birthday, whatever. And so it's Valentine's Day, so it's on my mind.

And I don't know if anybody else feels this way, but there's the most awkward thing when you have to tell the person when you're ordering the flowers what you want it to say on the card, and you have to tell them what you want to write. I don't know why it's so awkward for me, but they'll be like, all right, what do you want on the card? And then I'LL be like.

I'll say something like, honey, I love you. You're the most important thing in my life. Whatever.

And it's just weird because you're saying it to this random person on the phone and you're like, trying to be, like, romantic and yet you're talking to a stranger. The whole thing is so awkward to me. And it's like nails on a chalkboard.

And what happens is I wind up saying less stuff because I just want it to end. I want it to stop. I don't have anybody else has ever felt that way before. But this is what goes on with me. I don't know.

I shouldn't have a microphone. I shouldn't be allowed to speak. Anyway, thanks for being here. I do appreciate it. And what else I want to tell you.

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