How to Spend $1000 to Massively Grow Your Email List! | Ep. 405 - Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson

Jay Schwedelson: We are back for ask Us anything from the Do This Not That Podcast presented by Marigold. This is our short episode where all week long we get in questions, we get in work questions, and we get in super ridiculous questions and we try to tackle one of each. And if you wanna submit a question, you'd be my BFF.

Jay Schwedelson: I'll never say that again. BF is definitely embarrassing, but just go to jay schon.com. There's a button that says podcast, another one that says Ask us anything and drop it. In there. It could be wild, it could be work related. We don't care. We love it. Let's get into this week's question. We'll do the work one first. Alright, we got a question from Jared from Pueblo, Colorado.

Jay Schwedelson: I have no idea where that is. I did see though, I think Colorado is a big state fair going on right now. I used to like those big state fairs with all the rides and stuff. I still like them. I just, I don't know, I cannot do the rides at all anymore. I can't go on anything that goes in a circle. If it goes in a circle like a ride, I will throw up.

Jay Schwedelson: Like I can't go on a merry-go-round. And, and I found this out the hard way, but I do like playing the carnival games, which I'm very bad at. And I like Funnel cake. Funnel cake is underrated. What are we talking about? Jared? What do you got? What's your question, Jay? We are trying to grow our email newsletter and we want to test some paid social media ads, but our budgets are super tight.

Jay Schwedelson: How would you spend a thousand dollars to grow a newsletter using paid social? Ooh, a thousand bucks. Alright, well this is great because people think that you need to spend all sorts of money on stuff to grow your database, to grow your newsletter, business, consumer, nonprofit. It doesn't matter. I'm gonna give you a simple playbook here, literally that you could do with a thousand dollars and stop spending a thousand dollars on stupid stuff.

Jay Schwedelson: This will actually work and uh, people are sleeping on some of this stuff, so. Let's say, oh, uh, I think my audience is on LinkedIn. I'm gonna run paid ads there, and that's gonna win the day. That ain't gonna win the day. You have to undo almost everything that you think about, where you think you should be putting a thousand dollars into play and what it's going to do.

Jay Schwedelson: So the first thing you wanna think about with paid social media is that it is amazing. It can work incredibly well, but there's one thing that you need to have locked into your brain. When people go on social media, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, whatever, what they don't wanna do is see an ad and then click on the ad and then leave the platform.

Jay Schwedelson: They don't wanna leave the app. They don't wanna go and look at your garbage that you're promoting. So the way that you convert people, I'm gonna tell you exactly how to do it the way that you convert people on any of these platforms. I'm gonna break down each one specifically. Is to have your ad unit that you are using, capture the person's interests and them submitting forms and them registering for your thing on the platform.

Jay Schwedelson: So when someone sees that Instagram reels ad and they said, yes, I wanna register, they don't leave the platform. They register for it right there. Because if they have to leave the platform, forget it. Your cost per registration goes into the stratosphere. 'cause nobody wants to leave. The platform. So that's num uno.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay, so here's the deal. What is the best, absolute best use of a thousand dollars on a paid social media ad? It doesn't matter if it's for a business to business newsletter or a consumer newsletter. You're gonna think this is wild. You're gonna think I'm wrong, but I'm not. We have done this, my agency for over a hundred clients, business and consumer Instagram reels.

Jay Schwedelson: Those are the videos. Instagram reels. Ads. This is the secret sauce stuff. I'm telling you it could not work better, and the average cost per registration for a newsletter subscription ad sign up for this newsletter about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The average cost per subscriber is between $2 and 50 cents and $4 per subscriber.

Jay Schwedelson: So for a thousand dollars you can get 250 to 400 new subscribers. That is amazing. Now, the way that you do it on Instagram, the target that you can do, and I know some of you folks out there that are business to business folks are like, I'm not doing this. This won't work. I am telling you it couldn't work better.

Jay Schwedelson: Instagram is a gold mine for business to business marketing. Obviously, it's a gold mine for consumer brands as well to grow your databases. So what you wanna do is you want not just any ad, you don't wanna run regular post ads, you wanna run Instagram. Reels ads, you wanna make sure that they stay on platform.

Jay Schwedelson: You can do great targeting. You can upload databases, you could do lookalike audiences, you could do all the things, okay? And there's really no minimum you could run this ad for five to $10 a day and see if I'm a doofus and if I'm wrong, I'm telling you it crushes it. If I only had a thousand dollars, that is where I would spend my money to grow my newsletter.

Jay Schwedelson: Now. The next place I would look, I would not be running this on LinkedIn, running the same ad, these lead gen ads where you try to get somebody to subscribe to a newsletter or grow your database on LinkedIn, which is weird to say you think that that's a better place to do it. It is not. We see across all of our clients the cost per registration for a paid newsletter ad, if you're gonna do a thousand dollars, it's gonna cost you anywhere between 30 to $40.

Jay Schwedelson: Per subscriber. That ain't it. Okay. That's not gonna get you very far. So the other place that I'd be thinking about running these right now you're gonna fall over is on Reddit. So just in the last 30 days, Reddit came out with lead gen ads where you can actually do the same thing that you're doing on Instagram reels.

Jay Schwedelson: They didn't have this before where you can run an ad. Okay. It's called a lead gen ad on Reddit. Just came out and you can have, Hey, subscribe to our newsletter. You can have it show up in the different Reddit commentary and subreddits and whatever, and it pop ups a little form on platform. You can then submit right there and boom, this is literally brand new.

Jay Schwedelson: So we've only had some very limited testing out there, but from everything that we're seeing, the cost per reg is anywhere between five to $10. On Reddit with these lead gen ads. This is brand new. You could not do this before a few weeks back. So in general, if you are not using. On platform lead gen captures, uh, for social, me on social media and running these paid ads and test them.

Jay Schwedelson: This is it. This is the most cost effective way to grow your database. Whether you're a business marketer in a boring category, a consumer marketer, it does not matter if you're not testing this and the, you don't need big min, there's no minimums. There's no minimum on Reddit. There's, uh, basically no minimum on LinkedIn.

Jay Schwedelson: There's no minimum. On, uh, Instagram. You need to be testing this. This is a no no brainer. Alright, let's get to the ridiculous portion of this podcast. We got a question in from Jill, from Los Angeles, California. Alright, Jill, what do you got? Jay? Love Island is totally over now, uh, because the reunion happened.

Jay Schwedelson: What are you watching? We need to know immediately. This is a really important topic. What am I watching on tv? You're gonna be surprised. I think you're gonna be surprised. So, um, and for new listeners, you're like, what? He's gonna talk about what he watched on tv? Yes. I have no life. This is what I do. Uh, I watch tv.

Jay Schwedelson: So, um, on Netflix there is, uh, a sitcom Oh, called, called Leanne. This is a great show. I don't know if you've seen this. This was with Woman Leanne Morgan. Okay. And it is like a sitcom from like the eighties, the same style, right? And you think it's gonna be terrible. You think? I'm not watching a sitcom. I don't even like sitcoms anymore.

Jay Schwedelson: I'm telling you, it's like a, a mental massage. Watching this show, Leanne Morgan is hilarious. She's this woman from Tennessee. I love her. I have no idea why I can't stop watching this show. It is like a throwback. So I would check out the show, Leanne on Netflix, which is not a reality show, which is very odd for me.

Jay Schwedelson: But yes, a show. What's coming up since you brought up Love Island, which is very important. I don't know. I'm not a big fan though. We'll see. I'm a big fan of Love Island. I'm not a big fan though. On September 16th, love Island Games is going to be premiering and it's one of these, you know, all these reality shows.

Jay Schwedelson: They, once they have a hit, all they do is then they try to turn it into like an all star cast and they make stupid spinoffs. So I don't think the world needs Love Island games, but I'll probably check it out. It's on Peacock, and by the way, I like Peacock, but if there's a less intuitive. Streaming platform on Earth.

Jay Schwedelson: I'd like you to tell me what it is. I don't understand. Netflix has it all figured out pretty much, but you go on any other streaming platform. Okay. I don't care if it's HBO Max or Paramount and Peacock, forget about it. All I want to do when I get on a streaming platform is I need you to show me whatever it is, whatever the hell I was last watching.

Jay Schwedelson: That should be the first thing. Okay? And then the next thing should be. Okay. The, whatever the top 10 is on that platform, that, that's what it should be. I go on Peacock, it's like, it, it thinks I've never been on the platform before. I cannot figure out how to find a show, how to start a show. It shows me shows from three years ago.

Jay Schwedelson: I'm losing my mind over the whole thing. Um, what else is going on? Oh, the other show that's coming up that I probably won't watch is, uh, dancing With Stars Season 34. That's coming up in like a week or so. The cast looks terrible. They have two people from the Secret Lives of Mormon wives. I mean, okay, that show is fine.

Jay Schwedelson: Almost unwatchable. Who cares? You wanna have one person on fine, you need two people from that show. Seriously, it's, it's that important that you have two people from that show. Like, what's going on? What are we doing? What am I doing? What's that? I have no idea what I'm doing anyway. I appreciate you being here.

Jay Schwedelson: It would mean a lot to me if you left a review. When you leave a review and you write a little comment, Jay's a big loser, whatever. It helps us circulate the show and then I can tell more people to go watch Leanne and uh, that's very important. I appreciate you all. Keep crushing it later.

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