Shownotes
In this episode of Do This, Not That, host Jay Schwedelson breaks down the best offers to send at different times of the year for both B2B and consumer marketing. Drawing insights from a recent study on offer performance, Jay provides actionable tips to help marketers optimize their timing and strategies.
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Best Moments:
(00:44) Introduction to the topic of timing offers throughout the year
(01:45) B2B offers that perform well in January and February
(02:37) Webinar performance and optimal timing
(03:28) Consumer offers that perform well in January and February
(04:08) Subscription offers and their poor performance in early months
(05:41) "Since You Didn't Ask" segment about Jay's daughter's Depop business
(08:27) Jay's experience with jury duty
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Transcripts
Foreign 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. We'll 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 back for do this, not that podcast presented by Marigold. And today I want to dig into the right offers to send out now as compared to other times of the year.
One of the mistakes that we make, whether you're a business marketer or a consumer marketer, we just take, oh, we want to promote this thing. Let's get it out the door. But at different moments of the year, we're interested in different things.
If I told you you have to attend three webinars next week, you'd be like, you throw up. Like, who wants to do that? It's the start of the year. I'm trying to get myself going right, because that's not where your mind is.
If I try to promote you a super expensive consumer product, you're like, no, I got no money. I spent it all on the holidays. I don't want to buy that thing. Thing.
So we did this big study that we just completed and we looked at both business and consumer offers and what offers at what time of year should you be promoting them? So, you know, is this the right time or should I wait a little bit?
Oh, so first, let's break down the business to business offers that you should be thinking about promoting now and maybe ones that you might want to hold on to just a little bit. So, for example, this is a no brainer. We obviously know that in January and February, yearly planners and templates do really, really well.
That's a no brainer.
But what we uncovered here is that checklists and cheat sheets, as a content format, checklists and cheat sheets have a 25% higher download rate in January and February than any other time of the year. And this really is because we're getting our minds going, we're trying to get organized. It's all about getting ourselves together.
So checklists and cheat sheets are a now thing. Another thing it does really well in January and February specifically are case studies.
So surprisingly, case studies have a 30% higher average download rate in January and February than any other time of the year. It's a great time for your sales teams to be pushing those out there.
Now, the big content play on the business side, and we'll get to consumer in a second, is webinars. Do you want to register for a bunch of webinars right now? Absolutely not. That sounds like torture.
You don't even want to attend the meetings that are on your calendar. Okay. So that's why webinars are not perfect for January and February.
We actually see March through may have a 30% higher registration rate than January and February webinars. So if you're looking at your calendar, you can't just be like, oh, we want to do a webinar, let's do it January 25th, because that's a great day.
Wrong. You need to think about the mindset of who it is that you're marketing to. Right.
Think about where they're at and think about the best times of year for all this stuff. And then later on in the year, you, you could think about ebooks and some of these other things.
But early on, you have to get into the mindset of where they're at. Now on the consumer side. Right. What do we want to be thinking about at the beginning of the year?
January and February is all about budget friendly sales. The word budget actually in your email subject line. Okay.
In January and February, you see a 20% higher average open rate just by putting the word budget in the subject line. Why? We have no money left. We have no money left. Budget friendly sales.
The other thing obviously does super well in January and February are health and wellness offers. Even though we've already failed about our New Year's resolution, it's still on our mind.
We are still trying to think about how do we, you know, what do we got to do here to not fall apart? So health and wellness offers do really, really well. The thing that does horrible from our study on the consumer side is subscription offers.
This is literally the worst time of the year. It's lower performance by 30% than any other time of the year in January and February.
But we're looking at our wallets, we're seeing how much money we have in our bank account. The last thing we want to do is add on something that is an ongoing subscription based cost.
So you kind of want to avoid January and February if you're pushing a subscription offer in any way. And of course, as you get into, you know, March through May, it's all about summer trends and travel. That's what does the best in March through May.
All right, before we get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast, which is always ridiculous, I want to let you know that this Podcast is exclusively presented by Marigold. Marigold is my email sending platform. I've been using them forever. I send out billions of emails.
And one of the things I love about Marigold is they have a huge focus on loyalty marketing. They have a new free guide. It is the loyalty program optimization guide.
If you don't have a loyalty program, even if you're a tiny company, it doesn't matter. If you're a one person company, you need a loyalty program. And if you're a big company, you don't have have one. I don't know what you're doing.
70% of people will pay more for products and services if they feel loyal to the brand. You got to download this thing. It is free. Jeddelson.com Marigold that's where you get the loyalty program optimization guide. It is free.
Jelson.com Marigold and if you are looking for a new email platform, you got to check them out@meetmarygold.com I strongly recommend them. All right, let's get into. Since you didn't ask, which is the ridiculous portion of this podcast. So I have teenage kids, okay? My daughter, she is 17.
And I think that she's smarter than I'm not. I don't think. I pretty much know she's smarter than I am. And the reason I say that is so this week she came to me and she said, dad, guess what?
I go, I'm making a lot of money. I go, what are you doing? She goes, well, I have a little business going. I go, what are you actually doing?
She goes, well, I just cleaned out my closet. Cause she got a lot taller. She's, you know, pretty tall, five, six, whatever. And she cleaned out her closet.
And she goes, I have all these clothes that don't fit me. I go, okay. And she goes. So I am on this website, this app called Depop. Now, if you all don't know what Depop is, right?
It is this online marketplace where you can buy and sell like secondhand clothing. And like over 20 million people are on this thing. It's super popular, especially with young people, right?
And she goes, so I've been listing my clothing that doesn't fit me on Depop. And I'm getting paid and it's awesome. I'm getting a lot of money. I go, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Let me understand this business that you're in here. So we go to a store, I buy something ridiculous at, you know, pacsun or at Brandy Melville or who knows where, okay? And then you grow out of it.
And then you sell it for significantly less than whatever it is that we originally paid for. So we're buying high and you're selling low. And she's like, yeah, that's right. But what are we going to do? Donate it? And that's what we normally do.
Or give it to people that we know that are, like, younger or whatever. She goes, this way. We actually. I actually make some money. She goes, wouldn't you rather make some money than no money at all?
And this is where she's smarter than I am, because I don't know what to say back to that. What do I say? But I'm like, this is ridiculous. We're literally buying something and then selling it for less. This is bad math.
What are we actually doing? But then she's like, no, you're wrong. And you know what? I think she's right. I think that I'm an idiot. So I'm.
Now we're involved in this depop business. Are a lot of people doing this? I don't even understand. What I have to keep my eye on, though, is I can't.
Like, if we go to a storage, like, oh, my God, I need that hoodie. And then we buy the hoodie, and then a week later, she's selling the hoodie. Then I know something is wrong. Then I know I have failed.
Everything is a disaster. We're not going to let that happen. So I'm sharing this because I think I'm getting outsmarted.
I'm pretty sure I'm getting outsmarted, but I don't have a good argument back as to why this shouldn't be going on. So that's where I'm at. This is what's on my mind. Oh, you want to know the other thing on my mind? You didn't ask.
I don't even know why I'm about to talk about this, but I've never gotten jury duty before, ever. And then I got a note in the mail, you've been selected for jury duty. And so I'm like, I don't have time for this.
So three times in a row, this is so bad. I went on, I did the delay, delay, delay thing where it says, you can reschedule, reschedule, reschedule. So I did that.
But then it's supposed to be tomorrow. I'm supposed to be a jury duty tomorrow. So I call the thing up with the automated dialer, you put in your number, and. And it said, you are excused.
You don't need to come. I am so happy. I am so excited about this.
I know I should be excited about doing my civic duty, but I feel like I won the lottery and I was telling my wife this and she's like, this is garbage. You. It's not fair. She's had to go like three times. I've never had to go to jury duty. And she goes, you delayed it three times. You've never gone.
And they excuse you. This is ridiculous. And so, yeah, I'm fired up. So tomorrow is like a free day. Hello again.
I don't know what I wind up talking about this thing, but I appreciate you being here.
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