In this episode of Do This, Not That, host Jay Schwedelson discusses the emerging trend of FONF (Fear of Not being First) in marketing and how it's replacing the traditional FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) approach. He provides actionable tips for both B2B and consumer marketers to leverage this new consumer behavior in their campaigns.

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Best Moments:

(00:40) Introduction to the concept of FONF (Fear of Not being First)

(02:56) B2B examples of using FONF in marketing

(04:06) Consumer marketing examples of FONF

(06:05) Sponsor message for Marigold, an email sending platform

(07:05) Jay's personal product recommendations

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MASSIVE thank you to our Sponsor, Marigold!!

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Check out this free content from marigold that Jay has loved digesting, 5 Steps For Selecting The Right Email Marketing Platform.

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. 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 the do this not that podcast presented by Marigold. And today we're talking about something that is changing in human behavior and we're seeing it in the data.

And I cannot wait to dig into this idea of, of fun. What, what did he just say? Did he just like, like throw up on the microphone? No Fun. The fear of not first.

Listen, for the longest time we've all focused on fomo, the fear of missing out. We use that in all of our marketing, right? Two days left, this thing expires here, 24 hours to go, early bird rate expiring.

It's always been about fomo, the fear of missing out. But we've changed. What we want to now do is we want to be the first to get the thing.

We want to get be the first to get the new color of that aloe or lululemon outfit, right? We want to be the first one to get the new iPhone 16.

We want to have the beta access to the new software that's coming out from the Martech platform that we use. We want to be first.

And there now is this fear, this fear of not being first, which I'm calling fun, which is a ridiculous acronym that I made up, but I like it. The fear of not first. And I have some data about the power of font, okay? And we see it in everything.

It really started in consumer and then it started to bleed into B2B.

And the way it started in consumer was when certain really cool brands, they were starting their subject line or their social posts with things like just in colon or just dropped. And what they were basically saying is, hey, this is the newest thing and it's not going to be around for that long.

So you want to jump on it right now so you could be cool and be one of the first ones to have it.

But what we're now seeing in the data in the last 90 days, that for both business and consumer marketers, this idea of promoting things to trying to leverage this fear of not being first is crushing it.

So let me first take you through some business to business examples of how you could bring this into your own marketing and then I'll show with you consumers.

All right, so on the business to business side, if your email promotions, for example, if your subject lines start with things like this just announced colon, right?

And then you go on to say, you know, the keynote speaker, blah, blah, blah, or you announce, you know, preview, and then you say, you know, this is the early access to our new software, whatever it is, or sneak peek about our latest trends guide. When you have just announced at the start of your subject line, it's increasing open rates by about 28%. On the business side, preview 26%.

Early access 25%. Sneak peek 22%. Right. When you say things like early, it's lifting up 17%.

Early access to our latest trends guide, you're telling the person they're going to know before everybody else.

This is working on your email subject lines, your email headlines, on your landing pages, on your social posts, on the copy that goes with your social posts. If you're not trying to leverage this behavior where we want to make sure we are first, you are missing out.

On the consumer side, it's even more so, right.

I don't know if they have Alo where everybody is or if everyone knows about Alo Alo, but they really are one of the companies that really has pushed the agenda on this idea of fonts, of the fear of not first.

Because what they do is every few months they come out with new colors of their outfits and things that you can buy and they drop an email, they drop a social post and it just dropped and you got to get in on it or it's gone, right?

And so when you do things, for example, again in your subject line, in your body copy, in your landing pages, on your social posts, everywhere, you, it is massively increasing engagement.

So on the subject lines, for example, on the consumer side, if you start your subject line with just dropped, okay, it is lifting your open rate percentage by 35% as compared to standard subject lines. Just in. 32%. Early access 29%. VIP preview 25% prerelease 21%. First to know 20%. It is this whole flipping of the script. It used to be fomo.

Oh, there's only two days left. Forget about that. When there's only two days left, everybody's already got the thing.

We want to be the first one, whether it's in business getting the tip sheet, the guide, the content, okay, right. Or beta access to the software or beta or be the first to know about the agenda at a conference. We want to be first.

And on the consumer side, we want to know, we want access to the deals, the offers, the trends.

The thing to this idea of font, the fear of not first is a great test to incorporate into your marketing, especially as we head into this period of year where we're all buying the latest stuff, right? So fonf I love it. F o n F.

All right, before we get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast where I'm going to break down why, what are my favorite holiday things we all should be buying, which is so important, I want to let you know that this podcast is exclusively presented to you by Marigold. That was my singing. That was not bad. Listen, Marigold is my esv, my email sending platform. You're like, oh, I'm tuning this out.

I don't care who Jay uses for his email sending platform. But you should, because you don't like your email sending platform, and I love mine. Whether you're a business marketer or consumer marketer.

I have a special deal that Marigold has given just for the listeners of this podcast, up to 50% off. Now, listen, they are a roll up of Cheetah Digital and Emma and Sail through and Live Clicker and Campaign Miner.

All the best platforms on the planet. And you can get up to 50% off just to be a listener of this podcast. All you gotta do is go to jschwetelson.com save that's jshweddelson.com s a v e.

The special offer is only there. It's not going to be there for much longer. You check it out. I strongly tell you, endorse whatever they are awesome. I've been using them for years.

So check out Marigold. All right, let's get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast where, you know, Oprah comes out with her favorite things every year.

So I decide I'm going to come out with my favorite things because there are some things that I think are super awesome that everyone should waste some money on. So one of the things is this thing called cleaning gel for your car. It costs $6. It's on Amazon. Why am I telling you? This is so important?

So this cleaning gel is this big blob of this, like, blue goo, okay, that comes in this little, like, can or whatever. And the reason I got it was the other day, I. I went somewhere with my son in his car, and his car was gross. I was so annoyed.

I'm like, dude, your car is disgusting. There was, like, 400 water bottles, which I don't understand. He had socks, like, in his glove compartment. Like, use like, dirty socks.

I'm like, what are you doing in here? And it was the dustiest thing. I thought. I was, like, in the desert, and there was a sandstorm. I'm like, what goes on in your car?

I go, this is unacceptable. And then I looked on. On. On. On Amazon, and they had this thing called this cleaning gel for your car. And you get this goop, okay.

And you just smush it down in all the different areas of the car, and it picks up all the dirt and all the little particles and all the garbage, and it worked incredibly well. And then you wash in the sink. And I am telling you, for $6, this thing is a game changer.

You could also use it, like, on your keyboard and other places where there's, like, little gnarly nooks and crannies. So go on Amazon and look up cleaning gel. I think it's called, like, Pulu Dicky P U L I D I K I Car cleaning gel. I don't know.

Listen, I am not an affiliate for any of these companies or brands or products. I'm just telling you nonsense that I like. The other thing that I'm obsessed with, which I've been using for years, okay. Is my Ember mug.

E M B E R dot com. This thing's kind of a ripoff. It's very expensive. It's like a hundred bucks or 150 bucks, I don't know. But what it is is a coffee mug.

And you can control the temperature of your coffee or whatever else you put in the mug on an app, okay? So you set whatever temperature you want and stays at that temperature the entire time. This is. And it works. It's not like one of these things.

Sometimes you buy this stuff, it doesn't work. Blah, blah, blah, whatever. I have been using this for years. I love this thing. It is amazing. One of my buddies is trying to.

He was telling me his favorite thing right now is his. Like, his belt bag. Like one of these kind of, like, man purse things. Whatever. He's like, you got to get one. I'm like, I don't think that's my jam.

I don't know. So I'm like, what do you put in it? He's like, oh, you put your wallet and your keys. He goes, but I keep food in it.

I'm like, what are you talking about? You keep food and what are we doing? We don't need to carry around a granola bar everywhere we go. So I don't think I'm on that train. I don't know.

We'll see. Anyway, check out the car cleaning gel. It's very good. Thanks for being here. Go to jayshwalson.com hit me up.

I want to work with you, want to talk with you. I want to hang out with you. There's a form there which you do stuff and leave this thing review. Why not? Come on. All right, later. You did it.

You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over.

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