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.

Do this, not that.

Yes, here we are, another episode.

And today we are going to be talking about literally the most important email that you send as a marketer.

Whether you're a business marketer or a consumer marketer.

And you probably don't even realize that this is the most important email that you sent.

And I'm not exaggerating.

Well, I might be exaggerating.

No, I'm not exaggerating.

So it's not the email you send promoting some amazing offer?

It's not your Black Friday email?

It's not an email about the most important webinar of the year?

No, it's none of that.

The most important email any marketer sends is the first email that you send to somebody when they come into your organization from any area.

If they buy something and you get their email address.

If they react to a social post or search ad or anything and they give you their email address, okay, and you email them for the first time.

Doesn't matter if you're a salesperson emailing somebody for the first time, or if it's a trigger based email and you're sending out an email for the first time.

Why is that email so important and what do we need to be doing in that email to make sure that we're getting the best possible outcome?

The reason that email is the most important is when you send that first email to somebody, there is a technical relationship that's being established between you, the sender, your infrastructure that's sending the email, and then the recipient infrastructure that's receiving the email.

Maybe it's Outlook, maybe it's Gmail, maybe it's whatever.

And when you send out that email to that person for the first time, if they open and click on that first email, there is over an 80% higher likelihood that your future emails that you send to that person will go into the inbox rather than junk folder or spam.

Why is there such a huge increase if the person opens and clicks?

Because the first time you send that person that email, if the person opens and clicks on that email, what they are doing is they're telling their email infrastructure, the email system that they're using to check their email, they're telling that system, hey, I know I never got an email from this company or this person before, but clearly I like it and I opened it and I clicked it.

So from a technical perspective, you're telling your system, hey, in the future, make sure these emails go to my inbox and not the junk folder.

Now, if the first time someone sends you an email, okay, you don't open it, you don't click it, what you are telling your infrastructure is that, yeah, I don't really know who this is, don't really care, not that interested, came out of left field.

I don't know who they are.

Right, because your infrastructure doesn't know you just bought something on that website, doesn't know you just signed up for something, doesn't know you just reacted to a social post.

They don't know that.

Right?

So you opening and clicking is that determining factor.

Now, why am I telling everybody this?

I'm telling everybody this because we make a giant mistake all the time.

And this is where in marketing we have to be looking at everything.

Somebody goes to your site, they sign up for something, what do you do?

You send them an email that says, thank you, thank you for signing up, thank you for registering.

You're sending them literally like a receipt on what they did.

And you're checking a box that you sent them, an autoresponder that you sent them this automated email that says thank you.

And you're failing as a marketer because thank you, it's not going to get that email opened.

That first email you send, you need to squarely be focused first off on that subject line because we need that email to get opened so we have that 80% higher likelihood of staying in that inbox.

So instead of just saying thank you for your subject line, okay, what you want to say is something like this, thank you, VIP gift inside.

Oh, my goodness.

What is it?

There's something inside.

I need to open this email and see it.

Or how about you're in exclamation point.

We have something for you.

What is it?

I need to know.

I need to open up this email or even.

You gotta see this.

Anything that you can do, whether you're a business marketer or a consumer marketer, anything that you can do to get that email open.

That first email.

Email open is so, so, so important.

And then when they open it up, you gotta have some awesome sauce in there, right?

Get them to click that VIP gift.

Click on it.

Whatever takes them to a page, they get Some piece of content, they get some sort of coupon, they get some sort of something, anything.

All right?

Your job does not end when they sign up for the thing or buy the thing on your site.

You need to then close the loop on that engagement.

And so when the person then gets that follow up email, you're doing something awesome to get them to open it and then you're doing something awesome to get them to click on it.

The other critical thing about that first email, it has to get there fast, fast.

If it does not get there within 15 minutes, that's the window, an automatic email trigger based email.

And anything that somebody does, they buy something, they react to, a social post, a search ad, anything.

I don't care what it says, I don't care if it says, hey, you just won $5 billion, open up this email.

Doesn't matter after 15 minutes, nobody cares.

The likelihood of somebody opening up that first email, if it's received after 15 minute period from them doing the thing, drops by almost 50%.

Have you ever, you know, gone to a site, done anything, whatever, given your email address and then you go to your inbox and you wait for that autoresponder, the thank you email, and then you don't get it immediately.

What do we do?

We're like, did it happen?

Did it go through?

Is this all working?

And then you go back to the site, oh my God, I have to call customer service, be on hold for four hours.

That 15 minute window is everything.

So think about that initial email you're sending.

All right, so the most important email that you send is the first email that you send.

I don't care if it's a one to one sales email, do not try to sell something.

Like if you're a sales sending out a sales email, right?

And you're sending somebody an email for the first time, do not try to sell something in that first email.

What you want to do is get it open, say really cool stat.

I wanted you to see, right?

New trend report I wanted to share with you.

And they open up and don't try to sell anything.

Here's a link to the trend report.

Great, get them to click on it.

Then you will have the license to email them forever and stick in their inbox.

Oh, now I take a deep breath.

Now's my yoga moment.

I don't do yoga.

I try to do yoga.

I did try to do more than once.

That's not what I plan to talk about.

But when I try to yoga, I'm the least flexible human being on the planet.

Okay.

And I mean, touching my toes is like, I need seven people involved with that.

Anyway, my yoga moment was that now we're going to get to the portion of the podcast called, since you didn't ask where I talk about things that aren't work related, business related.

I think I just did that with my inability to touch my toes, which is just horrible to see.

The visuals terrible.

Anyway, so what was on my mind.

What's on my mind is I wanted to talk about the TV I'm watching because it's very important to me.

It is very important to me.

So I'm watching the Golden Bachelor.

It is fantastic.

I did not think a reality show about senior citizens was going to be my jam.

I don't know why.

I mean, I'm all for senior citizens.

I don't know.

Hopefully I get there one day.

But for some reason, the show's great.

It might actually be better than the Bachelor and the Bachelorette.

So watch the show.

Of course I'm watching Love is Blind, which is just.

I don't even know how to describe that show.

It's like I lose my faith in humanity, but it's a great show.

And then last night I realized I watch an inordinate amount of the Food Network.

I do.

Does anybody else do this?

And my happy show is Diners drive ins and dives.

I love that show.

Nothing bad ever happens and the food looks phenomenal.

And then wherever I travel to, I try to go to, like, the restaurant, if they've been to one, and it's great.

And I love.

I'll tell you what, though, man, I never even know what I'm about to say, what comes out of my mouth.

There is a show on the Food Network that is so boring that I watch.

It's called the Kitchen.

I don't know if you've ever seen this.

On the weekends, I don't know what happens.

But it's like on all weekend long, it's called the Kitchen.

Who's on it?

The guy.

Jeffrey Zakarian's on it.

And the.

The woman who used to be married to Billy Joel, Katie Lee Joel is on it.

These other random people are on it.

It's the most boring show that's ever been created.

They literally sit there and they're like, today we're gonna make a healthy sandwich from avocados and turkey.

And they make the most boring sandwich and then they eat it and they go, oh, my God, this is so good.

It's so good.

And I watch every.

It's like why am I not changing the channel?

It's terrible.

But I watch it.

So you could check out the kitchen if you're want to be bored.

If you don't want to be bored, you check out the Golden Bachelor and Love is Blind and that's it.

I don't know.

I don't know why we're talking about what we're talking about.

So there you go.

And since we're talking anyway, please go sign up for Guru Conference.

What's wrong with you people if you haven't signed up for Guru Conference?

It is the free two day virtual email marketing conference.

Okay?

It's coming up November 8th and 9th.

I'll be there.

Martha Stewart will be there.

It's going to be bananas.

Please go sign up.

Don't not have a spot.

Guruconference.com thanks for checking this out.

I hope you can touch your toes because I can't.

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 marketer.

And hook us up with a five star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time.

Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100% free, visit guruevents.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Daymond, John, Martha Stewart and me.

GuruEvents.com check it out.