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 Ask Us Anything from Do this, not that, presented by Marigold.

This is our short episode where we try to answer one work question and one ridiculous question that we get in all week long.

And you can go to jschwetelson.com and you could submit a question by clicking on podcast and then ask us anything.

We love it.

We love the questions we get in the work ones, the ridiculous ones.

They're fun.

So let's jump into the work one.

First, we got a question from Carlos from Seattle.

Love Seattle.

Been there many times.

I was in an earthquake in Seattle.

It was a big earthquake.

It was 7.1, whatever, Richter scale earthquake.

This is so embarrassing.

I was on stage at a conference.

I was giving a speech.

I was on microphone.

All of a sudden, the earthquake hits.

I didn't know it was earthquake.

I thought it was a bomb.

I didn't know what it was in this big convention center.

So I freak out on the microphone.

I start cursing.

I'm like, everybody, run for your lives.

I was like, George Costanza and Seinfeld.

Like, I was the least calm person.

It was the opposite of what you're supposed to do.

And I'll never forget.

We get outside the convention center and then I bump into the woman who is in the room next to me giving a speech.

I'm like, how did you handle it?

She was, oh, I had everybody get calm and get under your table.

It's going to be okay.

And I'm like.

She's like, what'd you do?

I'm like, I don't know.

I was like, what did I do?

I ran for my life.

I was like, you're on your own, everybody.

It's terrible.

So if there's a really serious problem, don't.

Don't look to me, because clearly I'm not that guy anyway.

What is your question, Carlos?

Carlos said, looking ahead to 20, 25.

Are there any key shifts that marketers should be preparing in, in their strategies and the tools that they're using for their marketing?

Well, that's a pretty big question.

It's a good question.

I'll tell you one massive thing that I think every marketer needs to be making sure is set up, which I don't think a lot of marketers do.

And it's related to your email sending infrastructure.

So everybody there sends out emails, your newsletters, your promotional emails, all this stuff.

And with a lot of the changes that are coming to the way that receiving email infrastructures are looking at email performance and how you guys in the inbox, they're going to be looking to see if people can reply to your email.

So let's say you send out a newsletter, can somebody reply to that newsletter?

Okay, and say, hey, this is really interesting, tell me more about blah blah, blah.

And is your sending infrastructure set up to receive those replies?

And do you have a mechanism or a person or some sort of AI thing mabob that's set up to reply to those messages?

Because that is where it's all heading.

A reply to an email, a promotional email, a newsletter email, any email that's sent, you know, in mass a reply is getting exponentially more valued by these email infrastructures in terms of determining whether or not an email should stay in the inbox.

And a lot of email sending platforms are not set up for it, right?

You need to go, can we receive replies?

Can we reply to those replies?

Where do they go?

And the reason that this is going to be the biggest topic, or not the biggest topic, but a huge topic in the world of email marketing in 2025 is that with the upcoming changes to Apple's iOS, their their operating system on the phone and the impact is going to have on the mail app, where about half of all email is read is on that mail app.

They're going to be massively prioritizing interactions, replies between brands and individuals and how they determine if your email is going to go into the buckets that they are setting up.

So if you're sitting here like, what's this guy talking about?

And you're like, I don't even know if we can receive actual replies to our emails that we send out.

You need to be in contact with your platform.

You need to really explore this, have this set up.

And then the most important thing is you need to encourage the replies in your marketing.

Whether you're a consumer business marketer, you need to be in, hey, reply to this and let me know what you think.

Or reply this, get the special discount code, you know, reply to this and get our free guide to whatever.

Reply to this and let us know what you think.

You need to be encouraging those replies because the more replies that you get, the better the likelihood is that you're gonna say in the inbox that you're gonna stay in the primary tab as it relates to iOS and you're not just gonna be going into all these promotional buckets and junk folders and things.

So to me, I think it's something marketers are sleeping on.

I think it's a big shift that's happening now, and for 2025, I would be focused on that.

All right, before we get to the totally ridiculous question, I gotta let you know that this, this podcast is sponsored by Marigold.

Speaking of great email sending platforms, that is Marigold.

What are you doing?

You're on the wrong platform.

I know it.

You're on the wrong platform.

Why?

Because you're not on Marigold.

I use Marigold.

It is a roll up of all of the best platforms, Sail through and Campaign Monitor and Cheetah Digital and My Emma and all these other ones.

It's awesome.

You go to meet marigold.com if you're a consumer marketer, a business marketer.

I'm telling you, small, medium, large.

I don't know why you're not using them.

I've used them for years.

Could not recommend them higher.

The people there are awesome, too.

They're just great people.

Sometimes you have a vendor that you work with, they go, those people are annoying.

No, great people.

Check them out at meet Marigold or DM me and I'll introduce you to somebody.

DM me on LinkedIn and I'll connect you somebody over at Marigold.

All right, let's get into the ridiculous question.

Got a question in from Brianna from New Orleans.

New Orleans.

Love New Orleans.

Can't get out of there without feeling a little bit tired after a few days.

But anyway.

What is your question, Jay?

What is your go to airport food?

Well, that's an interesting topic for me because I used to go to the airport and treat it like, ooh, relaxation mode.

I'm going to go and maybe find something really good to eat.

And then I had a horrible experience.

So I was in, I was in Newark and I just had a really great client meeting and I got this client.

I was feeling really good.

I'm like, I'm going to go get something really good to eat.

And I went to a sushi restaurant in Newark and I ate sushi.

And then I got on the plane and we, we.

I was like, oh, no, I don't feel well.

Right?

I do not feel well.

And I went to the bathroom plane and it was like, it was like a, a dance party.

In there.

It was not going well in that bathroom.

I'm like, oh, my God, I do not feel well.

So now we pull away from the gate.

Okay.

And I'm like, this ain't.

This is not.

This flight could be a massive problem.

So I get the stewardess to come over because we hadn't taken off yet.

We had pulled away from the gate.

And I said.

I go, listen, I got to get off the plane.

And she's like.

We pulled away from the gate.

I'm like, you don't understand.

I am not feeling well.

And she's like, just.

Just deal with it.

I was like, no, no, I got to get off.

And she's like, you do know everybody in this plane is going to want to kill you, basically, is what she said.

I'm like, I'll live with that.

I got to get off the plane.

So we went back to the gate.

I think, collectively, how many people on a flight?

150 people.

I don't.

They.

They were not happy with me.

Every single person was very, very upset with me because they end up getting delayed, I don't know, hour or however long they got delayed because of me.

I got off the plane violently ill.

Bonus.

Lost a few pounds that night.

But anyway, ever since that experience, which is way too much TMI for anybody listening right now, I scaled it back.

So when I'm in the airport now, it's like really basic stuff because that was a horrendous experience.

So I'm like the most boring airport food guy of all time.

Because you only got to go through that one time in your life to realize, dude, sushi in the airport is a big fat no go.

You're not going to change my mind.

I don't care what you tell me.

Basically, fish in the airport.

Don't do it.

Just don't do it.

Skip it.

Get piece of chicken.

I don't know, get some turkey.

Do something else.

Tuna fish.

No chance.

Anyway, thanks for being here.

Hope you leave this thing review.

Hope you found it useful.

I really do.

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