Issue 089: 10 🙌 Controversial Takes on Email Marketing

+ The Easy-Mode Product Launch Guide for 2024

Aight, Super Bowl ✅ 

Taylor’s team wins ✅ 

Taylor’s BF assaults coach ✅ 

Affleck and Damon back at it for Dunkin’ ✅ 

Summary ✅ ✅ ✅ 

| TWEET OF THE WEEK

TL;DR

  • 3 strategies to launch products in 2024 and beyond (Strategy #2 is SUPER easy)

  • Ever wonder how much a Best Seller badge impacts sales on Amazon? I'll tell you.

Strategy #1: Borrowing an Audience

If you weren't aware that Creator-led brands are a BIG, FAT emerging trend, well, now you are.

You're welcome.

What this means is that, if you're starting a brand or launching a product, you have an opportunity, in this moment in time, to piggyback off of the audience that one or more creators have cultivated, by bringing them in as a "partner" (I'm using quotes deliberately there, because these partnerships can take many forms, including partial brand ownership).

But, be careful with this strategy, because...

Not all Creator partnerships are created equal.

Take, for example, the energy drink brand Juvee and Matt "Nadeshot" Haag.

Nadeshot & Juvee are a perfect pairing because of WHO Nadeshot's audience is and WHAT the product does.

If you don't know Nadeshot, he's a famous (Call of Duty) gamer. His audience is mostly gamers trying to stay energized and focused.

So if he, in conjunction with a product manufacturer, can create a product line that enables Nadeshot's gamer audience to get this feeling, it's gold.

Juvee is winning in a tough, crowded niche because it fulfills a need of Nadeshot's gamer audience.

Nadeshot is a big creator, but it's important to note that the right creator partnership isn't the biggest creator.

It's the creator partner that best taps in to your brand or product's customer avatar.

| TOGETHER WITH YOTPO

Nearly 40% of your customers are frowning at your texts. Don’t give them a reason to reply “STOP”

Has your email channel recovered from the Google/Yahoo nuclear meltdown thrust upon you at the beginning of February, yet?

If you’re like most, the answer is… 👉️ Probably not.

You might also be thinking that right about yesterday would be a sweet time to put a bit more focus on your SMS strategy, right? (Or, at least you ought to be thinking that.)

That’s what Yotpo is thinking, too. 😉 But not just any ol’ generic spray-and-pray SMS campaigns. In 2024, we send smart SMS.

  • Plan Intelligently: Save time on planning with data-driven recommendations from AI that actually works and 180+ shopper engagement data points to guide your segmentation & messaging strategy.

  • Engage Effectively: Ignored messages suck. 👎️ Deliver only relevant, personalized messages at the most lucrative moment, skyrocket engagement AND revenue with friction-free experiences like Click-to-Buy.

  • Grow Sustainably: Scale confidently. Get smart spending recommendations, maintain a lean and effective subscriber list, and expand globally with 200+ supported countries.

Yotpo has the full scoop on your subscribers. Use Yotpo SMS to send texts that just click.

| YOUTUBE UNIVERSITY

A Landing Page Masterclass with Nik Sharma

| QUICK SHOTS 🥃 

  • yojimmykim: What an exciting text from my local car dealer.. 7 sms credits and no CTA 😔

  • @KateBour: Building a business or an audience is hard. Lots of people will tell you it’s “easy”… They’ll sell you on the easy money dream because by saying it’s “easy” they’ll get more customers for their courses or coaching programs…

  • @C_Shelefontiuk: My first multi 7 figure/yr brand scaled only with static creatives. Not one video…

  • @andreilunev: I've been testing a lot of account setups recently, including Bid Caps, ASC+ with and without caps, Cost Caps and ROAS-optimized ones. Here's the full guide on how to set up your account for scaling with Bid Caps while maintaining profitability (bookmark this) 🧵👇

  • Will Nitze: ReCharge - by far the largest Shopify subscription app - was valued at $2.1B in 2021. It raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Well…Shopify just launched its own FREE subscription app.

| HERE FOR THE MEMES

| AND IN OTHER NEWS…

Labeling AI-Generated Images on Facebook, Instagram and Threads | Meta

Nick Clegg offers a new approach to identifying and labeling AI-generated content.

‘Advertisers tried too hard’: Few Super Bowl LVIII ads win as celeb takeover continues

Brands that forged true connections to culture broke through the clutter of a broadcast heavy with sociopolitical messages from some advertisers.

Why Temu spends millions on Super Bowl commercials

In the year since Temu's Super Bowl debut, the app has become a top retail destination and surpassed rival Shein in sales.

Consumers are stressed. It could be showing in how we bought toys in 2023 | CNN Business

Consumers bought fewer toys in all of 2023, including during the key Christmas toy-buying period, showing that households continue to pare back on discretionary products.

Why direct-to-consumer darlings such as Casper, Allbirds and Peloton are now struggling

Once booming, direct-to-consumer companies such as Casper, Allbirds and Peloton now struggle with profitability, layoffs and the cost of advertising.

X will allow advertisers to only run ads on selected profiles.

Elon Musk’s revamped X ad business has included a “revenue sharing” program that requires payment to have the potential of getting paid and shown ads alongside white nationalist profiles. X, as it attempts to become a YouTube alternative, says it has over 80,000 creators monetizing their posts and is trying to address brand safety issues with Creator Targeting: It didn’t say how big of a cut creators will get if their profile is targeted or if they can choose which advertisers are shown.

Gen Z shuns Valentine's clichés in favour of pre-loved gifts - ChannelX

39% say Valentine's gifts from major online retailers are impersonal, compared to 33% of Gen X and 28% of Baby Boomers

| GET LINKED

It’s here. It’s glorious. And it is not for the faint of (numerical) heart.

Everything you ever wanted to know about ecommerce accounting … but were afraid to ask.

My hope is it’s a genuine gift to the ecosystem.

Work started on this beast ~3 months ago with the wonderful people at Finaloop.

Huge thank you to Lioran Pinchevski.

However, an even bigger thank you to Rayla Guber Rappaport for her tireless fact-checking and question-answering + the charts on charts on charts (on charts) she and the design team poured over.

I think I might have nearly broken them.

The entire thing is ungated and available.

We also put every template, definition, and tip into a single PDF because it’s a lot to get through in one sitting.

Any insight or help you find is Rayla and Lioran’s doing.

Those two bleed this stuff.

Any errors should be placed squarely on my shoulders.

And I’m here for any feedback.

| YOU’RE HIRED

Brand

Agency

  • Growth Strategist (SwiftStart)

  • Head of Marketing (Tax Valet)

SaaS

Got a job you want us to list? Let us know.

| THE OUTRO

Well, whether your team won, or lost, just remember all that’s important is how you play the game and that everyone has fun. 🌈 

Spongebob Squarepants Rainbow GIF

Adios! ✌️

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