SECRETS of Letter Format Emails THAT WORK! 📩 Ask Us ANYTHING❓ | Ep. 373 - Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson"

Episode: SECRETS of Letter Format Emails THAT WORK! 📩 Ask Us ANYTHING❓ | Ep. 373
Release Date: July 9, 2025
Presented By: Marigold
Host: Jay Schwedelson, GURU Media Hub

1. Introduction to the Episode

In this engaging episode of "Do This, NOT That," hosted by Jay Schwedelson, listeners are treated to an "Ask Us Anything" format where Jay addresses both professional marketing queries and more whimsical, offbeat questions. The episode primarily delves into the efficacy of letter format emails in modern marketing strategies, supplemented by a light-hearted discussion on airport experiences.

2. Mastering Letter Format Emails

Question from Charlotte:
"[00:05] Charlotte from Miami asks, 'Jay, we use letter format emails to drive performance, but they are tanking since we went to a new format. Why would that be?'"

Jay begins by explaining the concept of letter format emails—personalized, text-centric emails designed to mimic one-on-one correspondence. He emphasizes their universal applicability across both consumer and business brands due to their high performance.

Key Insights:

Decline in Performance: Over the past year, there's been a noticeable shift from pure letter format emails to hybrid versions incorporating HTML elements like padding, background colors, and branded headers. This transition has adversely affected the effectiveness of these emails.
- Jay states: "[00:25] 'The trend that's gone on the last year has been a migration away from real letter format emails.'"
Stripped-Down vs. Hybrid Formats: Jay presents data comparing the traditional stripped-down plain text emails with the newer hybrid versions. In a study involving approximately 100 campaigns, the stripped-down approach resulted in a 600% higher reply rate and a 25% higher click-through rate compared to the HTML-rich counterparts.
- Quote: "[02:30] 'We saw a 600% higher average reply rate on the stripped down version versus the HTML one.'"
Perception of Authenticity: Hybrid emails often give the impression of being automated or impersonal, reducing the likelihood of engagement. Recipients are less inclined to reply, assuming there's no human actively managing responses.
Best Practices:
- Maintain a genuine, one-to-one feel by keeping the email design minimalistic.
- Avoid excessive use of HTML elements that can detract from the personal touch.
- Ensure that essential branding elements like logos are subtly integrated without overpowering the message.

Conclusion on Letter Format Emails: For marketers aiming to harness the full potential of letter format emails, authenticity is paramount. By committing to a true letter format devoid of unnecessary graphical enhancements, businesses can significantly enhance engagement and drive better performance metrics.

3. Fun Segment: Ridiculous Question on TSA and Airports

Question from Sammy:
"[05:10] Sammy from Detroit asks, 'Jay, have you seen that the TSA is starting to allow you to wear shoes through the screening and they're not going to make you take off your shoes anymore. Are you okay with this? And do you love going through airports?'”

Jay transitions to the lighter segment, where he shares his candid and humorous take on airport experiences and the TSA's shoe policy.

Highlights:

TSA Shoe Policy:
- While Jay expresses reluctance towards the necessity of removing shoes during security checks, he welcomes the possibility of leaving them on if it enhances convenience without compromising safety.
- Jay remarks: "[05:25] 'I don't like taking off my shoes. But if they're like, your shoes are fine, Cool, leave my shoes on.'"
Love-Hate Relationship with Airports:
- Jay humorously details his paradoxical feelings about airports—appreciating certain aspects while expressing frustration over others.
- Personal Anecdotes:
  - Enjoying the unique food options available in airports, feeling like they don't "count" calorie-wise.
  - Finding joy in witnessing unconventional behavior, such as people casually drinking at atypical hours.
  - Frustration with long lines at airport Starbucks, often leading to missed flights because of coffee purchases.
Relatable Humor:
- Jay's storytelling is relatable, capturing the everyday tribulations and amusing moments that many travelers experience.
- Example: "[06:50] 'I left the airport without getting my coffee, which is the dumbest thing a human being can do.'"

Conclusion on Ridiculous Questions: This segment adds a personal and entertaining dimension to the podcast, showcasing Jay's ability to blend professional insights with relatable, humorous narratives. It underscores the importance of balancing serious marketing discussions with moments that humanize the host and engage the audience on a different level.

4. Key Takeaways

Authenticity in Communication: Genuine, stripped-down letter format emails foster higher engagement rates by creating a personalized connection with recipients.
Avoid Hybrid Pitfalls: Combining plain text with excessive HTML elements can dilute the effectiveness of email campaigns, leading to decreased reply and click-through rates.
Balancing Content: Integrating both professional advice and personal anecdotes can make podcasts more engaging and relatable to a broader audience.

5. Final Thoughts

Jay Schwedelson effectively navigates the complexities of modern email marketing while keeping the conversation light and entertaining. This episode serves as a valuable resource for marketers seeking to refine their email strategies and enjoy a chuckle over shared airport frustrations.

Thank you for tuning into this summary of Episode 373 of "Do This, NOT That." To stay updated with the latest marketing insights and tips, consider subscribing to the podcast and exploring more episodes presented by Marigold.

Transcript

Jay Schwettelson (0:01)

Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. Each episode is packed with quick tips. They're super short and at the end we have some fun. Let's jump into it and thanks for being here. We are back for Ask Us Anything from the do this not that podcast presented by Marigold. This is our short episode where all week long we get in questions, we get in work questions, we get in ridiculous questions. We try to tackle one of each. You want to submit a question, just go to jschwettelson.com there's a button that says podcast, another one that says ask us anything. And if you want to submit, I mean anything you got. So let's jump into it. Our first question, we'll do the work one before the ridiculous one. We got a question from Charlotte from Miami. You know, Miami's about 45 minutes from me. You know what I just saw because I'm getting like all these local advertisements that there is a new laser ABBA discus disco show. Abba, you know, the band with Mamma Mia down in Miami. I will not be at that. Not that I don't like abba. I do like abba. I don't like laser shows, I don't like planetariums. I haven't been to one a long time. I think planetariums are really, really weird. Why? First of all, the narrator is always a try hard. It's like the narrator's like, and now the universe, like you've never seen it before. I'm like, get a life, loser. And the other problem with planetariums, not the US I always talk about the most random things, is that people like lie down and they get like, really? Like, I don't know, they spread out. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? Like, stop it anyway. Me, I should stop it. Let's jump into your question, Charlotte. Okay, Jay, we use letter format emails to drive performance, but they are tanking since we went to a new format. Why would that be? Okay, well, this is super interesting. So letter format emails, meaning you send out an email, it looks like it's a letter, like a one to one communication. And I don't care if you're a consumer brand or a business brand, all brands do this. Why? Because. Because at a high level, letter format emails, ones that are not like graphic heavy, do really, really, really well. But there's been a trend in marketing that is sort of ruining letter format emails. And people don't realize that they're screwing up letter format emails. What do I mean? So I'm sure, all of us, all of you out there have gotten emails and you open it up and it's text, right? It's words, it's not image heavy, whatever. But the trend that's gone on the last year been a migration away from real letter format emails. The ones that actually look like a person may have typed it out and written it to you, right? And what people are migrating to a brands business and consumer brands have migrated to is a letter format that is like a hybrid. Okay? It's still only words basically, but it has some HTML coding, it has padding, meaning like there's space around the words, maybe there's a slight background color, like it's a little yellowish or tan. Maybe there's like a branded header. And, and you know exactly what I'm talking about. And when you open those emails, when I open those emails and I'll share with you the data that we have, when you open those emails, you instantly like, oh, this isn't really a 120email. This isn't really a letter format email, right? This is something that's trying to pretend like it's a letter format email. And so when you're doing that it's actually crushing, hurting performance in a big way as compared to doing the real deal stripped down, no background color, no extra spacing and padding and stuff like that. Emails. So we looked at data for stripped down plain text letter format emails versus kind of that hybrid letter format emails. And we looked at about 100 campaigns where there was a head to head test of an AB basically and what we found was pretty interesting. One thing that we found was that on the stripped down version of the letter format emails, people had a much higher likelihood to actually reply to the email, to actually hit reply and write something like, hey, I'm interested, send me the guide, I want the discount code, whatever. Because when you get these stripped down versions of the emails, you actually think it might be coming from a human or somebody's actually checking the response to those emails. And we actually saw a 600% higher average reply rate on the stripped down version versus the HTML one. Because the one that's kind of like got the little bit of more HTML vibes, like it's a little more graphic heavy vibes. People are like, I'm not replying to this, I know there's no human behind it. But the more important stat was on click throughs. We actually saw that the hybrid letter format, the one that again is not really the stripped down version, actually year over year we've seen a 25% drop lower click through rate than the actual true plain text stripped down version. Now the question that's always asked is if you have a plain text version, it's not actually plain text technically, you're still sending it out as what's called an HTML email. And the reason that you want to do that is it is still valuable to have your logo in the message, right in your signature or something like that, because that actually does help out quite a bit. So it is a text only email, plain text email, but it's really an HTML email. But what you're not doing is adding in kind of like all these different buttons and little images and icons, things that make it seem instantly like it's not actually a one to one email. So if your letter format strategy is not working, it's probably because you're trying to live in both worlds. You're trying to live in the graphic world and the plain text world and you can't do that. A letter format strategy has to truly be a letter format strategy or it's not going to work. So again, if you're thinking about letter format emails, just think about what is your goal. If your goal is to really have it, have that one to one feel, then truly make it look like it's one to one. All right, let's get into the ridiculous question. We got a question in from Sammy from Detroit. And Sammy said, jay, have you seen that the TSA is starting to allow you to wear shoes through the screening and they're not going to make you take off your shoes anymore. Are you okay with this? And do you love going through airports? Okay, well, am I okay with the shoe thing first? Yeah, listen, I don't like taking off my shoes. Anything to be safe, of course. But if they're like, you know what, your shoes are fine, Cool, leave my shoes on. Because it's, it's all, everything's disgusting. So taking off your shoes is disgusting. It's all disgusting. Do I like going through airports? You know, I love going through airports because assuming that my flight's on time or I'm not going to like Atlanta, you know, you go to the Atlanta airport and you land and then they're like, okay, you know, you land in A, whatever, and then your connections in B, whatever, and you find out that you have to become, you know, like Car Lewis and be an Olympic sprinter and you have to run and take seven trains and have four different sweats go on while you're getting there. So no, I'd like to Avoid that. But in general, why do I like the airports? Number one, I eat things in airports that I don't eat anywhere else. Like it doesn't count for some reason. Like Cinnabon. I can get a Cinnabon in an airport. I would never get a Cinnabon. Not in an airport. But like the calories don't actually count. I don't know if people know that whatever you eat in an airport, it actually doesn't count. It's this weird kind of like a vortex that you could eat whatever you want, airport. So I do that, which is super weird. The other thing is I get a lot of joy. I know this is terrible. I'm probably. It's wrong for me to say, but I love being in an airport like at 8:30 in the morning and I'll look over and I'll see somebody just crushing a Jack and Coke. Like if I saw people drinking Jack and Coke at 8:30 in the morning anywhere else, I'd be like, what is going on over there? But when you walk through an airport and you see people all just sitting at a bar crushing whatever at 8:31. Yeah, go, you have a great day. Whatever. That's amazing. I don't actually love what goes on at Starbucks because I don't know if they're giving out Taylor Swift tickets at every Starbucks in every airport, but it seems that way because every Starbucks at every airport has a line which is totally prohibitive because I have multiple times. This is how ridiculous I am. I have ordered something, I've waited on the line, I've ordered something. And then my flight would be too close to taking off and I couldn't wait to get my coffee actually paid for it. Didn't have the time to wait for it. And I left without ever getting my coffee, which is the dumbest thing a human being can do. So I love certain things about airports. Wow, I just went down a rabbit hole. You just asked me about shoes and I just said all that. Anyway, listen, I appreciate you do me a big solid. Okay. If we're not connected on Instagram, let's fix that. Find Mechedelson on Instagram. I share really ridiculous things. You're awesome. And thanks for being here later. 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 marketers. 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.