SPECIAL SERIES ==> Are You Accidentally Killing Your Brand? 😬 Stop Sending That Email <== | BATHROOM Break #55 COLLAB: The Marketing Millennials + Do This, Not That

Summary

Episode Summary: Are You Accidentally Killing Your Brand? 😬 Stop Sending That Email

Podcast: Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson
Presented By: Marigold
Hosted By: Jay Schwedelson (Do This, Not That) and Daniel Murray (Marketing Millennials)
Release Date: May 12, 2025
Episode Title: SPECIAL SERIES ==> Are You Accidentally Killing Your Brand? 😬 Stop Sending That Email <== | BATHROOM Break #55 COLLAB

Introduction to the Special Collaboration

In this special episode of the Bathroom Break series, hosts Jay Schwedelson and Daniel Murray collaborate to delve into the critical topic of Negative Signal in marketing. This episode serves as a deep dive into understanding how certain marketing practices can inadvertently harm your brand's reputation and hinder customer acquisition.

Understanding Negative Signal

Jay Schwedelson [02:16]:
"Negative signal is when you're putting out below average, below par, not on-brand things that actually hurt your brand's reputation, your brand's expertise."

Daniel elaborates that while marketers often believe that generating content is inherently positive, the quality and relevance of that content play a pivotal role in shaping audience perception. Negative signals emerge when content fails to meet brand standards, leading to disengagement and potential loss of future customers.

Daniel Murray [02:16]:
"Negative signal is that where you are putting out negative things into the world that are actually turning off future buyers that would buy from you or future people who read your newsletter or future people who would do X."

Common Negative Signals in Marketing

The hosts identify several prevalent negative signals that marketers may unknowingly propagate:

1. Irrelevant or Low-Quality Content:

   • Jay [05:34]:
     "Generic boring content meaning like clickbait headlines... that is negative signaling."
   • Using clickbait tactics that don't deliver on promises can erode trust and credibility.

2. Over-Communication:

   • Daniel [05:34]:
     "Are you over-communicating in an irrelevant way? If you send a lot of irrelevant, uninspired, boring emails, your customers don't care."
   • Bombarding audiences with excessive or irrelevant messages can lead to disengagement.

3. Poor Audience Targeting:

   • Sending content to the wrong segments of your audience can result in messages that feel disconnected and irrelevant.
   • Daniel [05:34]:
     "Are you targeting the wrong audience? That is negative signal too."

4. Outdated or Inaccurate Content:

   • Jay [03:49]:
     "Sending out the 2025 outlook now... you're an idiot. It's just a negative signal."
   • Persisting with outdated information can make your brand appear out of touch.

5. Inconsistent Marketing Automation:

   • Unchecked automated emails, such as abandoned cart reminders or outdated promotional messages, can confuse and frustrate potential customers.
   • Jay [03:49]:
     "I cannot tell you how many times we look at our clients automations and they're firing off something from literally a year ago."

Strategies to Avoid Negative Signals

The episode offers actionable strategies to mitigate negative signals and enhance brand perception:

1. Quality Over Quantity:

   • Focus on producing high-quality, relevant content rather than prioritizing volume.
   • Daniel [05:34]:
     "It's good to send a lot of emails but if you send a lot of irrelevant... then you're turning off your audience."

2. Audience Segmentation and Targeting:

   • Ensure that marketing messages are tailored to the appropriate segments of your audience to maintain relevance and engagement.
   • Daniel [05:34]:
     "Are you sending this piece of content to this part of your audience versus this?"

3. Regular Audits of Marketing Automation:

   • Periodically review automated email sequences and content to ensure they remain relevant and effective.
   • Jay [03:49]:
     "Audit that and look what's in there. Something from a year ago can still be firing off."

4. Timely and Accurate Content:

   • Update content regularly to reflect current trends and information, avoiding outdated or misleading messages.
   • Jay [03:49]:
     "If you're sending out 2025 outlook now... you're a negative signal."

5. Focus and Channel Management:

   • Concentrate efforts on a few key marketing channels and excel in them rather than spreading resources too thinly across multiple platforms.
   • Daniel [05:34]:
     "Focus is so important in marketing because we get so inundated of so many channels that if we just focus on a few channels and win on them, we actually win in the long run."

The Interplay Between Social Life and Marketing Negative Signals

In an engaging tangent, Jay and Daniel draw parallels between negative signals in marketing and communication mishaps in personal relationships. This analogy underscores the importance of thoughtful interaction, whether in marketing campaigns or personal messaging.

Jay [07:20]:
"In regular life, how you could have a negative signal in your social life, I didn't really understand it that much..."

This discussion highlights the broader implications of negative signaling, emphasizing that the principles of effective communication apply universally.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

The episode wraps up with a reaffirmation of the importance of avoiding negative signals to maintain and enhance brand reputation. The hosts encourage marketers to:

• Evaluate Content Quality: Ensure all marketing materials meet high standards and align with brand values.
• Optimize Communication Strategies: Tailor messages to the right audience segments and avoid overwhelming them with irrelevant information.
• Maintain Relevance: Keep content up-to-date and reflective of current market conditions and audience interests.
• Streamline Marketing Channels: Focus efforts on mastering key platforms to drive long-term success.

Daniel Murray [10:04]:
"This series covers marketing tips that we just spew out. It could be anything from email, subject line to any marketing tips in the world."

By adhering to these strategies, marketers can minimize negative signals, foster stronger relationships with their audience, and ultimately drive better business outcomes.

Notable Quotes

• Jay Schwedelson [02:16]:
  "Negative signal is when you're putting out below average, below par, not on-brand things that actually hurt your brand's reputation, your brand's expertise."

• Daniel Murray [05:34]:
  "If you send a lot of irrelevant, uninspired, boring emails, your customers don't care."

• Jay Schwedelson [03:49]:
  "If you're sending out the 2025 outlook now... you're an idiot."

Final Thoughts

This episode of the Bathroom Break series provides a comprehensive exploration of negative signals in marketing, offering valuable insights and practical advice for marketers aiming to enhance their brand's reputation and effectiveness. By recognizing and addressing these negative signals, marketers can create more meaningful and impactful campaigns that resonate with their target audiences.

Transcript

[Daniel Murray]

Foreign. Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom. Or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.

[Jay Schwedelson]

This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwedelson from the do this, not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing top. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out. We are back for the Bathroom Break. This is Jay Schwedelson from Do this, not that podcast. I'm here with the great Daniel Murray from the Marking Millennials podcast. And before we get into our episode today, which can be about Negative Signal, which is going to be very interesting, useful, boring, I'm not sure what right now it's like prom season. My kids are in high school and so they're all in on prom. When I was going to prom, I, I didn't know anything about this promposal stuff where people have to be very creative and ask their boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever they're doing to go to prom in a very interesting way. So, Daniel, I'm a billion times older than you. Did you have a promposal situation when you were in high school?

[Daniel Murray]

This is so lame. But I got like a fish tank of fish and then I put like a note in the fish tank that said, you're the only fish in the sea. Will you go to prom with me?

[Jay Schwedelson]

Did she take the fish home?

[Daniel Murray]

I don't know what happened with the fish after that, but she said yes.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Did you name the fish?

[Daniel Murray]

No, do not name the fish. I just thought it was like, I tried to be creative, but she seemed to like it. People thought it was cute back then, but it's special.

[Jay Schwedelson]

It would be cool if, like, you, like, you know, you're all football, you took the fish, you just swallowed it.

[Daniel Murray]

And just like, yeah, that would be dramatic. But what are we talking about today? Because this is still want to go back to prom memories.

[Jay Schwedelson]

We're talking about Negative Signal. This is something that really, I really learned a lot from you. And I want to get into some tactics to avoid right now to not allow your brand to be running into Negative Signal. But I don't think enough marketers are really thinking about this. So can you explain kind of what it means?

[Daniel Murray]

So everybody thinks that, like putting out content and giving content in the world is a positive thing to, to the world. Like just doing marketing is, is a net positive. But negative signal is when you're putting out below average, below par, not on brand things that actually hurt your brand's reputation, your brand's expertise. So for example, I always say to people that yeah, like posting on social, consistently you win on that. But if you're gonna do below average posts, you're just turning off your audience and actually turning off followers. And I, I have this theory that nobody really tracks in marketing. I don't know how to track. And if you can learn how to track, this would be good. But everybody thinks of LTV of a customer, but nobody thinks of LTV for an audience. And there is an audience of people who are lurking at your brand, lurking to that want to buy from your brand. And every time you do something negative or send them a spammy email or send them an extra text that is or to double text them, you actually are turning off people that could have bought from you in a month or two or three. So negative signal is that where you are putting out negative things into the world that are actually turning off future buyers that would buy from you or future people who read your newsletter or future people who would do X. Yeah.

[Jay Schwedelson]

They'Re basically silent killers. I'm going to rattle off some specific ones that a lot of us are doing that we may not realize. And a lot of it has to do with. Some of it has to do with trigger based email communications. For example, if you're not going through. A lot of us are using marketing automation tools. Somebody goes to a particular page on your site, it fires off an email. Abandoned cart, fires off an email, hasn't opened or clicked on an email in this period of time, fires off an email. All of these different triggers, if you're not going through and auditing that and looking what's in there. I cannot tell you how many times we look at our clients automations and they're firing off something from literally a year ago and they didn't realize it was in there. Or a piece of content that makes no sense. A great example of content right now that's a negative signal that not enough people realize is we're sitting here right now in May. Not to date the episode, but it's May. And so many markers are still sending out the 2025 outlook for whatever content that was made probably sometime in November, December. The world has changed in the last 60 days. If you're sending out 2025 outlook now as your content piece, you're an idiot. I mean it's just you're, you're. It's a negative signal on what you're doing. And then the last one would be to think about the long tail of your content. Right. So let's say you have a webinar that you put out there or you have some sort of sale and somebody goes and they click on that email or that promotion 60 days after the webinar has passed or 60 days after that sales over and they click on that email because they're still interested. And then they go to a page and the pages I'm sorry, there's nothing here for you to see which we all have seen or they take you to a sale page has nothing to do with the original product. That is a negative signal that you're not organized, you don't know what you're doing and that is a fail.

[Daniel Murray]

Yeah. I mean there's ways in your business right now that you can look if you're doing negative signal things. And Jay said a couple but first like are you over communicating in an irrelevant way? I think you always talk about it's good to send a lot of emails but if you send a lot of irrelevant, uninspired, boring and doesn't your customers don't care because you can always send a lot of emails if they're relevant to your customer. If they are irrelevant, they. That's number one. Number two is like are you targeting the wrong audience? That is negative signal too. Like are you like sending this piece of content to this part of your audience versus this, this ad to this piece. That's negative signaling too because people are like what are you doing? This. This content is. Doesn't have anything to me, I think the biggest one that I see is generic boring content meaning like clickbait headlines like a clickbait just to get a high open rate with content that doesn't match immediate negative signal or a clickbait ad that doesn't match in a landing page Clear negative signal. These things are the stuff that you are hurting your brand over time and you want as marketers to do actions that are so I rather my ass is like I rather do that your test internally and say is this going to. Is this going to hurt or would my audience care about this? Is this better than the average in the market? If it's not, then don't send that email. No. Or don't make that post. That's why I think focus is so important in marketing because we get so inundated of so many channels that if we just focus on a few channels and win on them, we actually win in the long run.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Yeah. And, you know, before we wrap up, I learned really, the. In regular life, how you could have a negative signal in your social life, I didn't really understand it that much because, like, I'll say to my kids who are teenagers, they'll be like, oh, I messaged so and so on snap or whatever they say, and they didn't. They didn't open it or they didn't do whatever. I'm like, I'll just message them again or snap them again. Like, what? No, if you do that, then this horrible thing happens. But, like, what is the protocol so you don't have a negative signal when you're trying to, like, you know, get with somebody or whatever. How does that work?

[Daniel Murray]

That's not something you should ask me. That's. That's. You should. We should bring. We should bring your kids on the podcast and talk about negative signals of communication in this era. Because, yeah, a double snap or double text, but some people are very double texters. Like, some people like a double text. So I don't know the rules of communication anymore, but that. That, that seems like bad advice to double send a picture to someone.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Right, right. But even it's like, you could, like, open it but not open it or what? I don't know. It's just too, too complicated now. I don't get it.

[Daniel Murray]

It's too complicated. People like playing mind games now. It's weird.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Oh, when I was young, because I'm such an old loser, you know, we had our regular phones, like, no cell phones. And then we would put somebody on the party. They had a party line, and you tell them to be quiet. And then you would call up the person that they either liked or didn't like or whatever, and then you'd say them, hey, what do you think of Jen and the person? Like, oh, I really like them. And then all of a sudden, Jen would be on the line and chime in, like, I'm here. And it was amazing.

[Daniel Murray]

That was like, that's mod. You're a matchmaker back then.

[Jay Schwedelson]

That's right. That's right.

[Daniel Murray]

But what if they said no? That would be a horrible experience.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Horrendous. It was terrible. It was one sideways. Another very important episode of the Bathroom Break. We really crushed it today. Listen, everybody, if you go ahead on Instagram and you tag the market, Millennials or me, about this show, we will reshare it to our stories. Daniel's got, like, a gabillion followers. And yeah, check out the Market Millennials do this, not that podcast, and keep it real.

[Daniel Murray]

One. One thing I'm going to say is congrats to Jay. He went viral on his. On Instagram recently. So go to Jay Sweaters. And look, he went viral. Like, 3 million views. Like, crazy. Yeah.

[Jay Schwedelson]

By the way, going viral doesn't do anything for you. I learned. I got, like, all these people following me that are like, I have. They're like, hi, I own a donkey farm. I'm like, congratulations. What do I do with that?

[Daniel Murray]

Well, that was great. Talk to y' all later.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Later, Daniel. Come on, man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, while he's still in there. This is Jay. Check out my podcast, do this, not that, for marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing, and I hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.

[Daniel Murray]

Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Market Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the Bathroom Break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email, subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Later.