Seth Godin’s Life-Changing Ideas for Marketers (& Everyone Else)
“Is there a better way for marketers to spend 45 minutes of their time than listening to Seth Godin?”
Goooooood question. It really doesn’t get much better than a podcast from Seth Godin, unless of course it’s reading one of his books. Combine the two and you have the makings of today’s Listen from The Sophisticated Marketer! We’ll let Seth do the talking on this one.
The realness starts at 04:00.
- (05:30) Are we going to industrialize and privatize everything just because we can? Or, are we going to use this moment to be more human?
- (05:50) Sophisticated marketers vs. intuitive marketers and why Seth sees himself as the latter
- (06:32) Seth’s defines 4 kinds of marketers and how they exist (and die) in the industry
- (10:00) Why people forget to take care of people they were shepherding from the beginning
- (11:00) Why being known by a lot of people isn’t really the goal
- (11:55) What “content marketing is the only marketing left” really means
- (13:18) The crucial difference between anecdotes and stories
- (18:53) Apple’s downfall: the story it’s telling doesn’t work anymore…
- (19:10) The importance of recognizing brands as living things, primarily about identity and change
- (21:35) Seth answers the question: In a corporate setting, is it better to fall in line and play the game, or to be unique?
- (22:17) The outcomes of “playing the game” in the corporate setting — “Don’t bother playing a game you’re going to lose”
- (25:28) Linchpins and ~the power of creative freedom~
- (28:45) How Seth decides what goes on his blog every day
- (29:06) Focus on punching yourself in the face, not others… (Hey, his words, not ours.)
- (33:30) Seth shares his most memorable keynote with an ~unexpected~ ending…
Bonus: The major points are also summarized in the article below.
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87 Subject Lines To Get Your Emails Opened
A subject line with a high open-rate is marketing gold. They’re something we obsess over every day. Seriously, we don’t have this shiz on lockdown. When we figure out the secret formula to getting opens, we’ll let y’all know.
Anyway, if you’re like us, you see a spike in open-rate on one email and you immediately analyze what made it so good. But, it’s never reallllly too clear about what caused it.
The good people at Sumo took a stab at figuring out the secret formula by dissecting 87 email subject lines.
Here are some of our favorite formulas:
Content Promotion SLs — For when you’ve got a piece of content you really want your audience to read
- Use the word “New” for a new piece of content
- Here’s Why We [Something Remarkable] (This one resulted in a 46% open-rate for Sumo)
- Lessons [I/We] Learned from [Action You Took] (Resulted in a 57% open-rate)
- [Insert Celebrity] School Of [Topic]
- Avoid These [Number] [Topic] [Pitfalls/Mistakes]
- Normally We [Do Something]. You Get It [New Way]
Sales Email SLs — When you need people to buy something
- The “Last Call” SL – Last call: [Name Of Product] closes in [#] hours
- Use the words “flash sale” in the SL
Cold Email SLs — Let’s face it, sometimes you just have to send a cold email
- I Found You Through [Contact Name] (This one resulted in an 86.6% open-rate for LeadGenius)
- [Name], just wanted to share this [content] with you
You’re probably gonna wanna save these subject lines to your swipe file.
Watch
The Drive
Moms are sometimes as badass as they come. They’re our teachers, helpers, motivators — there’s certainly no shortage of words to describe how amazing moms can be. (Shoutout to our moms! Hi mom!)
With an intro like that, you’re probably expecting today’s Watch to be for Mother’s Day or something. But it’s not. Spoiler alert: It’s an ad for Hot Wheels.
In the ad, this mom is being one of those particularly badass moms, showing off some hot driving skills. Dodging obstacles, drifting, driving in reverse…the works. Hot Wheels says the ad is supposed to convey the idea that you can ~learn~ by playing with Hot Wheels. Is that a stretch? Maybe. Is the ad adorable? Absolutely. Does it make us want to play with Hot Wheels to see if we’ll learn how to drive like Vin Diesel’s stunt man? Yes.
Gotta say, this ad does it’s job.
“Calling one’s own content ‘thought leadership’ is like calling oneself attractive. It’s not your determination to make.”
Joe Chernov
