Listen
Lessons Learned from the Boldest Women in Business
Today’s Listen is a short yet enlightening interview with Carrie Kerpen, the co-founder and CEO of Likeable Media and author of Work It: Secrets for Success from the Boldest Women in Business. Despite having a loud inner self-critic and no agency experience, she built a multimillion-dollar social media agency (and at a time when there was no one to teach you about social media marketing!). Yeah, she’s rad.
We think the takeaways in the podcast are for everyone as she shares the lessons she learned from interviewing these powerful women in business. Here’s what to expect:
- (01:50) What Carrie means by the word “bold”
- (03:30) The struggles women face in the business environment
- (05:10) Why women often equate imperfection with failure
- (04:50) Why failing is so important… Women taught at an early age to seek perfection. Get comfortable with the confidence of saying “This didn’t work…”
- (07:00) The importance of feeling most authentically “you” and how being comfortable in your skin allows you to be present
- (08:45) The balance between family and entrepreneurship
- (10:05) Dispelling the myth that women can’t have it all
- (10:15) “You can’t be perfect at everything at the same time”
- (13:15) Her favorite interviews
- (15:00) Her best tips she received from interviewing all of these bold women
- (15:45) What the “mental mute button” is and what makes it so powerful
- (16:15) The concept of abandoning the 5-Year Plan
Read
6 Manipulative Email Tactics that Marketers Should Stop Using
There’s one thing we hate more than anything else: using manipulative tactics to get more email subscribers. Yeah, you can grow your list by using devious strategies, but you’re not going to grow a loyal fanbase from using them.
Using those types of tactics is more likely to increase your unsubscribe rate and your spam score. Those are two numbers that you obviously want to keep as low as possible.
If you do have higher than average unsubscribe and spam rates, you might be doing one of the following:
- Using passive-aggressive email signup and opt-out language. Does this sound familiar? You hit a website and you immediately get a popup that says something like, “Want to get over 1,000 Lead Generation Strategies?” Then, you’re given buttons to click on. One says, “Get the guide for free!” The other says, “No, I don’t want better results.” That second one is sleazy. Stop it.
- Requiring all customers to receive marketing emails. Having a high-quality email list relies on people actually opting in to receive your emails. Just because someone bought something from you, doesn’t mean they want to get emails from you for the rest of time. Case in point, I (Mark) once bought a Pandora charm for my mom for Mother’s Day (because I’m a good son). Guess who still gets marketing emails from Pandora? Guess who is never buying from Pandora again?
- Hiding behind people’s names to obscure your brand. Sometimes you download an eBook from a company, but when the confirmation email hits your inbox, it’s from Joe Smith instead of XYZ Brand. This started when it was uncovered that people are more likely to open an email that is from a person, rather than a brand. But, that’s manipulative. Stahhhp.
- Hiding unsubscribe links. Unsubscribing should be done in one, maybe two clicks. Anything else is unnecessary and likely trying to manipulate people into staying on an email list. Stop it. On a related note, no one has ever accidentally unsubscribed from an email list. Companies really have to stop asking people if they unsubscribed by accident.
That’s only 4. There are still 2 more in today’s Read.
Watch
Anna Faris Reads Mean Reviews
Yeah, kind of like Jimmy Kimmel’s “celebrities read mean tweets” segment. We can’t give KIND (You know, those super healthy snack bars?) much credit for originality on this one, but they do create a unique spot as far as protein bar ads are concerned.
Having searched the internet for reviews on their competitors’ protein bars, KIND collects the crudest (no shortage of words like “vomit” and “diarrhea in here) to highlight that protein bars are… pretty foul most of the time. So, they created their own. You won’t see their product spotlighted in this ad, though, just what it’s not like.
Sure, humor can be an effective marketing ploy, but without explaining the product their selling, KIND’s ads falls a little short… What do you think?
“Marketing has never been about keywords, it’s about people.”
Simon Penson
