Happy Friday! We’re back again with more marketing lessons. Let’s jump into it!

• 3 hard pills to swallow about marketing. Understanding these principles will make you a better marketer.

• It’s time to clean up your email list. Why you should spend a few hours deleting contacts from your database.

💊 3 hard pills to swallow about marketing.

Last week, the CEO of Raindrop, an award-winning marketing firm, gave a talk at Google. We left with three takeaways that serve as a great reminder to all marketers. So, we wanted to share them with you.

At first, they might feel like hard pills to swallow. But if you remember these three truths, you’ll be a stronger marketer.

1) 99% of brands focus more on what they want to say than what people want to hear.

It’s so easy to fall into this trap. But don’t let it happen.

The main goal of marketing is to understand your audience on a deep level. Empathize with their problems. Speak their language. Present solutions.

Don’t get so focused on hitting your talking points or highlighting your features that you forget what your audience actually cares about — themselves.

2) People don’t have short attention spans; they have short consideration spans.

There’s been a lot of talk in the industry lately about shrinking attention spans and what to do about it. But, the truth is, that's the wrong thing to focus on.

Why? Because people actually have long attention spans IF they’re engaging with something they find interesting.

That’s why Joe Rogan and Andrew Huberman have two of the most popular podcasts in the world, despite the fact that the average runtime of both is 2-3 hours long.

3) People don’t buy YOUR why. They buy THEIR why.

You'll never win hearts and minds if your content is all about you. Let alone win someone’s hard-earned dollars.

You have to make your content that is all about your audience.

📰 In the news this week.

🤑 Unlock the power of money words.

📦 TikTok will take on Amazon by funding Black Friday deals.

🌿 The marketer's guide to composable content.

📈 3 important social media trends to know in 2023.

🤫 Google quietly increases ad prices to meet targets.

🗑 It’s time to clean up your email list.

You’re not going to like what we’re about to say. But we promise it will be good for you in the long run.

Take a few hours next week and clean up your email database!

If your company is like most, you have tens (or maybe even hundreds) of thousands of contacts in your CRM who are not engaged.

Companies keep these contacts around because it’s an ego boost. It’s more fun to say you have 150,000 contacts than 70,000. Or 50,000 sounds better than 5,000.

But the reality is…

Quality > Quantity.

If someone hasn’t opened or clicked one of your emails in weeks, months, or years, it’s time to let them go.

Chances are a large percentage of those contacts have moved on to new companies or switched roles anyway. All you’re doing is sitting on outdated contact info and paying your CRM extra for it each month.

Plus, continuing to send emails to contacts who aren’t engaged negatively impacts your open and click rates, which can cause you to miss KPIs and makes it challenging to make data-backed decisions.

Try a re-engagement campaign.

Try running a re-engagement campaign if it makes you feel more comfortable before you hit delete on thousands of contacts.

This can be a simple email letting the person know you haven’t heard from them in a while and giving them the option to stay subscribed.

Here’s a good example of a re-engagement email:

After you send your re-engagement campaign, say goodbye to all the contacts who bounce or don’t opt back into your emails.

😂 Marketing meme of the week.

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