This content was created by Eric Siu. This content was uploaded by Eric Siu. This is a YouTube episode titled "These Old Marketing Strategies Are Making a Comeback | Ep. 2630" (published December 11, 2023) featuring a conversational discussion between Neil Patel and Eric Siu about marketing strategy and changing market conditions. They discuss the theme "what's old is new again" and "what's new is old," giving examples such as the renewed effectiveness of direct mail for affluent/local audiences, the rise/limitations of newsletters, conversion experiments (e.g., Sign in with Google vs. email/password) at Kissmetrics, and pitfalls of mass ChatGPT-generated content lacking EEAT. The episode closes with typical CTA (rate, review, subscribe) and audience-targeting tips (e.g., sending high-end FedEx/UPS packages).
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The point I'm trying to make is market conditions change.
Things ebb and flow and people forget about the past.
Even though it worked really, really well years ago, today we've seen conversions tank quite a bit. What worked before may not work today, and what works today may not work again tomorrow.
So we are going to talk about what's old in marketing is new again and what's new is old. And so what we mean by this, let's give you an example here. Direct mail seems like a fairly old marketing channel or old marketing strategy, right? But in today's day and age, you have to consider the industry that you're in as well. Direct mail actually makes a lot of sense, especially if you're doing something that is, let's say you're trying to target rich people locally, for example, or like rich people that are in their 60s, 70s, 80s or so, right? So that's what it is.
Yeah. And another example of this is, and actually before I give an example, the main point that we're trying to convey across is, What worked before may not work today, and what works today may not work again tomorrow. So I'll give you a great example of this. One of my old startups that didn't work out called Kissmetrics, we were able to increase our conversion rates from a visitor to sign up by over 90% from the baseline by instead of making a user register, we would just have them click a button that says sign in with Google. All right, Google would then give us a username, and through the authentication, it would also give— or not username, it would give us an email address and basic information like their name so that we were able to auto-register and create account for them. The rest of the funnel to using the application, installing it, etc., was roughly the same. So we literally saw a, you know, a little bit more than a 90% increase. But over time, we noticed that those conversion rates started dropping because Kissmetrics is a much older company. Nowadays, if someone asks you to sign in with Google, you may do it, you may not, but you have privacy concerns. Wait, wait, what are they going to get access to? What's going to happen with all my data and information? And it's valid. And what we saw is that strategy, even though it worked really, really well years ago, today, if you force from what we've tested, sign in with Google and that being the only option, we've seen conversions tank quite a bit. Now, if you offer people the option to register putting their email and password or sign in with Google, so you're giving them either option, we've seen conversions go back up. The point I'm trying to make is market conditions change. What works today may not work tomorrow, and what isn't working today may work again tomorrow, right? So you got to continually test and experiment, and a lot of these old-school channels Like direct mail that Eric mentioned, a lot of people took it for granted because people were getting so much mail on a regular basis and they were just like, ah, screw this, this is all junk. Now, what we've seen, if you're targeting very accurately, it can work extremely well. For example, if you're selling something that's consumer-based, direct mail, like if you create like a video card, no joke, Eric and I have received cards that are videos and they play a few times and before the battery dies. And you can watch a video. But if you're targeting really high-end consumers and you send them to people who live in, let's say, the building Central Park South in—
New York.
In New York, you know, that's an expensive building. Or if you target someone in Beverly Hills, California, there's a good chance, you know, you're targeting people who are well off and they can do quite well.
Yep. Look, I think also consider this, right? So, things ebb and flow and people forget about the past, right? So, everyone's gotten away from direct mail and then it's like, oh, well, long live direct mail. Same thing with newsletters. Everyone's talking about this whole newsletter renaissance right now. It's like, oh, email marketing is amazing. It's like this new thing. But it's like, no, it's always been around. You look at companies like Agora who are doing multi— I think they're doing multiple billions a year or so, at least a billion. And the thing is, it's just like, hey, We've been doing newsletters here. We've been focusing on what works for us. And then you have a lot of people in tech now. They're like, yeah, starting a newsletter is great. You should sell ads on it. It's like, no, you should do the newsletter piece. What's old is new again, but don't sell ads on it. Instead, have a higher lifetime valuable value, lifetime value customer in the backend, and then you can sell to them. And that's how you can make newsletters work, right? So I think the caveat here is what's old is new again for sure, but think about how it can apply to your business and how you can maximize the lifetime value of a customer. Instead of just doing what everyone else is doing.
Yes. And don't take the status quo, what everyone's saying is working, and assuming that it is working. Just because it's working for them may not work for you, or it may not continually work for you if it is right now.
Yep. Now let's go to the what's new is old example. Like, what example do you have for that one?
Yeah, so if you're talking about what's new, a lot of people were using ChatGPT to create content. And they're like, oh, this is great. It's revolutionary. It'll save us so much time. Well, Eric and I have been doing a lot of tests with this. We found that we ended up doing an experiment where we had 1,000 articles created through ChatGPT. 186 of them had duplicate content, either sentences or paragraphs plagiarized. And now everyone is using ChatGPT to create content, but it's lacking the EEAT: experience, expertise, authority, and trust. So that content, what we're seeing, isn't ranking well on Google, isn't getting the traction because it's just regurgitated information and no one wants to read it. They want to read fresh, new information that offers a different perspective, gives them more knowledge, and gives them insights that they haven't seen before.
Yep. So that is it for today. Think about your industry first. Think about what's old that used to work and maybe 5, 10, maybe even 20+ years ago, and think about how you can apply it now, right? And by the way, when you're looking to target, I think if you're looking to target like an affluent audience, people love receiving FedExes. People like receiving UPSs because it looks important, right? So just keep that part in mind. So that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe, and we will see you tomorrow. Oh, check out this video over here as well.
