Marketing Automation, YouTube Strats, and Video Games!  ## Metadata - Author: [[The WP Minute+]] - Full Title: Marketing Automation, YouTube Strats, and Video Games! - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/c13e5e94-c061-4492-a0dc-502eaee32b79 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Boost Email Engagement with Gamification** - Gamify emails to boost open and interaction rates effectively. - Use dynamic content and segment emails to suit demographics and locations. Transcript: Speaker 2 Emails. Speaker 1 Let's just get out of the way emails are annoying. If we really want to get into the nitty gritty, I mean, how many people, how many people, if you were to go on to their phone right now and you were to look at their Gmail or their Yahoo or their Apple mail or whatever, and you'd see the red bubble of like how many emails they haven't read like emails are no people don't really. They go through them if they don't really have to. And we get so many. And so I think the big thing about trying to market a product or trying to get people to give you the level of engagement that you need is to add something to it to not force them but to drive The interest. Gamification probably is one of the biggest best ways, right? That's one of the things where it's like, all right, if you can put gamification in the email, it's going to almost instantly give you if they want to open it and actually interact with It. It's just give you that conversion of some sort in terms of reading and click through, right? Dynamic content as well, not just A, B testing or split testing, but maybe variable path testing. Does this work and sending it to specific people utilizing demographic and firmographic information to like really start to segment properly and split things up. A lot of that stuff does a lot better because humans as a whole, we're not a monolith. Your customer in Seattle, Washington is not going to be the same as your customer in Miami, which is not going to be the same as your customer in London. So it's if you can ([Time 0:05:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a2ba73ac-52b5-4764-86fd-41883fee5ef1)) - **Email Timing Best Practices** - Avoid sending emails on Fridays to ensure better engagement. - Midday Monday to Thursday are the best sending times for email campaigns. Transcript: Speaker 2 Is that just the de facto? Speaker 1 So yeah, there's there's going to be so much when it comes to best sending times. I all right. So if you get the main thing out of the way, the main thing is don't send on Fridays. You'll hear 90% of people say don't send on Fridays unless you already have that kind of audience that is open, but you need to have proof, you know, you like a fantasy player that you don't Want to put in your starting lineup. You need to have proof that it's actually happening first before you like take the plunge. I am a big proponent of midday Monday through Thursday type emails. I think that we live in a society, especially today, especially after the pandemic and things like that, that wants to detach away from emails and work and that kind of thing. And emails, even your personal email can seem like work. Whereas I think more people are more inclined to check their emails, their personal emails during specific times that might be during work or like right before or when they're on a break From work, like during that time. So assuming the disconnect is a real thing, and I believe it is anywhere, your your nine tens, your one pms, your two pms, three pms, I really don't like to go any later than that, because I think at that point, you're starting to eat into people's afternoon time, they're commute if they have a family, ([Time 0:09:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/871747f8-097e-43bf-8f81-924dc84be303)) - **Balance Email Frequency Wisely** - Space your email campaigns based on content and product needs. - Avoid sending too many emails in a short period to prevent overwhelming recipients. Transcript: Speaker 2 Not a thing? Speaker 1 It depends. It's too many emails if you are sending too many in a very short period of time. May you can have eight emails and if they're all sent in eight weeks, that is too many emails. Yeah. Depending on the situation, you could also have eight emails and if it's sent over the course of six months, that's that could be a much better situation. For product launches, do you want to over extenu? Do you want to really showcase like this is what we have? And does that information need to be spread out over eight or can it be condensed and put into two or three? So it's a mixture. It's going to depend on the content. It's going to depend on the product. And ([Time 0:10:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/906b4339-1e70-48f7-ba44-84a70a4e4447)) - **YouTube Channel's Organic Evolution** - John started his YouTube channel to create WordPress tutorials but shifted to movie marketing content after a friend’s suggestion. - His channel evolved to focus on analyzing movie marketing and pop culture with entertaining discussions. Transcript: Speaker 2 To this point. Speaker 1 Yeah. YouTube was a weird, the by original YouTube, my original YouTube plan and the person who gave me John automates was Michelle Ferdette. She's the one who actually created the name. And I just went with it. But my original plan was to create tutorials for like WordPress or email for things like that. And I actually set out to do that. And one time I was doing it in a friend of mine who said, Oh, hey, did you hear about this movie? And it was at the time the Mario, the Super Mario Brothers movie. And I put out a thing just, yeah, I just want to talk about the marketing of it just for fun. And it got some good views. Not anything crazy or anything like that, like maybe 2000 3000. But it was just kind of like, Oh, this is fun. And so I just did some more and it kept gradually getting more and more and more. I ended up kind of meeting some different hosts and things like that and wanted to create kind of a very similar to OTT type of show into podcast ish type thing and started getting into That and doing shorts and talking about movie trailers and movie news and movie marketing, because I have experienced some of my internships early on dealt with film marketing, commercial Marketing. It gets so it was some place that I actually had some experience in talking about. And I just thought it was interesting. And you don't normally see that usually from movies, it's reviews or my thoughts or something like that. Whereas I like to talk more about the our behavior towards why things are happening, our behavior towards studios, the marketing reasons that happen, that kind of things. And it's been fun. Speaker 2 Do you ([Time 0:11:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/615d7e1a-7181-4aaa-9154-fa67d630f53f)) - **Focus on Entertainment and Community** - Prioritizing entertainment over algorithmic optimization creates more authentic content. - Fostering a safe, positive community encourages diverse opinions and interactions. Transcript: Speaker 1 I just want things to be entertaining in the space that I'm in. It's there's a lot of things that happen in the space that I'm in on YouTube where you get people who are either we just really like the movie and there's no thoughts. We really hate the movie and everything's wrong with it. Or you get situations where people will have a podcast or show, but they don't appear on screen. It's just like a black screen or it's, you know, Hey, let's talk about this and and rag on it. Or it's it's things like that. Whereas my thing is again, we're we're not just like before we're not a monolith like people enjoy certain things and they don't like certain things. People some things are not for me. Some things are. And I like to just try and create an environment where I think everybody can have some fun in terms of talking about stuff that they like without fearing that they're going to be attacked For or anything along those lines. So my first inclination of approaching YouTube channel more than stats more than analytics or anything else is is this entertaining is what somebody want to watch it. That's the main thing. Yeah. Speaker 2 And it's for ([Time 0:13:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ecfc3817-3d00-4663-8ba7-89deeeb9e492)) - **Low-Effort Videos Can Go Viral** - John’s most viewed YouTube short was made quickly and with minimal effort. - Some lower-effort videos outperform heavily produced ones unpredictably on YouTube. Transcript: Speaker 2 Most popular. Your most popular is 235,000 views of video you uploaded eight months ago. Transformers. Here we go again. It's just a minute and 34 seconds. Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. Don't get me started on that. What that is. Speaker 2 What's your thoughts? Because, you know, I know you put in days making a video and then it does nothing. And then you just come up with this idea for this video and it blows up and you're like, what the? Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. That was not a. My best videos and my best shorts are the ones I put the least amount of work into. Now, I can't explain it. I don't understand it. I don't, I don't know if the YouTube algorithm is in my house literally looking at me. I don't know why that is. I did a short on Gran Turismo because I love the game as a kid. It might be my, yeah, it might be my most. And I, and I did it probably maybe a month before the movie came out and I was just talking about, hey, I remember that this is a two story and this is the thing about this movie. It's based on a true story because I remember trying out for GT Academy. So it was like, just that. It was just an experience thing quick to the point. And that one still continues to get numbers just because, and it's people talking about how they like the movie and all of that. But I didn't really put as much work in as I have into other shorts, into other videos. And then your other videos might get a couple hundred, a couple, maybe a couple thousand, you know, and that's the thing. You have to learn to just kind of let it be. Some of my stuff over time gets better and more people start watching. I've gotten comments on videos that I ([Time 0:19:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/307f47a5-7ee4-4495-8606-2556864a3e40)) - **Build Positive YouTube Collaborations** - Collaborate with a small group of trusted YouTube friends to grow and share audiences. - Avoid political or rage-driven content to maintain a welcoming, respectful community. Transcript: Speaker 2 Is it just like collabing with other people, you know, you know, going on other podcasts? Have you began to thought, begin to think about how to expand your, your audience? Speaker 1 I think expansion has kind of been the name of the game for me for maybe the last four, five months or so when. So I have people who are who see my channel, they'll see two of the same co-hosts almost all the time. And we have our own kind of little niche group. I think the nice thing about our channel is our channels are that we go on each other's channels. Like I'm going to go on one of my co-hosts goes by Nerdy Film Grum. I'm going to go on her stream like today, right? And it's a level of this is a group that is good. We all have our own experiences. One is a screenwriter. I've been in film marketing. The other is a theater major. So it's like those types of things that helps. And I think that's good. I think it's good to be able to have quote unquote YouTube friends, if you will, because these are these are good people. And it doesn't mean I wouldn't go in anybody else's stuff like I would. It's just one of those. The audience that we all have now are so used to seeing us too, or us three, depending on the situation that they kind of group us all in together. So a lot of us, we kind of share subscribers. And it's also about chemistry. I wouldn't want to necessarily have in this space. You'll, it's not uncommon to see what looks like a conference call sometimes, where it'll be like eight people on talking about something. And it's just I'd rather have the two or the three, like a nice little group. This kind of talking about something because I do like to interact with the audience, especially I don't do a live stream, but both my co-hosts too. And we, it's just the interaction with the audience. Yeah, I just think that's better. I think that's better. So I also, you have to be, you have to be mindful as well, because I think in this space, one of the things that hurts a little bit is the fact that you have a lot of people who have brought politics Into the name of the game when it comes to movies and entertainment. And I'm okay with doing that and talking about it, especially when it's evident, but I'm not okay to use that to basically discount somebody else or to discount a group of people. I don't like to do that. And there's a lot of channels who I get compared to who do do that. And I just wouldn't want to collaborate with them because I feel like I have an audience that people feel much safer being in. And no one's going to be attacked for their viewpoints or anything like that. I'd rather have that, that kind of thing. Speaker 2 It's also a massive, I hate to use the word opportunity, but it's also like that factor of ([Time 0:26:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c208304b-1505-4f7e-a9d4-a970052914c2)) - **Pursuing Cinematic Creativity** - John studied cinema arts aiming to be a director before shifting to marketing. - He's planning a second YouTube channel focused on creative, cinematic short films as a personal outlet. Transcript: Speaker 1 Film? So in college, I studied marketing, but my first major, which then became a minor and then the program ended up becoming defunct was cinema art. So I was big on, I wanted to be a director. That was literally my thing. A director and editor who like was behind the camera creating crafting. And I think YouTube has kind of allowed that to be to come full circle a little bit. So I am looking at what a second channel that focuses more on the creative pursuits of creating not necessarily documentary-ish style films, but like short things that kind of I have, I have a whole thing for it. But yeah, I am looking at doing that and what that looks like. I'm certainly not perfect at it. I want to learn the more cinematography type aspects of creating that and what that looks like. I think from a narration point, I'd be good, but otherwise, you know, there's always something to learn. And so that's where I find myself gravitating towards where I would have both of them. And this one channel is for the film and the entertainment and clothes in the show, but this other channel, which is it would be a slower paste, but it would be more of like the creative Outlet. So I can fulfill both of ([Time 0:32:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/960c2fbc-b0ca-4860-9ad3-02d43525e914)) - **Gaming Preferences and Elden Ring Views** - John is currently playing Armored Core 6 and is a longtime mech fan. - He disliked Elden Ring for its overwhelming open-world structure despite its acclaim. Transcript: Speaker 2 Games. You have a game that you're playing these days? Speaker 1 I am on the armored core sixth train right now. That is that's where I'm at. I am a huge mech fan of all kinds from I'm a Gundam guy. I love Zoids. I like Pacific rims, the movie. I just love mechs. And so armored core, which I've always been a fan of. And it took forever to get this one out. But now it is. That's been my main step. Speaker 2 A from soft title that probably won't get recognized as much as the rest of their right series of games. But they didn't create they didn't develop. It's not fully developed by from soft. Is it? Speaker 1 I believe it might be even if it isn't like from software. They were there before the elder, you know, before and it just the overtime. Just the the Elden rings and the Dark Souls and and all of that just became so popular to spawn its own thing. And I think mex their mech side of what they were doing just kind of got forgotten. But hopefully it makes a try in front return. Speaker 2 Did you play Elden ring? Speaker 1 I did hated it. But that's another one. Oh my god. There might be a part two in this series right here. Hated it. Yeah. Speaker 2 Let's spend 30 seconds talking about why you hated it. Why did you I thought it was amazing. Speaker 1 It is an amazing game. I will always say it's an amazing game. And I don't hate it because I'm not good at it or anything like that. I've actually gotten pretty far. Yeah. I think it's straight away almost too much from what we were seeing with Dark Souls. Don't get. And I think the much holding an Elden ring or not enough. You can make the case of both. I mean, you have a map where you can go anywhere and you have the things that it's like, Oh, I don't have to fight this person. And oh, I have I'm okay with the no hand holding. Go out and seek things on your own. But I think when that happens, it almost makes it feel like gaming can become a little bit of a waste of time because it's like, all right, well, where am I going? And I'm just exploring. And that's fine. But it could be a little it's no different to me. And some people might blame me for this. But it's not that much different to me than the you the Ubisoft games where it's like all of these different things that you need to complete on this giant map. And none of it really means as I don't know. Speaker 2 That's that's always been my head of flame throw under this desk. I thought I hated Valhalla. Yeah. Assassin's Creed, which was like the first Assassin's Creed that I ever really, really played. And I was like, man, this game gives me no satisfaction. And ([Time 0:34:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d3a2cd2f-9437-40d2-aaae-2afaf8f9ad18))