A Conversation with author & exec Jenna Tiffany of Let's Talk Strategy

Jenna Tiffany zoomed in from Portugal to talk about her new book, Marketing Strategy: Overcome Common Pitfalls and Create Effective Marketing, and share her insights on email, content, marketing, strategy, social media and the hard work of actually writing a book.

TRANSCRIPT

Matthew Dunn

Good morning and good evening for my guests. Jenna Tiffany from let's talk strategy. This is Dr. Matthew Dunn hosted the future of email marketing. And my guest, as I already said, is Jenna Tiffany, Jenna. Hi. You're talking to me from where?

Jenna Tiffany

I'm actually in Lisbon, Portugal. Nice. sunny place in Europe. Much sunnier and warmer than London. I'm

Unknown Speaker

told on a regular basis.

Matthew Dunn

Guys. You've been a bit as you've been a bit rainy, drippy this season in London.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, from what my family have told me it's pretty wet. It's a pretty wet may although actually it's been pretty wet here as well. For the season,

Matthew Dunn

so long. how long your stay how long so far in Portugal for you have

Jenna Tiffany

been here now throughout the whole of the pandemic So pretty much 15 months.

Matthew Dunn

Wow. Okay. I did not realize that somehow. I was I was thinking because you're you know, you're sort of your brand, if you will. I was thinking you were still in in the UK. But well, how is Portugal faring. We'll get on to email and marketing in a second. But how Uh, how's the country faring in terms of lockdowns? and so on?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. Yeah, pretty well, um, we kind of we came up. So normally what I would do outside COVID, time to spend six months in London six months in Portugal. And I normally travel quite a lot across Europe in the States. Speaking and meeting clients and things, obviously COVID, then hit with, we stayed in Portugal, and was quite a strict lockdown for the best part of the year really. And you couldn't leave your local village you couldn't. There were some instances where you had a rule not to leave your house unless it was really essential. And it's still fairly strict. Now you need to wear a mask everywhere. And that's written into law and you need to wear masks on the beach, for example, and things like that. But things are opening up and there's a little bit more optimism. I think the only challenge here in comparison to England is that Europe is very far behind in the vaccine program. And that's holding back a lot of things whereas England is really far ahead and all my friends are getting their vaccines and waiting.

Matthew Dunn

You're waiting, not vaccinated. Yeah.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. So waiting. So maybe June, July, is the current timeline for my age group.

Matthew Dunn

Okay. Well, I we went from diddling around to catching up on that surprisingly rapidly. Thank you, Joe. In the US, and I actually ended up I ended up vaccinated, although many of my friends were a month or two ahead of me just just age or profession, brackets. And it's, it's, I got to tell you, not everybody's immediately like great unvaccinated back out on the street, the psychological readjustments are much more complicated than than just it's flu season. Now, it's not kind of sensation. That makes sense.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, it does. It's interesting that you say that, because I was having a chat with someone's day. And it was their first time they'd gone into central London. And they said, they felt really apprehensive getting on public transport, being around people again, and the whole situation just felt really strange. I think we'll all feel like that for quite some time. You know, it's quite a shock to the system. And it's quite a shock mentally to be so confined to them. Layout again, almost effective.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, and, and sort of, muscle habit of keeping distance or, you know, mask on the face kind of stuff. It's it is gonna be very, it's not gonna be hard. It's, it's gonna be different. We're not gonna we're not gonna behave the same way a year from now that we did two years ago, I don't think

Jenna Tiffany

no, and it's funny how when initially putting a mask on felt really strange. Whereas now it feels weird. If you don't

Unknown Speaker

do it, that adjustment.

Jenna Tiffany

But um, we have some friends in New Zealand and life for them has not changed. Yeah. And I think that's so it's so strange. So our headspace is in such a different place in comparison to those countries. And that's really weird as well, that's that i think that you know, when everybody can go back to traveling again, that's gonna be a really weird, really weird mix of people that have gone through this scenario, and those that actually haven't had such a strict lockdown. Yeah,

Matthew Dunn

yeah. And we're not. We're, we're away from that mix. And we'll be talking and writing about it for I think, years to come. My macro and this is my clumsy pivot to talk about marketing and email, more macro macro, it does seem to me that we got our butts booted 567 years, at least, forward in terms of adoption to digital change in the workplace, changing the way we inform ourselves work, play, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Any thoughts on that?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, I think so. I think I think there's a couple of things. I think really like the not that the level of professionalism has changed. But I think that whole concept of, you know, we're dialing in from our houses, you get to see a more personal insight into somebody. That's true. I think it's a whole kind of polished off image and, and the pressure to deliver on that I think, has changed. And I think that's a good thing. I think. I think that makes that opens a lot more opportunities for people and gives a lot more of a relaxed environment. And I think that's, that's nice. That's a nice working culture to be in. Yeah. I think the other part is it's given a lot of businesses almost like you said, a kind of almost like a kick. So for those that were maybe putting out Those foundation settings, those were thinking our digital is not for me, I don't need it.

Unknown Speaker

Yeah, you know,

Jenna Tiffany

it's given a real kind of push to actually sort those problems out and be able to offer both. And whilst Yes, it's a real big challenge for those organizations that weren't ready to pivot as quickly as others, it gives them now a massive opportunity to grow and develop and, and expand that further. And I think that's, that's one of the good things to come out of the situation.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah. Yeah, I think so as well. I was reading that. At least one school system was reading about it in the US one school system said, we had, we had a 10 year plan to start, you know, making classes available online, and we had to execute it in two weeks. And I'm thinking there's companies in about the same boat.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, of course, I also teach as well. And I've always taught online. Yeah. And I've taught online for nearly four years now. But there were teachers that had never taught online that had their children at home. Yeah. didn't really have the setup. Yeah. And we're trying to not only handle new technology, but also trying to, you know, change your lesson that is normally in person to being online, using a tool that you haven't used before with students that also aren't really used to being teach to online. Yes, yes. And yeah, that's, I mean, that was a big, challenging area. I think there's a lot of scope, though, to make that experience. Much better. I think there's a big opportunity in education to actually improve that. Yeah. And I've seen lots of conversations and lots of technology startups, I've actually worked with a few that are really trying to improve that experience with both the teacher and the student. So I think there's a lot of opportunity there. I think there's a few industries where it's been really disruptive.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, education. Certainly, among the mix, um, I actually come from, from a family of educators and like, third or fourth generation, my siblings, they're everybody's teacher, on and they're exhausted, I have to say, right now, tail end headed into summer there, just give me a break. Because the fatigue of that adaptation for not just them, but all of their students in the institution as a whole. It I think it's been quite overwhelming. And those of us in the digital space, you probably worked more like this for years. Right? This is not as new for you. That's how I feel.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, I don't feel it's fair. It's been a major change professionally, it's been a major change. Communicating with family.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, yeah.

Jenna Tiffany

And just so much more screen time, because we we live and breathe this every day. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of my family don't, you know, they're not necessarily on their computers all the time, or now they are but they read previous Right, right. Yeah. And then, you know, you're having FaceTime conversations in the evening, and it feels like 24. Seven, you're, you're looking at a screen.

Matthew Dunn

screen. Yeah, absolutely. Screen fatigue is is, is real. My, my, my wife works for the school system here. And And last, last spring, so over a year ago, they did that, you know, that incredibly fast pivot. Okay, we got to do all of this on picking, you know, pick your platform, zoom, or whatever. And I remember the first few weeks to a month as she started adapting to it, she was saying, I'm exhausted, like, I'm just exhausted. And I've been at this long enough. And, frankly, it's my, it's my field anyway, digital media. And I said, For one thing, you're looking at that little tiny Mac notebook screen. And all I did was put a big monitor on the desk, and I said, make the faces bigger and your fatigue is gonna go down by at least a bit. I'm not saying it's gonna be the same as being there. And it really that alone, made it made a difference in our level of fatigue. But then you get 24 people in a meeting, and they're all postage stamp size. And your brain is back there trying to sort out the facial cues and the body language and you're exhausted. We'll all end up with wall size monitors out of Arthur C. Clarke.

Jenna Tiffany

I think we will like where they've got this the Star Trek The huge. Yeah, he monitors screens.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah. Yeah, I'd hang on in my office here in in a heartbeat. Okay, so now let's actually pivot and talk about marketing. So congratulations. You just published the book. I did marketing strategy. Yeah, marketing strategy. It was a it was a long road to get to publish stage. Yeah, yeah. I think you mentioned something like three years when I was when I was asking if you'd, if you'd be a guest. You know, come and talk to Three years no more than that to think about it, obviously. Why did you Why did you start? What What got you going there?

Jenna Tiffany

Great question. So it was three years from the initial idea. And my, my passion for it and my driving force for it was because I feel that in the marketing industry, we have a real misconception and misunderstanding between the difference of strategy and tactics. And I see this in businesses, I see this in marketers, I see this in C suite, I see this in students. And I just thought, if I'm, if I'm really going to solve this problem, or I really don't want to get frustrated with having to constantly explain the difference, or see it being misrepresented, then I need to do something about it. And the idea of the book was born. Okay. And that's kind of how it started. And then I was lucky enough to get a publisher on board. And that adds a whole nother level of complexity. Yeah. So I think my biggest kind of challenge with writing the book was to, I really wanted to create a strategy framework that not only made it really simple to be able to create a strategy or review an existing strategy, but also to be able to see that difference between strategy and tactics. And that's the bit that I spent a lot of time on to try and get it into a into a format that was practical could be used and could be remembered. And, for me, I didn't want the book to be a stuffy textbook that's just shoved into a drawer and never used again. Because we've all read those. I wanted it to be a practical handbook. So that if a marketeer is about to review a particular campaign, they can go to a particular section of the book, there's lots of tasks and notes areas in there as well. Or if they're starting out from the beginning. So hopefully a structure of Okay, these are the steps I need to take to get to where I want to get to. And yeah, that was that was my main stimulus really to solve that problem.

Matthew Dunn

So it's not gonna be the same as reading the book in my copies wending its way from Amazon, I've been reading some of the you get some, you've got some rave reviews, and some amazing testimonials before the reviews even start, so I'm really pumped to get it. But if you're if you're having a, you know, coffee conversation with a young marketer, and trying to get them to think about the difference between strategy and tactics, how do you orient them to that split?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, so the simplest way really put is that the strategy is the who. So thinking about who you're who you're targeting your audience, and I think that typically is a piece that gets missed quite often. Okay. But also thinking about the what the where the why of what you're sending, and then when. So when are you going to have those tactics running? When is the campaign going to launch your tactics as the how that's implementing your strategy, they don't drive the strategy, but they implement it so that tactics are really important, because without them, you wouldn't activate marketing, you wouldn't have your strategy actually live, but they shouldn't drive the strategic plan. And that's where there's a mis understanding where tactics are chosen before we even think about the audience, we think about when we're gonna send something why we're sending it. And that's all chosen to early on before we think about the actual strategic part of what, why we're doing what we're doing and how we're going to do it.

Matthew Dunn

Okay, okay, so So, your cart cart before the horse, probably shiny, shiny toy, before battle before playing field. inversion? Do you take that as far back as strategy? Who what, when on should guide even choice of channel you know, look for this audience for this thing you're trying to get across? This may not be email may not be female, for example, may not be the best way to do that.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, exactly. So I'm really starting with looking at what that wider scenario looks like what that wider context look like. So actually starting with what's, what is the strengths of the business? What are our limitations? What can can we or can we not do? There might be budget or resourcing limitations, and then looking at the wider external context as well, because you might have objectives that actually it's just really unachievable given what's happening outside of the organization, yet, we never really assess that and normally gets missed. And then thinking about the targets, so setting those objectives and making sure they're really clear, and then actually thinking about your audience. So Who are they? The number of times I sat in meetings and asked Who is your customer? We think that this person over here and Oh, I bet actually I really like this, maybe we should go down this route. We as my I'm not the customer. Right? Yes, so far removed from the customer, we're in our own, you know, where we have a completely different environment as marketeers. So, and then thinking about this tactical part. So you have all these other pieces feeding in first before you even think about what channel you're going to use, because, but you've just said that your audience might even be using email, I'm sure they will be but they might not be, might not be. Or it might be that actually you need to think about a wider mix, and not just focus everything on one area. And think about what that splits gonna be across, across the marketing channels.

Matthew Dunn

Okay, okay. I'm, over the years in in reading way too many random samples books, I've tracked where the word strategy and entered the business vocabulary, if memory serves, I think it was actually McKenzie that sort of dragged it out of the military domain and and moved it in, moved it into the business domain. And it's used widely, but awfully fussily. And I'm guessing you had to grapple with that. And that was some of the work of the book and sorting out for marketing specifically, you know, what do we mean strategy, because it's easy to say, but if you don't, if you don't have some structure behind the word, it's just a buzzword. And obviously, obviously, it's not for you, you've got some you've got some read, I read one of the compliments, this book is a must for anyone needing to develop marketing strategies for their firms. Like that's a quote from from an Amazon review, five stars. All I'm using it in all five of my MBA and Capstone classes starting this fall, said one of your reviewers on Amazon, so you clearly helped them sort that out. A bunch? Um, one of the things about a book, is it. So it's a grind? It's not something you do in a day? No. Estimated entirely? What's that? I completely underestimated the amount of time. Yeah, and work and discipline? Yeah. So when did you When did you write in your in your daily or weekly routine? When did you work on the book?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, so for me, it was mainly weekends, you know, I run an agency I yeah, I have clients, man. So I've got a team. I can't just take days out writing a book. So yeah, for me, it was weekends, and some evenings. And there might be some times when you're sitting in a meeting, and you think you know what, actually, yeah, this would be a brilliant example. And you take notes, and I tried to get good at note taking, I took lots of voice notes, I found that that really helped me so I could do something like I could be outside and not have to be typing, and spend time in the garden with the dogs and be dictating on my phone. I found that really useful. I was a good split. Because you know, when it's the weekend, you've been on your laptop all week. So the last thing you want to read? Yeah, then typing away more on your laptop.

Unknown Speaker

Yeah,

Jenna Tiffany

I did that. And I spent a lot of time in my hammock, just music in just taking notes. And really researching thinking about things. I did lots of interviews and case studies with other people as well, because I think it's really important to get lots of voices into the book. So it's not just my opinion on strategy, but actually this is what other marketers, other business owners are also saying that the challenges are, this is how you overcome them. This is their experience. So I have a lot of that feeding into the book as well. And in the book, I talk about the 10 common pitfalls at the end. Most likely, business owners or marketers will fall into or experience will try to avoid, so they don't actually go through that pain. Yeah, the writing process was a real, it was a real challenge. You kind of go through a bit of a roller coaster where you start and you think this is brilliant. Yes, I can do this. I'm really excited. Okay, I'll kind of chunk it all down. And I had a I had a, like minimum word limit from the editors. Yeah. The shares and a max an absolute maximum. Well, I had to sit within within that. Yeah. And so I broke that down. And I tried to think about how many words with me to write within time frame. Yeah. So then I had like a clear structure. Otherwise, you kind of just float along a little bit. Hey, yeah, yeah. But then it gets to a point where you you kind of get halfway through and you think, okay, I'm not sure I'm gonna finish this. I'm not sure I can actually do this. And maybe this is too much. What was that? Thinking you go through this whole like self doubt. Yeah, process. Yeah. And then you kind of go over that and you think you know what I'm like 70% of the way through. I've actually like written all of this amazing. Yeah. And you get feedback from the publishers, the editors proofread it, they come back to you with comments. Yeah. And I was lucky that they didn't hate it. So I was like, Okay, that's good. Because you worry that you're going to send something out and they say what on earth? And you have lots of deadlines with them as well, to keep you on your toes. Oh, that's how that helps. Right? Yeah, that helps for that extra pressure. Yeah, yeah. And then you kind of get to the end. And the worst part for me was putting all the references in and having all the separate tables, numbering all of that. Yeah. And that was the worst bit for me, because it's like, you feel like you've done that. And

Matthew Dunn

then you've got to go back through it almost all over again, almost line for line to find all that stuff. Right?

Jenna Tiffany

Exactly. At the end of the process is the last thing you want to be doing. So yeah, that was kind of right up to the wire that and then it goes through briefing, and then you and then you feel like okay, I've I've done that. And then it's quite a long time period between finishing it. And getting it printed.

Matthew Dunn

You just you just hit the stands within the last week or two, right?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. So it launched in the states yesterday was in the UK on on the fifth or UK in Europe on the fifth year. So it's only been out a couple of weeks, and you get a little bit I'm like really pleased to see the reviews because you put it out there and anything. I've got myself everybody hates it.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, you You're definitely putting something out in the world. It's got a big PCU in name attached. And that takes that takes some bravery jumping off the board. And yeah, does. Yeah,

Jenna Tiffany

I don't think I really thought about that. Until now I get reviews back. But I guess I for me, it was if I don't do something about this, I'll be forever frustrated. So at least now I can say right. I've tried.

Unknown Speaker

Right. Right, right. Yeah. You know,

Jenna Tiffany

it is to actually see the book and have it in your hands. It's quite,

Matthew Dunn

I was gonna ask you about that kind of.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, it's kind of strange, I think because it's been such a long process. And also because the book was actually finished. The content was finished November, December. So it's quite a long time between then and now. Getting that actually

Unknown Speaker

launched. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah,

Jenna Tiffany

I mean, it is. It's kind of weird to see it anything. I've actually written this.

Unknown Speaker

I've done this. Yeah.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah. Yeah. Good. That good for you. And a book a contrast to, you know, blog posts, articles, etc. You've got to do all of that work. And then wait that span of time. And then you'll start hearing back, there's none of this. There's a there's a series of books that I that I started into, actually, my son's read it as well. And I liked the first few a lot TIMA rare books. And then they started getting kinda kind of flabby and kind of like, what happened to the charm. And I read about the author's process. And sorry, this is my rant, she started asking her readers and fans for feedback on where she should take it next. And I was like, write the book. Don't ask them, right. JK Rowling didn't say, gee, what do you think she wrote the books? And now we read them. And now we discovered now we go, Wow, you set that up so well, that that only when you have to get it done when you've got deadlines, and you don't have that feedback loop where you can say, someone else can make this tough decision for me. I think that's probably where some of the real sparks come. How do I get this across? How do I formulate this? Yeah,

Jenna Tiffany

I had, I had a few people review your book, in early draft stage, and then a little bit later on scanner feedback. But you have to, you have to have a really clear idea in your mind of what you want that book to do, what you want it to look like and how you want it to sound because everybody has their own opinion. And it might not necessarily be in the direction that you want it to be in. And that's the same when you have publishers, they will have you know, they come with brilliant insight and experience. It doesn't mean you have to agree with everything. I don't agree with everything. Much to probably their frustration. Yeah. That that's the point of it. Right? You're bringing your own flavor to something your own personality. And if everybody just went along with what everybody else thought then they'd all be the same. Yeah. So you kind of you have to have like that clear outline at the beginning of this is how this is what I want it to be like and be really strict with that is it could have my Book very easily could have gone down a very academic route, and been very drawn to text. And even in the language, it could have been like that. And I really wanted to avoid that. So I had been really quite strict with not only myself, but the publishers, any feedback, you know, really think about Okay, is that? Is that actually how I want this book to be and be represented? Or is it not?

Matthew Dunn

Yeah. And and how, how do you feel this stage? You know, at this point in time, book in hand, how do you? How do you feel about it? You know, versus your vision and drive started three years ago?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, I'm really, I'm really happy with it. I think I've I've said what I wanted to achieve. Okay. And it's funny, because I had, there must have been about 15 iterations of the front cover. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, to the point where I think publishers would just know, you need to just pick one. I was really just adamant about what I wanted. Yeah. Yeah. Not to be not to try and challenge that or anything. But it's had such a clear idea in my mind, in terms of color and everything. Oh, good. And I think, you know, it got to a place where actually I was like, yeah, this is exactly what I meant. This is what I want it to look like. And I feel like that all the way through the content of the book as well. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really happy with it. The question I keep getting asked is, when's the next one? And you're like, wait,

Matthew Dunn

I want a break? Yeah. Yeah. When I'm curious, I am curious about the writing process a little bit on in that, you know, we're in the digital age, it was gonna screen in front of them. We're all sitting for the screens, as you said earlier, all the time. And it's somewhat natural to think in terms of firing up filling in the blanks editor and writing in there. But not everybody wants to write with a word with a word processor of some sort. And you just described audio work. And audio notes you just described sitting in the hammock, which I'm guessing wasn't typing, like? Like, how the pieces come come together? What? What forms of of writing and recording work for what stages in the book?

Jenna Tiffany

Yes, I think for the early, early stages of putting together almost like the outline and the skeleton of what's going to be included, which was really good for that. And being able to then listen back and think, actually, we could have a case study there. Or we could have I could have this person input here. I could expand here with more research, for example. Yep. And you have to be quite self critical on that. Yeah. Yeah. But when I was in my hammock, I did a mixture. So I did have my laptop. I also did a lot of printouts. Yeah. So that I could read it as if I was the reader and then scribble over it. Yeah, yeah. And I found that really quite useful. I used a really good tool called skriva. And much better than, than word for this type of project. And it was a good way to just break down the chapters and dip in and out and think about right, I'm in this frame of mind today to focus on this topic in this chapter. And I'm gonna input and have some notes and and start there. So for me, I started with a an outline. Yeah. And I didn't actually have the full structure of the book. I actually changed it quite later on.

Matthew Dunn

That's hard, right? Yeah. Together, reform it. Wait a minute. I got to reword it, because I didn't tell them about that reference yet. Right. Exactly.

Jenna Tiffany

Changing that lay on. Yeah. But that was because I was I really wanted to break down the word strategy and have that as the framework. And I didn't nail that until later on. And then I wanted each chapter to be each part of the strategy. Yeah. So yeah, that took a bit of, of maneuvering when you're trying to reference other chapters, and you're trying to link everything together. And just have that structure. So yeah, I did actually change that quite late on I was originally going to have eight chapters, and I had 10. So Wow. Yeah, but it's, I think it's worked out. It was for the better, I think, yeah, as much as it was a challenge to do. It was for the better, but you just, I think as you're working through it, these ideas come to you And you read the flow with them? Or you don't I think the challenge with right when you're writing a book is it's, it's, you want to flow with the new idea. But that means a lot more work if you go with that idea.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, or throwing out prior work doing that painful, you know, revision rewrite thing and going well, it's, you know, it's gonna be better. So I've got to go ahead and do it or, you know, now that I understand the thing, I'll rewrite it essentially. Right.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, exactly. And, and, you know, you've got a lot of people involved when you're writing a book isn't just you on this lonely path. You know, I had editors, I have proofreaders. I have people inputting, who were contributing in terms of interviews and things like that. And I had people give him feedback and reviewing it and saying what they really thought and if there was anything they thought was missing, or, and I had academic people, teachers review it as well and see what they thought. Yeah, and they come with such a different perspective, it was really useful to have that. See, I had lots of people feeding in and that in itself is a challenge to Courtenay.

Matthew Dunn

Right, write, write and different opinions. And ultimately, you still have to make the call yourself to your book.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, exactly. And, and go back to my earlier point, you just have to be really clear on what you wanted. Yeah. Aren't you writing a book? Did you say we started one?

Matthew Dunn

Yeah. Yeah, the, you know, the, the company I'm focusing most of my time on right now campaign genius on is, is, is a platform to bring the real time component of email that's been there for 20 years, to life and make it useful. And I concluded that even very experienced email folks haven't the slightest damn clue how it all works. Like they just don't, it's just not in it's not in the wheelhouse. It's not in the mindset, it's not in the mental model. So I'm, I'm a good number of pages in it that to that up and down journey that you described, you know, is thinking about, as you're talking about the writing process, and the number of people you had to corral on, you know, a decade ago, I launched the business with a partner, we were one of the we're the second or third, maybe company in the world to start doing what everybody now calls explainer videos. No one was like, no one was doing this stuff. And we launched this company. And so we're doing we're doing projects for clients akin to agency work, right, it really was a specialized agency. And so there was a writing, directing, editing visuals process that did involve other people. And as we went along with it, doing more of it, and trying to get better at it, I became, became increasingly kind of a hard nosed pain in the butt. I got to the point where script drafts back to the you know, back to the client clients paying for it, right, a lot of money. Here's the script draft, it's a PDF. Oh, we want the word doc. You don't get the word doc, because one, your legal guys are all frustrated. Writers don't want to they'll want to weigh in on it. And none of you know how to write dialogue with the damn. So I don't care if you don't like the way it's worded. If I missed the point, that's a different issue. But I don't want you writing the dialogue. Because you don't know how to perfectly happy, big, hard nosed about it like, hey, that's, you know, that's what you're paying the studio to do. If I if I'm nice, and you get this, you know, kind of vague thing at the end, you're not going to be happy? And I'm certainly not going to be happy. That's very true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have to stay the director of the show, I think. And ultimately, you have to say, I'm responsible for making the call. Whether this point stays in whether that structure stays in whether that paragraph, you know, stays as is thanks for the input. My name on the cover. So I'll run with what I think. Right? Yeah, totally. You have to be very strict with and clear and clear, probably clear with yourself, which is not easy, either. Because there's a natural tendency to want. Oh, I respect so and so. And they said, Gee, it should be this way. So maybe I should change it. Hmm, no.

Jenna Tiffany

Not so much. Yeah. No, exactly. Yeah, there are. You kind of have to. You have to really like fight with yourself a little bit. And I think it'd be really decisive because you can't, you don't have infinite cash. You don't really have the opportunity to then backtrack so much. Once you make a decision that say you move on and yeah, yeah. This is how it's move forward.

Matthew Dunn

And you think about thinking about the difference in in the writing process now in the digital age. First is paper. You know, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, sorry, theater background. You know, those guys are banging out stuff on a typewriter and pencils on a pad. respectively changing a character name was a lot of work. Yeah. And for me, it's like search replace done next. Exactly right. But it also means when your stuffs in digital form once you get it if you get it to digital form, which I guess everybody does eventually now, that means you can keep screwing around with it. ad infinitum. I just want to go rewrite this one more time. Right? Yeah.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, that's never a finished version. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just fight with yourself about that every day. Yes. You know, my, my book doesn't include clubhouse, for example, as a tactic. Yeah. Because that only came out last month, and the book was already done. So that's a challenge.

Matthew Dunn

What do you think about clubhouse as a marketer? A marketing expert. Yeah,

Jenna Tiffany

I found it really interesting, actually just watching the flock flock to clubhouse and see where it is now today. Yeah. And I like to kind of sit back and just observe. I'm really, yeah, I'm a strategist at heart. So I really like to see what people's perception and reactions are. And I follow a lot of marketers on on Twitter, and there's a lot of discussion saying, you know, and I thought it's a very good point that clubhouse is more of a feature than it is an individual platform. And you have Twitter spaces, have Facebook also starting to do something. And Instagram, your Instagram stories, which is fairly similar, but he obviously can't do that for as long a time period as you can on clubhouse. So really, as club house just paved the way that actually now, people really like to have this live interaction, just voice only. And do it on all the existing social media platforms,

Matthew Dunn

potentially. So audio, akin to clubhouse you expect to see in other places, and I know it's happening already. Twitter's got their, you know, let's call it a knockoff, if you want, but it's showing up on the play. So that's your point about a feature, right?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, I think it is more of a feature. I thought it was a really good point. And I can't I can't remember who said it. I can't credit them. But I thought was really really good. A really good observation. Really good point. It is more of a feature. And it was very interesting that that clubhouse decided to only open up to Apple users to begin with.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, yeah, that was an interesting call. Yeah, about more than a few people I talked with who don't happen to be Apple guys were like, Yeah, not go right. Can't go there. Not gonna go there.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. Which is, it's an interesting place to start. And I think the other part with it, which I find really fascinating is just the investment and the valuation given to that piece of technology. So early on.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah. So early on.

Jenna Tiffany

And then when you look at it now, and its users are just dropping off a cliff. Yeah. Is it a case that actually that investment is also very tactically driven? It's not very strategic.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, I do. I do wonder. I mean, I'm guessing you weren't in the thick of things in the.com. Boom, I was. I've got I've got gray on the temples here, right. And it looks even dumber now than then. Like, be frothy money being thrown at. asinine there's no plan here. There's no strategy here. It's just got some sizzle. And you're gonna throw it's got what valuation Oh, man, this is dumb. This is not gonna end well.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, it's crazy. Because that's just something that has consistently happened. Yeah. COVID and still happens now. And yeah, you I mean, you see it every day and I've worked with some companies and it's unbelievable that you know, their competitors have got investment it really is like they don't even have a clear business plan or Yeah, they just don't have anything you think how on earth is this even happened?

Matthew Dunn

Well, it really you know that that relatively ret relatively ready availability of capital capital makes for a goofy playing field because you know, the guy armed with the guy armed with a you know, big enough bag sticks can run around hitting everybody without without worrying about paying for the sticks. And if you're competing with them, like Yeah, can you write can't afford to go there, even if we've got a better widget or better thought through offering or whatever else, so it's going to kill some really potentially viable things, because the inferior one was better funded.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. Which you would think wasn't the case. I would have thought that would have been More sophisticated by now. So I'm just Yeah, I was amazed that the evaluation of capacitor really was and how soon on and so like just watching the whole the whole story of capacitors an interesting one in a market is flocking to it without thinking about whether another audience would be there. Yeah, yeah for me it was just like the strategy is not here we've we've literally chased after another shiny toy.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, I would I would agree with that as well. I was intrigued just intellectually intrigued with the core thesis of leaving a lot of things out right. Like what voice only No, like no visuals. It's a live conversation or Wow, not recorded, huh? It's like conversation What a great idea. Who to thought and I was talking with Jean Jean Jenny some shares a friend of yours as well, Jean actually got me a clubhouse invite to talk about a project that we were both involved in. But she said, Yeah, I've kind of dropped off. But you know, so and so started on it, and they spend hours a day on clubhouse and like, wow, I don't think I could do that. I really don't I it's really not for me. I don't think that reading isn't right, which is I mean, that's that's a that's a personal preference thing. I guess one of the points I'm driving out there specific to clubhouse in the voice thing is that, that that time commitment doesn't get shortened. If you sign up to listen to half an hour conversation. You can't really skim that live conversation either you're there for the half an hour, you punch out early and you're not there. And you miss whatever you you did versus written material, visual material. We're all guilty of it. Right? Yeah, I read that. No, you didn't you just skip down the page. Right? Yeah, you skip through got the highlights chapter headings, blah, blah, blah. And that that deliberate push people into live conversation audio only, is was refreshingly counter even though Mia culpa. Like, yeah, I don't have time and interest for what someone might or might not say for for a half an hour, because a half an hour is pretty precious.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, I wonder if, you know, it was it was looking at about an education, educational industry, I think maybe that has an opportunity there for that type of setup.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, possibly. Possibly. I mean, you look at your back away and look at education, we're talking about the, you know, the push the pandemic gave to go online. You know, we had, we had all we had alternative digital platforms for education coming and going like fruit flies over the last decade, right? And MOOCs on and the cold hard fact was, the completion rate was, was was dismal. Right? people sign up for a course and they don't bother going through the course. Right? People pay for a course and they don't bother finishing the course on and same mechanisms, right, video, audio, whatever else. So there's, there's there's more to it than just the content being there. And accessible. And I don't know an answer beyond that. But But, but I think we'll have to keep experimenting with the carrots and the sticks. involved? Well, it's it's not unlike reading a book, right? Like someone's gonna sit down with your book. And there's gonna be a percentage of readers. I'm sure. I higher percentage of readers who finish it for years. And this could be a percentage, you're like, Oh, yeah, I didn't quite get back to it. Or I just can't.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, that's human nature, isn't that? Yeah. And you know, I've done that with lots.

Matthew Dunn

We all have. Yeah, we all have and I find it easier. I'm curious, your take on this on an avid avid avid reader. Tons of ebooks far prefer paper books. How about you?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, I do prefer a paper book. But I have because we couldn't actually stop deliveries here during COVID. I had to go digital. You

Matthew Dunn

had to go digital. Right.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. So now I do read a lot more digital. The physical book.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, yeah. It's, it's a it's a funny techy. Like, I've got my Kindle account on our 42 devices. I love the fact that the whole library is with me. Even if I walk out of the house with just my phone in my pocket. I'm like, Yeah, I got, you know, a lot of books on but I don't finish them as much

Jenna Tiffany

as the paper books. Yeah, no, I think because, you know, it's always there. Yeah, yeah. always accessible. There's no kind of prompt or agency to read it. Whereas if it's like an actual physical book, it's not in front of you think oh, I'm gonna pick that I'm gonna start reading

that now. Yeah,

Matthew Dunn

yeah. Or if you you know, if you're guilty of putting a face down to mark your place, which I would never do. The book is sitting there saying, hey, you're not finished with me yet, like physical me. I'm sitting right here telling you you're only halfway through me.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, exactly. And like we were saying before, you know, we spend a lot of time at screens both. So for me, it was a good switch off to have that physical book. And not look at screen.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so we've managed to go almost 45 minutes and not talk about email at all, which is kind of rockin way, as you were working through, you know, strategy and emails down there. And the tactics bucket, did you find yourself changing? Your thinking about email? substantially? No. Interesting. expand on that?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. So I was gonna leave that there. No. No, I know, I didn't I, because I always had my company, you know, it was called let's talk strategy, we always come in at the strategic angle, no matter what, what channel, the client is, particularly looking at optimizing will always want to know, what are the objectives of the business? What are you trying to achieve here, who's your audience and getting really like under the bonnet and, and really understanding what's happening, what's doing audits and so on. And in the book, I talk about four key areas of email, and the four key areas of focus. But I also talk about the history of the tactics as well. Because I feel that's a piece that we don't necessarily think about the history of SEO, the history of PR, the history of PPC, the history of email, and where it's come from and where he is today. And there's a lot about that, that you can take a lot of learnings from in terms of its adoption, how it's being used, but also the opportunities of what what else it can do, based on that history piece. So I think for me, that was how I looked at tactics differently, was to assess that, and really research and actually learn quite a lot myself, though, about the history of different tactics nice. But I think the forecasts for fundamentals of EMA remain the same. And they are still, in a sense, strategic, you still need that strategic plan and your objectives before you can choose the channel. And even if you're looking at email, you still need to have that. So really thinking about, you know, how are you actually going to get your email seen in the first place, and there's so much that goes into that, like deliverability, you know, demark, and so on, the not so sexy pieces that people don't really want to spend loads of time on, you know, other core foundations of what you really need to do, just to get your email up and running an effective way. And actually going back and checking those things as well. And making sure you have that process in place. But then also thinking about, you know, how you're going to get your audience to even open your emails, right? What is that value on what you're sending? And really thinking about the audience, they're less about, okay, we've got this product to promote and sell. Okay, well, your customer might really love it, they might not. And you might have already sent this to them already. So what what net What now, can you say that it's going to make them open that email, engage with that? Yep. I'm thinking about the engagement piece. And then also thinking about reporting, which is a piece that I think is typically either, you know, email marketing teams are typically under resourced, they lack time. So reporting, it's kind of done either really, really quickly, and there's no insights gleaned from it, or it's not done at all. And, you know, there's a lot of insights that can come from that reporting piece input into the next campaign that you send and the journeys that you're also sending. Yeah,

Matthew Dunn

yeah. I I'm curious your opinion on this, because I'm just nodding my head if someone's listening to podcast, just nodding my head good. Yep. Yep. Um, it seems to me from looking at the tools of the trade, that email marketers are frequently either guilty of or trapped into using, using that data that comes back in a fairly tactical way. I see a lot of metrics about campaigns. But I don't see a lot of metrics about people. And back to your who, you know, who, what, when, you know, strategies like these, this percentage of folks really don't want to hear about this topic, or they don't want right because they don't respond to it or they unsubscribe or whatever else. But if you're just looking at Campaign campaign metrics, and not grafting those back into your view of the customer, how do you how do you get out of that sort of tactical psych tactical only cycle and tactical only thinking

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, that's a real challenge. I mean, there's a couple of things that the culture of the business can have a big play that. Because if the marketing team are getting really pushed to deliver on sales repeatedly each week, yeah, you know, we've all been there. And that can be a real challenge to get out of that cycle. And you have to have a culture in the business where they're open to taking some risk, because they will, when you try to come out of that type of cycle, there will be some fallout from that temporarily. And the business has to has to have the appetite for that. And most businesses don't, don't have that appetite. So it creates a real challenge for the marketing team to get out of that tactical cycle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Businesses that do have that culture, and they do have that bit of appetite for change, you're making see that there's an opportunity there to do things in a better way. Yeah. Then it gives you opportunity for the marketing team to be more strategic, because most marketers actually want to be able to move away from the ad hoc rushing around. I'm sure every day something's changing, and they want to go to the more structured and plan not to say that everything will be like that. But to have, you know, a bit of a bit of more of a 70 30% split of planned versus ad hoc rather than 90% split of everything being ad hoc,

Matthew Dunn

constant dribble, we'll write,

Jenna Tiffany

the team gets burnt out, they get unmotivated, you know, they start to question why am I even doing marketing, it's just the same. It just it creates a real creates real negative environment, and it just wears it burns out marketing teams.

Matthew Dunn

And what I bet you've worked with a lot of email marketing teams a lot more than I have, would I be correct in my guess that email marketers or the email team is sort of particularly subject to getting stuck on that hamster wheel?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, I think so. I think historically, and still a little bit today, email seen as, and was very much used a couple years ago for batch and blast repeatedly. Yeah, yeah. And if we send an email, we will make some money. So let's just send another email. Yeah, right. And it's a cheap, it's a cheap channel in comparison to the other digital channels. Right. And it performs, right, so there's, there's that real kind of balance there to actually see that? Yes, it might be a cheaper channel, but actually, you're gonna, you're gonna see a massive burn rate on your subscribers, if you continue with that approach. Yeah. And we actually worked with a retailer that wanted to come out of this cycle of really sending sales messages. Yeah, you send a sales message every other day, it was a lot. And they were trying to convince the board that look, if we keep doing this, we're gonna lose our subscribers and not have an email marketing support subscribers anymore. Yeah, yeah. And we conducted an analysis to see what was the engagement rate from when they initially signed up? So we could go back two years to today. And then how many emails have they received between that? What did they look like? How many sales messages have they received? And then what was that drop off rate looking like in terms of engagement? And after six months of someone being subscribed, their engagement dropped by more than 50%. So if they continued for another six months, that person would be gone. Yeah, I'll be lost them already from opening ever again. engaging with their email. Yeah. So there's a real, you know, once a board saw that they were like, okay, we need to change this, like, we're gonna lose everybody. And they appreciate that. Nice. Yeah,

Matthew Dunn

yeah. So you were able to re articulate it may be, it may be cheap, in terms of one kind of cost. But if you treat your customer relationship as economic term externality, it's actually not cheap. Right? That burning burning through the list is going to cost you potentially everything. Whereas treating, treating that relationship building as as the asset as the more valuable piece of the equation.

Jenna Tiffany

And, you know, there's lots of conversations at the moment about if Facebook changed their rules tomorrow, you'd lose all those funds. If email marketing changed its rules, you know, you're in more control of that data. You have consent for that data. And so yeah, yeah. And businesses now are valued based on the engagement rate of their email subscribers, not the number of fans that they have on Facebook. Thank goodness, that in itself is massive value asset to a business. Yeah. That changes the whole conversation of how email sheets in a company once the rest of the business view in that way.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, I think I think the more marketing departments you read Your book and take your advice. The well frankly, the more value they're gonna, the more value they're gonna get out of their marketing efforts. And maybe the slightly easier job, not easier, better job, their email marketers would be able to do, because they're thinking long term, it's strategically, not just hamster wheel tactically,

Jenna Tiffany

yeah, it makes having that budget conversation, getting more resource, trying to get a new piece of technology much easier if you're aligned to what the business objectives are. And you can actually demonstrate how email has contributed towards that really challenges that when you're very tactically driven, and you haven't got that strategy, you can't do that. And you can just show an open rate or to a business. Okay, well, how much is that worth? Yeah, you know that you have to change that conversation, the language based on the stakeholders you're talking to, because the finance director is not going to care less? How many people opened your email, right? They're gonna want to know, okay, what is the value of a single email subscriber? What's their lifetime value? Right? They bring to the business, what are they contributing? And without that strategic element, that that's missing entirely in that conversation? I think that's where that's why email has typically been, and what what has actually prompted my interest to get involved in email in the first place? It's typically been the channel that's been delivering, but just hidden in the corner. Right? And not the one that's been sent to say, like PPC and SEO and that budget. Yeah, yeah. It's because those, that type of information is missing from those compensation.

Matthew Dunn

But it's a good, that's a really, it's a really good perspective. So if there's an, you know, hard working email marketing team, listening on saying, Okay, how do we change this inside our company? What kind of advice do you have for them, keep going, number one, hang in,

Jenna Tiffany

you know, emails, a, an amazing community of people that all help each other. And, you know, there's lots of different groups on lots of different types of platforms and channels, actually, you know, that are there to support each other. So if you find yourself that you're in a situation where you just you don't know where to turn or, or what that conversation needs to be, then there's people to help. Number one, I think, to really search really try and understand what what the business objectives are, and how email can help support those. So translating those business objectives into email marketing objectives, is a really a good starting point, because then you can start to have that conversation of Okay, this is what we've delivered. If you find that actually, the business objectives aren't that clear, then that's, that opens up another conversation, and actually would be important for the rest of the marketing department. Right? as well. Right? Um, but also speaking to the rest of your, your teams, if you have somebody who might be responsible for paid search or page social, for example, you know, speaking to them as well, and talking about their reporting, what are they looking at, because, you know, someone who's managing PPC is going to be looking at cost per acquisition, they're going to be looking at a lot more numbers in terms of monetary numbers, and we probably are an email. And there'll be some insights from them that you're particularly in and put into your email marketing and vice versa. Yeah. They'll be able to help you get get that type of format structure into your email reporting.

Matthew Dunn

And you're talking about the same customers in the long run. So yeah, right. You should be working, working together as much as possible.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, and hopefully you already are. But there are still instances where there's lots of silos. Unfortunately,

Matthew Dunn

plenty plenty. There was a I can't remember if it's from that book. But there was a, there's a business book that was popular like 20 years ago, Harvey Mackay had a swim with the sharks without being eaten alive. And it may have been McKay who said, Your receptionist is actually your VP of first impressions. And this is back in the physical office days, right? Email marketing team is in a mighty mighty critical position in terms of your long term relationship with your market, right, if they're not paying attention to that or if they're being pushed to just burn through it. Right, not good. Yeah. It's

Jenna Tiffany

really interesting that you made that point actually, because we've had this conversation with quite a few clients. When you compare what an email marketing what an email subscribers perception would be off a brand based on what they're receiving in comparison to what they might be seeing on social or on your website, right. If email is being used as just a sales channel or The time while you're gonna look like you're a discount, you're always a discount, you're always having an offer. Whereas when your website might not talk at all about offers might be completely hidden. And so that, you know that perception is completely different. Yeah, completely different. And it's interesting that quite a lot of businesses don't actually even think about that. Yeah. Think about that perception that any email recipient might have in comparison to your website, this dude who may not be an email subscriber,

Matthew Dunn

yeah, that's a really good point. Like if you don't if you're not taking that sort of cheese, Chief customer officer view of the whole, and just treating it as a turn and burn channel. Ouch. There's I've probably been guilty of bringing this bring this story up more than once. But there's a Outdoor Retailer in the US that I've bought 1000s of dollars worth of stuff from over the over a decade. And I'm on their email list, because they have the kind of stuff I like, their prices are fantastic, blah, blah, blah. They still don't know me from Adam. They still send me stuff that's completely irrelevant. I'm like, What do I have to do to get you to narrow it down? and go, Oh, yeah, he always gets that that did they like my categories are very, very well established somewhere in their data set, but they're completely oblivious to them. And I put up with it, for whatever reason, but I'm thinking opportunity real a big missed opportunity.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, massively. The poverty is a challenge with data there. I think it's to having systems talking to each other, being able to crunch the numbers and actually connect the dots is a massive challenge.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah. Yeah, we think we think we're, we think we've gotten Oh, so far along in the in the world of, you know, data with our data warehouses and whatnot, just like still some force some poor guy trying to work through a SQL query. I'll never get this. Right.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. But then that's, you know, that's where the likes of having AI machine learning, and, and using those as much as email marketing assistance, or marketing assistance can really solve that problem.

Matthew Dunn

You know, I hesitate to bring them up, because it's not my favorite company in the world. But when you look at when you look at the data job that Facebook does, that, you know, I don't log into Facebook, but if I did, it would be a unique experience, all built around me instantaneously for that moment in time. It's like, wow, they're doing that with billions of people. And we're all sitting here caterwauling about what we can do with, you know, a list of 100,000 or 200,000, or something like that, huh. That's a little embarrassing, isn't it? Yeah.

Jenna Tiffany

I know, there's rumors about Facebook trying to get into the email field.

Matthew Dunn

Let's hope not. I'm happy. I'm happy to help discourage that in my way.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it is a it's a very sophisticated way of how they've created that really shows the potential,

Matthew Dunn

it shows that they're well put, yeah, that's it, it shows it shows the potential, you know, we're not we're not, we're not near doing that, even with the absolute best case, you know, email platforms. I don't think we're even near that level of granularity and performance and sophistication. Could be will be maybe, but we're not, we're not there yet. And I think we may have to think a bit differently to get there.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, it's gonna be interesting how cookies, and yeah, you know, all of that side of things changes that.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah. Death is a third party, Cookie flock? Are you an iPhone or an Android user? I find, yeah, me, me, me as well. A little pop up saying, Do you want this app to do? I'm like, No.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, what's the value of me doing that? I know exactly. And that it's gonna be an interesting space to see that. What happens there? Because I've seen it, I think the majority of people are declining.

Matthew Dunn

I think so too. Yeah. I think so too. And it's, it's probably long overdue that it's, you know, the unanticipated, ragged edge of the digital frontier turns out to be our privacy. And now we're starting to we're lagging in the US for sure. But we're starting to, you know, get there on a on a global scale. And some of the companies that benefited from the fuzziness of that are going to take a shot on the chin, which I'm fine with my data, not yours.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, it's interesting, what the general public's feeling is on on privacy and how much they're willing to give away. unknowingly, so I think that's probably been the case. Yeah, it's just some it's just amazing that when you mentioned Facebook there on on the how many breaches and you know, privacy concerns have been raised yet they still have millions of people logging on

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, we're voluntarily going my my my best friend in the world is uh, he's, he spends way too much time on Facebook. I'm like, do you realize, yeah, exactly how much every one of those posts this do that like, oh man, do they have your number? Yeah, he'll buy a golf club. No problem. Just do that right. Yeah, exactly.

Jenna Tiffany

I know. That's one that fascinates me as well. I'm not a Facebook user. And I'm debating about WhatsApp, because they've changed the rules on that as well.

Matthew Dunn

aggressively changed the rules. Yeah, yeah, you have to opt into this or will cut your account off eventually. Right?

Jenna Tiffany

Well, supposedly, but I don't know if they're actually allowed to do that. I think it's still being debated in Europe in terms of whether or not they can really enforce it. Yeah. So I have the pop up every time I go in, but I still haven't accepted. interested. I know, but it's like, do you, you know, my, my own personal experience? There is? Okay, I'm not happy about it at all. And if I, if I take myself out of this, and I'm no longer part of WhatsApp, am I gonna lose all those connections that I've got in there? Yeah. Yeah. So question. That's then the trade off? Yeah.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah. Very, very viable question. And not like there's a guidebook for the decision. Right? millions and billions of people kind of going, why do I keep getting asked this question? And with a loan contract? I don't know. Yes, no. And then, you know, companies like Apple being in control of that, where Apple controls that dialog for apps now. And yet, it's specific and what it says and how it says it, like, in some ways helpful. But if you start looking at the fine print, it leaves them in one heck of a position as an advertiser. So it's not 100% Yeah,

Jenna Tiffany

I know. And that's, should they be the gatekeeper? Maybe the gatekeeper? Yeah. Yeah. Not be an independent organization. I think the challenge is that there is there is no independent.

Matthew Dunn

There is no independent. Yeah, yeah. who watches the watch? Are we and there's a there's a writer named Ben Thompson, who I'm a huge fan of ice strategically fantastic newsletter, I subscribe. I pay happily go Ben on. But he said, you know, if we're gonna he was talking in terms of fact, not in terms of privacy, but let's put them in the same terrain for a minute. He said, if we're going to run the experiment of saying someone's job, someone's in charge of fact and truth that experiments already being run a country called China. Do you want to do that? Yes, sir. Right. It's a very, it's a very different way of looking at things. And it may not suit who you know, who we want to define ourselves as being in our different nations. But for sure, handing it over to private companies is think we're really reaching. I think we're reaching out. Wait a minute, is that a good idea? And kind of endpoint for that?

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. And China's really interesting that my husband travels, was traveling there a lot with work.

Yeah. And

yeah, it's amazing the extent that people will go to to be able to use the likes of shemale. Right. likes of Facebook. Yeah.

Matthew Dunn

And emails not that popular. Know how to give it a shot. Yeah, it's a WeChat. Yeah, yeah. And

Jenna Tiffany

the rules on WeChat is unbelievable for authentication. And checking. You are who you say you really is quite amazing. But it's also amazing, see human behavior, try to go outside of those rules and have different VPNs and all of that going on. And they've actually blocked different VPN companies. Yes. To stop people from going outside the rules. Yeah, yeah. Yes. It's completely different.

Matthew Dunn

Yeah, that would be that would be one heck of a seminar discussion to get a group to tackle that. But to be intellectually fair, I'd want to have someone who lives inside that's that system, that nation that culture, say no, here's why I'm, you know, here's why I'm part of this. Here's what I think's beneficial about it, because I'm gonna be on the other side got, oh, no way. Could I stand that, but that's me. Great. Yeah. You know, no different as well. Yeah, yeah, we really have. Yeah, it's a it's a freedom in that respect for those types of areas. You know, I knew this was gonna happen and like, Jenna and I are gonna chew up way more than half an hour and I apologize, except it's been so darn much, much fun. Yeah, it's been great talking to learn from learn from you as well. Um, so we should probably wrap it up and let you get on with your evening. There in Lisbon. Land land of wonderful wines had a friend who was a Portuguese wine importer. I'm like, Oh, yes. Very, very good stuff. They're really good wine. Yeah, really good wines. Um, so so we'll wrap it up there. My guests has been Jenna Tiffany. And you can find her book marketing strategy on Amazon at least in both the UK and the US any other any other places someone might go look for that because we don't want to just push business to another monopoly.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah, it's available in all good bookstores in the States. It's in target Walmart everywhere.

Matthew Dunn

And you did a hardback version as well. I noticed on the listing. Yeah, so it's Kindle paperback and hardback, hardback. That's I I love hardback. So I'm increasingly hoarding them because because they last and they feel great. And like we were talking about, you finish them more and stuff like that. I'm gonna get the hard don't get the hardback version of yours, your book, and then someday I'll get you to autograph it live. Jenna, thank you so much for the time. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. And Gee, thanks so much for having me. Here we go. We're out. Cool record of Oh, good. How you doing? Yeah, good. That was really good. That was fun. Absolutely fun. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you've got got things in balance. I did not realize that you were, you know, in Lisbon. Yeah.

Jenna Tiffany

Yeah. Well, we had actually planned to leave for some time. We could now if we wanted to, but without being vaccinated. It's just not. June, June, July, June, July after the first one and then second one after that.

Matthew Dunn

Okay. Okay. Well, hopefully, yeah, hopefully Good luck. It's it's not exactly a cakewalk. I got the I got the Pfizer vaccine. First first go around, nothing arm a little sore. Second one. Not bad, but it kind of trashed the trash the next day, like the next day, afternoon evening was like, yeah, I'm not gonna do anything useful. I got most of the day's work done in my body said. Yes. And he said, he's exactly the same right now. Yeah, yeah. But it didn't obviously, completely. Where's it? Oh, yes. But I think I in COVID, right. As well as that. Yeah. No saying nothing except that losing your sense of smell risk. And I know, well, cool. One of these years, we'll end up live at a conference together and that'll Yeah, yep. So I'm actually looking forward to that. And I'm not usually a live conference guy, but email people are so awesome. Yeah, that's gonna be one big party for sure. I think one big party for sure. Well, cool. You have a fantastic evening. We'll get this all you enjoy the rest of your day and stuff and get back in your hands. Okay, awesome. Thanks so much for having me. Enjoy. Thanks, Jenna. Take care. Bye bye.