— The Worst Mistake in the History of Marketing —

This was the first episode of a podcast I started that I ended up not continuing.

Instead, I launched the best product in the history of marketing: the daily audios with OURS.

Still, the episode is brilliant and will show you the worst mistake in the history of marketing that a huge NBA team made, and how you're probably doing it without realizing it.

Enjoy it, apply it, and keep moving forward.

Rafael DaVentys

— Transcript —

Hello my friend. Hope you're doing great. Welcome to episode number one of this podcast. Yes, this is the very first episode.

And well, before I tell you a story, a true story that can help you a ton with your stuff and you'll soon understanf why, I want to give you a brief introduction. As brief as this. I'm Rafael DaVentys. Nice to meet you.

This first episode is called The Worst Mistake in the History of Marketing That You Are Almost Certainly Making Too.

Or maybe you're making it right now without even realizing it. Because yes, the vast majority of businesses I work with or come across are doing it. So when you hear the story I'm about to tell you, you'll understand.

Let me set the scene.

Look, in the early nineties, in the last century, in 1990, there was a NBA team called The New Jersey Nets. They currently still operate, but not under that name. They have another one, the Brooklyn Nets. The thing is, this team had a very "intelligent" way, "extraordinarily intelligent", as you'll see, of cutting costs.

Every season, they decided that to save space on the hard drive, they would delete the data from the previous season, of all the spectators who had gone to see them.

I mean, they had full names, addresses, phone numbers, everything right there, of people who had paid thousands of dollars to go see basketball games live.

So, they decided, some geniuses in the marketing department I guess (whose everyone knows are the ones who know the least about marketing), they decided that that data had to be deleted every year. So this story, which is a true story, is considered one of the biggest mistakes in the history of marketing.

I mean, this is something that comes up quite often just to laugh at these people, at how clueless they were. And because it is a mistake that maybe you're making.

Look, most people, when they start a business are obsessed with social media.

Anything against it?

No.

But what happens?

The social media is the social media business. So if you base everything there, the social media can ban you, cancel your account, sell it to a Chinese company and forget about it.

It's possible that increasingly, the algorithm prevents you from communicating with your audience unless you raise your advertising costs or whatever. This means you have a very fragile business, because social media is their business, not yours.

So what does a smart business do?

It feeds its own database.

It doesn't delete it like these animals. I repeat, they feed their database.

It's a tremendous mistake. If you have a business or plan to start one, not to feed this, your database, to have a landing page and capture the email so that you can communicate with them whenever you want, whoever you want, and whatever you want, without depending on third parties.

That makes your business resilient. I mean, it's an antifragile business. A business that depends on you. Plus, email marketing, when used well, is extraordinarily profitable.

You can see this yourself in my newsletter.

The point is, the concept I want you to stick with is that if you don't have the data of your potential clients, if the followers are only on Instagram, TikTok, or any other social media, if they are not yours, your business is much more fragile. Your business is much more dependent, and your business is going to rely on many more things that you won't be able to control.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be on social media or that you shouldn't milk them.

That is, taking advantage of them to drive people to your landing page in exchange for some kind of incentive. Get them to register, and be able to have that data to communicate with. That will make your business much stronger and much more profitable.

More and more businesses around the world are understanding this because this is how it is.

I mean, you have to build your own audience. You cannot depend on any third parties. I tell you this because people come to me and say, damn, Rafa, I'm not gonna invest, let's say for a small list, one hundred and fifty dollars a month in an email marketing tool and all that.

And honestly, with that mindset, you're going nowhere. I mean, invest in that.

If you have a business, and you can't invest in maintaining a small database, honestly, think about other things you can do until then.

But you have to feed your database. You can't do what these people did, deleting the names and data of all these people every season to save hard drive space. That's horrible. That's possibly the biggest mistake a company can make. The biggest mistake of all.

And now people are making it not because they are deleting the data, but because they aren't collecting it. And that's where you are probably making the mistake too.

"Oh, one hundred thousand people follow me on Instagram. Perfect."

How much money do you make?

How do you monetize it?

Those Instagram followers are there and tomorrow they stop paying attention to you and you don't even realize it. You can't communicate whenever you want and whoever you want in the same ways as with your list, because maybe your reach is lower or because, as I told you before, your account gets banned or because Instagram simply shuts down.

I mean, there are many elements that are out of your control, so you have to build your list. That's just how it is. If you aren't collecting the data yourself and are leaving this in the hands of third parties, you are making a very big mistake. And someday you will remember this if you don't take this action and start thinking about the importance of building your own list of subscribers.

We'll talk later about how you can monetize it, which is basically by sending emails, good emails, you know, well writing, good persuasion, whatever. But I don't want to ramble on too much. I just want to tell you that this has been the first episode of the podcast, and if you know someone who might be interested in this, tell them to listen to it. Send them the link to the podcast and have them listen.

You know?

Someone who has a business, who is going to have one, who's very involved in social media, whatever. Share it with them.

Say:

"Look, listen to this guy. Look at this link."

And that's it. And I want to tell you that I've been sending a daily email for over a year, every day, without missing a single day, sending a daily email with a persuasion and a sales tip.

Subscribing is free, unsubscribing is also free. And I'm telling you, this week I'm going to share something amazing that if you have a business, you will surely take advantage of.

In any case, I know that whenever it is, if you subscribe at Ventys.io you will receive a tip every day.

Anyway, I don't want to keep you any longer. Have a great day.