Welcome to Do This, Not That, the podcast from marketers.

We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode.

We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out.

We are back for the Do This Not That podcast presented by Marigold.

And by the way, we got a bunch of new listeners.

Thanks for being here.

And just you know how we do it. I rip through some tips and tactics really quick. And at the end, we have this section called, since you didn't ask, which is totally ridiculous, which has nothing to do with the Brooklyn Bridge. But anyway, that's the format. So let's jump into what we actually do here, which is get into the thing.

And the thing that we're talking

about is the very start of your email, the very start of your social post, the very start of that

LinkedIn post. This is not about a hook. People get it all wrong. And there's new data I want to share

about the critical, most important thing in those emails and in those social

posts. It's not the content that you're promoting. It's not that sale that you're promoting.

No one cares about the nurture stream. No one cares about your copy and your email. No one cares

about any of it. The thing that we don't pay attention to that changes whether

or not we get engagement is literally the first word of your email subject line, the first

three words on your social media post. This is not about writing a hook. A hook is a whole idea.

Forget about the hook.

We need to take a step back and think about literally what is the first word that we are

using because that is actually what's going to determine whether or not somebody reads the

subject line, reads the social post, opens the thing,

interacts with the thing. And I have some data here on exactly what those first words should be

and why. And now you're like, I'm really going to pay attention to a whole episode about a word

...