SPECIAL SERIES ==> Why Your Listicles Are Failing 🛑 (And How to Fix Them) <== | BATHROOM Break #97 COLLAB: The Marketing Millennials + Do This, Not That

Welcome to a new special series called The Bathroom Brick.

That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marking tips or use the bathroom or

both.

But I don't recommend both, but that's your choice.

This collab is going to be super fun.

We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwettelsen from the Do

This Not That Podcasts at Subjectline.com.

Which episode in this series, we are going to go over with tips about different marking

topics.

And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it.

Thanks for checking it out.

We are back with another bathroom break.

I'm here with the Jay Schwettelsen and I have a question for you, Jay.

One thing that I've noticed over the last year is you seem to get food poisoning more

than the average person.

So what are some tips of avoiding not getting food poisoning?

Because yes, Jay got food poisoning two months ago, he got food poisoning.

Before he's tripping up food poisoning, I don't know how he gets any food poisoning.

Well, first of all, everyone knows I wash my hands because I'm about to get slammed

in the comments like I'm disgusting or something like that.

I do wash my hands.

I think I need to be more focused when I'm ordering food from somewhere or getting food

from somewhere because I'll get like weird fish from places that are not known for like,

you know, fish or something.

And so we're on a plane.

Oh, I had the funniest story about that.

Oh, what do you got?

Naru is pregnant.

We were saying, oh, hey, let's get you more salmon because it's good.

It's omega three.

So we ordered salmon from a Thai place and why would you order salmon from a Thai place?

It's too bad.

And it came and it smelled, she was eating it and we're like freaked out because it's

like beginning of pregnancy.

She starts eating it and after like five bites, she's like, this taste is disgusting.

It smells all of something's wrong.

And I'm like, why didn't you keep eating it and I freaked out?

So we called her dad and said, what should we do?

So we threw away the salmon and he's like, no, fish it out of the trash and put it in

the fridge just in case it was contaminated.

So you could take it out and go get a test.

So we saved this fish, discussing it enough for a day to wait and see if Ari got sick.

It was terrible.

So it's ordering discussing fish is not a good idea.

Well, it's terrible.

Wow, and saving it is never something I would ever recommend.

But maybe saving this episode is worth saving, but a transition.

So what we want to talk about is some small nuances that actually are radical game changes

right now and marketing performance that I'm sure everybody's sleeping on because I

wasn't even aware of some of this stuff until recently.

So I'll drop one first and then then we'll go.

So forever, listicles have been crushing it, meaning the seven things you need to know

about this, the five biggest fashion trends for this, the nine HR rules you need to know.

And everyone's also saying listicles are so great because of AI, it's AI loves picking

up listicles.

But there's a nuance now that is a little bit different of what AI is looking for to

show up in the AI search results.

And also it's working to get your emails opened and clicked on and consumed or your business

or consumer marketer.

And that is focusing on the absolute best, meaning that instead of saying the seven whatever's

or the nine whatever's, it's saying the top three, the number one or the best whatever.

So the best solution for HR software, the number one option for billing whatever, the top

three fashion things you need to know.

As long as it's top three, number one or the best, that is actually what's pulling exponentially

higher on the AI platforms.

And that's actually working better in the email.

So it's like listicle within a listicle.

And so if you're just playing the old play vocal listicles, you're actually not doing

the thing that's actually working better than anything else right now from all the testing

that we're doing.

I'm going to add one about AI to, I had another one, but I'm going to add this one.

One thing that I always was anti is when it comes to writing is using AI to do a lot

of the writing, writing part of the writing.

And what the new ones I want to say is, if you're writing an article or a deep, a deep

article about a topic, what you should be actually doing is going on like perplexity

and cloud and chat, ebt, looking at what is pulled into the resources and use those resources

in your article.

So you become a source of what these AI models want to see is that you, you're helping

curate the internet for them.

So if you write a good article and add this source, this source, this source, it actually

is seen as, okay, this is actually a valuable source.

This person helped me curate a bunch of links and they came up with a new perspective

and actually a great way to write.

So don't, when you're going to writing, use it as a resource too and find links that

perplexity is pulling up, chat, ebt, is pulling up, clause pulling up and put it in your

article.

So I love that one and it literally is the smallest thing to make a difference.

And even if it's something that like you thought was a certain way, I'll give you an example

and then you had almost retested again.

And one of those, I'm seeing in my newsletter, my email newsletter.

So my email newsletter, a newsletter across the board, forever.

I used to even tell people, don't put the addition in your subject line.

Don't be like, you know, they're my newsletter scoop, don't be like scoop number 22 and

then write your subject line because that was like a waste of real estate.

It would perform terribly and just focus on whatever the topic of your newsletter is

all about.

So what we've done though in the last two months, we've been testing head to head using

addition, saying the addition like scoop number 12 and then the subject line versus just

saying the subject line.

And the one where we put it in brackets, we write scoop number 12, we put it in brackets

and then we put the subject line.

The one where we're saying the addition with the brackets, the open rate is about 20% higher

than the one that just has the straight up subject line.

So that is a tactic.

I used to tell people to avoid like the plague and now, now it's working incredibly well.

I think that's a great one.

I think I've tested in the past and I've know people go back and forth on what if that's

actually a good tactic, but I like that it's actually working and I think why it works

as people want to go back to certain additions and they can reference certain additions.

And then also, it also, I think it works very well if you, if you have something that's

very topical or relevant for that time because if it's, if it's something brand new every

single time and it's newsworthy, every single time people want to know, okay, this is number

three, this is the fourth tip, this is five and stuff.

So I like that you're using it and I'm going to test it on another news that I, because

my news that there is not going to be, I don't know how many additions I've done, like

four billion additions.

So wait a minute, I'm just curious about something.

So like, do you normally like, do you eat something at home and you're like, oh, that's

gross.

And you throw it out, do now customarily just because you did once, do you take stuff

out of the garbage on a regular basis now?

No.

Okay.

I'll, I'll give you a, the reason is our, our is dad is an environmental lawyer and

he's seen some crazy toxic stuff and he is very also risk averse of a lot of things that

go to, for example, I think three times a week I get food, recall text messages or email

from our, is that for today I got a cottage cheese recall and me and already did not eat

cottage cheese, but I got an email that says cottage cheese been recalled.

So now I, so he is a, a freak when it comes to that.

So we, when, when we told him he said, save it so we could get tested by the lab.

If you do have this to see what bacteria it is and it's hard, it's crazy.

No, I've never saved it again, because it was stinking up my fridge for a whole day.

It was the worst idea I've ever had.

All right, well, that could work out, well, but either did this episode, not other things

worked out, but we appreciate you being here.

Listen, give Daniel a follow, the marketing millennials follow, do this, not that podcast

and put, put stinky fish in your fridge, do it.

Why not?

Daniel, come on, man, I got to get back to work and get out of there while he's still

in there.

This is Jay.

Check out my podcast, do this, not that for marketers each week we share really quick

tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try.

Oh, here's Daniel.

It's finally out.

Back from my bathroom break, this is Daniel.

Go follow the marketing millennials podcast, but also tune into this series.

It's once a week the bathroom break.

We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out and it could be anything from email,

subject line to any marketing tips in the world.

We'll talk about it.

Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear.

Peace out.

Later.