Ep. 191 - FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNOW! 🧠 AI Trigger Words - WHAT are they and what does it mean??? 📺 NEW SHOWS coming out!! Soooo good! - Jay’s SCOOP

0:08Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately. You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. We'll also dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwetelson. Let's do this, not that.

0:40We are back for Do This Not That podcast presented by Marigold. And today we're talking about something related to AI that is going to impact all of our email marketing. If you're a business marketer, if you're a consumer marketer, if you're small, if you're large, doesn't matter. It also doesn't matter if you know anything about AI. it's going to impact the email marketing that you are sending out to your database. And it's this idea of AI trigger words. There are certain words and phrases that in the next 60 to 90 days, all the different email systems that are out there are going to be looking for these words and phrases.

1:23All the AI built-in tools into all the different email systems out there are going to be looking for these words and phrases in the emails that you're sending out. And if these words and phrases are in your emails that you're sending out, your emails are going to get prioritized in people's inboxes. If these words and phrases are not in the emails that you're sending out, they're going to get deprioritized. So this idea of AI trigger word lists is going to be coming out everywhere soon. You know, for years, we've heard of spam trigger words. Spam trigger words are these lists that people put together that, by the way, are total garbage, where they tell you, oh, don't put the word free in your subject line because it's spammy and you'll go to the junk folder or the spam folder.

2:09That's not true. That was true 10 years ago. That's a myth. That's a relic from the past. You don't go to the junk folder, spam folder because of the words that you're writing. You go there because you have lack of engagement. So there are these spam trigger lists, right? Spam trigger word lists. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about AI trigger word lists that are going to benefit your marketing, right? So if you go on ChatGPT right now, you could do this right now, okay? And you go on ChatGPT and you ask ChatGPT this question, will there be AI trigger words and phrases that email systems will be using to prioritize email within inboxes.

2:56You go ahead. You ask ChatGPT that question and you tell me what they give you back in terms of the answer. I'm going to tell you what they give you back. All right. Here's the answer. ChatGPT writes you back. It says, yes, AI-based email systems will be using trigger words and phrases to prioritize email and inboxes. These phrases will not only be identified by AI in email clients, but will also be prioritized to ensure recipients see them first. So what does that all mean? When you ask ChatGPT, that's AI. Are these AI trigger words a thing? It's telling you, yeah, it's a big thing that's coming.

3:38And that's how emails are going to get prioritized. Why does this all matter? What am I even talking about? Well, we all know that Apple, okay, is releasing their new phone. Their new phone is coming out very soon. And part of that is that they're releasing their new update to iOS. iOS 18 is coming out. That's the operating system that we all use on our phones. That's how we check our email and we go and we use apps. So iOS 18 is coming out in the next few weeks. Okay. And part of that is a massive update to the mail app on your phone. That's the blue icon that has the little envelope on it that you click on that icon to read your email.

4:21Now, it doesn't matter if you have a Gmail address or a work address or whatever. According to Litmus, 47 % of all email is read using the Apple Mail app. In this new update for iOS 18 that's coming out, the updates to the Mail app, Apple is going to be introducing tabs in their email. There's going to be a primary tab, a transactions tab, an updates tab, a promotions tab. And Apple's going to be using AI to determine what emails should go into what bucket, right? So depending on what is written in your emails, it's going to determine should you go into the promotions tab? Should you go into the primary tab?

5:05Obviously, the two best tabs that you want to try to stay in are going to be the primary tab or the updates tab. If you wind up with all your email in the promotions tab, you're going to have a rough time getting people to read your emails. So how do you get into that primary tab and that updates tab? What Apple is going to be looking for, what Gmail is also going to be looking for, because they're updating all of their AI stuff, are these AI trigger words. That doesn't mean it needs to be the dominant form of copy in everything that you're writing, but it needs to be these critical phrases and words that need to appear within your messaging.

5:43So let me give you some examples, whether you're a business marketer or consumer marketer of what AI trigger words can be. So for example, in your email, if it says something like, you know, registration confirmed, if it says meeting invite, if it says important update, new feature, preview, exclusive invitation you know three days left subscription details priority access basically things that are uh making it appear and they should be truthful obviously that the information this email is important that is not just some piece of promotional garbage right and so you have to cater your urgency and the way that you're writing your copy to speak to the way that these AI tools are looking for stuff.

6:29It's not just that you could just write whatever you want. And because you wrote a really nice thing, it's going to go in that primary tab of that updates tab. You need to make sure these keywords and these phrases are in there. And you can go back to ChatGPT right now, right? And you could say, what are the AI trigger words that the email systems are going to be looking for to prioritize emails as this all rolls out? And it'll actually give you a list of the words and phrases. It's that simple. But as you head into 2025, if you're not really considering the impact that these updates to Gmail and Yahoo and Apple Mail and Outlook and all of it leveraging AI, if you're not considering what they're doing to prioritize the emails as they're coming in and you just have your head down and you're writing the emails the way that you've always done that, you're going to lose.

7:23You will lose out because you will wind up in the Promotions tab. You will get none of your stuff in the Primary tab or the Updates tab, and that's a fail. So AI trigger word lists are coming. All right, before we get into Since You Didn't Ask, let's talk about that this podcast is presented by Marigold. Now, I like talking about Marigold. Marigold is an email sending platform. It's a loyalty marketing platform. Maybe you have one of those, but I'm telling you right now, it's not as good is what Marigold is. I use Marigold. I've used Marigold for years. You need to check them out at meetmarigold.com, not just because I send out my email with them, but because they're awesome.

8:00And speaking of awesome, they have a new piece of content that they are now making available. You can go to jschwedelson.com slash Marigold, and they just released five steps for selecting the right email marketing platform. You don't like your email marketing platform. I feel it. I feel it through whatever you're listening through. You don't like it. So you want to hear the five steps. And this is not Marigold telling you they're awesome. They're telling you the five steps that you need to know about. So you go to jschwedelson.com slash Marigold and you can get this thing. All right, let's get into since you didn't ask.

8:33All right, for new listeners, this is the portion of this podcast that is totally ridiculous and 100 % useless. And there's nothing I could do about it, but it's the way I am. So this week, some of the best TV of the year is coming out and I'm very, very excited about all the new shows coming out. Let me tell you some of the shows that are coming out this week. This is awesome. First of all, Dancing with the Stars is coming out and it has Tori Spelling is going to be on there. Jen from The Bachelorette is going to be on there. Anna Delvey is going to be a dancer. Who's Anna Delvey? You don't remember her.

9:07Remember the show on Netflix, Inventing Anna, where there was that woman who was like a con artist and went to jail. She's going to be on it. She's wearing an anklet because she's under house arrest. She's going to be on it. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is back. That's one of the best Real Housewives. Those people are out of their minds. So the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is back. Survivor is back for their four billionth season. Okay. I'm very excited about the Penguin. That's coming to max. That is the Batman spinoff about the Penguin character and Colin Farrell is going to be on it.

9:39And he was also in the Batman movie. That's going to be incredible. and then the last thing the most important thing clearly is that this week the golden bachelorette yes this is real everybody should be watching the golden bachelorette this is going to unite this country this is fantastic i'm very excited about this and if you've never listened to this before and you're like wait a minute what just happened what are we talking about um yeah that this is where we're at this is what we talk about here so sorry anyway so it's gonna be a very busy week for me. I have a lot of TV to watch. I'm very excited about it.

10:10I'm also very excited about Guru Conference, the world's largest email event. It's free. It's virtual. It's coming up October 16th and 17th. Do you realize not only is it all about email, we have Sarah Jessica Parker and all these people, we're doing a live, I'm not kidding, a live eating competition. Joey Chestnut is going to be doing a live eating competition against a group of marketers, myself included, and we're going to be eating spam against Joey Chestnut. Come on, you want to be there. GuruConference.com. We're running out of spots. Be there, be square. Keep it real. Thanks for being here.

10:43You did it. You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over. Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketers. And hook us up with a five-star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time. Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100 % free, visit guruevents.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Damon John, Martha Stewart, and me. Guruevents.com. Check it out.