What’s Up THIS WEEK?! NEW AI Must Do’s, 1990s Impact, Subject Line Tips, TV Recos? | Ep. 491

0:01Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast for 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 what's up this week from the Do This Not That podcast. This is our short episode where we break down what's going on this week in marketing and business and life. So let's get into it. So saw this data that just came out this week from Digital Applied. And it's kind of interesting. Basically, what they're showing is that in all the different AI overviews in Google or the AI answers, any of the tools you use, like ChatGPT or Claude or whatever, that those offers that you have on your site or in your content, those pieces of content that you put out there, consumer or business, if they start with an actual number, like the seven questions to ask your cloud security provider or nine hiring criteria for your next fractional CMO.

0:58or four ingredients in your face wash that are actually drying your skin. If they start with an actual number, AI overviews are picking them up at the highest rate of any content type, roughly 21.9 % of the time, according to their new data. Now, this shouldn't be shocking because we know about listicles forever and we know about putting numbers at the start of your subject lines, but now there's data to support having basically your blog titles, all of your content titles, everything starting with a number because it's allowing you to show up in AI more. Now, probably the most strangest new tactic that we saw come out this week from my team at World Data Research is actually related to subject lines and email marketing.

1:46And I bet you it's a test you have never tried. It is starting your subject line with one of these three words, okay? starting your subject line with the word and, the word but, or the word plus. This is actually increasing email open rates by about 15 % and it's bizarre. It creates the most poorly written email subject lines, but it's so different and it catches people a little bit off guard that there's a curiosity there. So for example, what would that look like? Your subject line would literally start with the word and. And it would say, and this beat our best campaign ever. or and yes, dot, dot, dot, this skincare routine actually works.

2:27Or it could be if you're using the word but, you would have your subject line say, but your pipeline problem is fixable. Or plus, plus your early access starts now. It's these things that kind of get you to stop that social scroll in your inbox. And if you really want it to work, capitalize the word and, but, or plus, all the letters in that word, and you'll see a nice lift. So another thing related to showing up in AI, saw this data come out from Bradley Bartlett, where one of the tactics that's working really, really well, and they're stating that this actually is increasing your show up rates in answers on when AI is giving back answers to whatever you're asking it.

3:10It's showing up 45 to 60 % more when you do comparison style content on your site and in your content of any kind, like X versus Y type content. It is radically changing your show up rate. So for example, when the AI overviews or the different LLMs and the AI tools are looking for stuff, they're looking for comparison queries. It's one of the number one things that they're looking for. So if your content actually speaks to this, it will look for it and pull that up. What does that look like? You know, HubSpot versus Salesforce. Which CRM actually drives pipeline in 2026? Email marketing compared to SMS.

3:48Which delivers higher ROI in B2B? Or Skims versus Spanx. Which is worth it for everyday wear? Of course, we all know the answer to that one. I have no idea what the answer to that one is. Anyway, other randomness that I saw. So I know the 1990s are it. right for like the last two months or so the 1990s are like the thing i lived through the 90s okay i was in high school in the 90s they were all right i don't know why everyone's so hot on well i do know why everyone's so hot up but now it's actually turning into revenue so really all came out of sort of uh the tv show with uh uh the love story john f kenny jr and carol and beset which was a great show terrible tragic horrible but the show is very very well done so levi's for example okay They just reported their revenue for the quarter, and they saw this massive increase in sales.

4:42And they're actually somewhat attributing it to the fact that there's this renewed interest in 90s lifestyle and the popularity of the TV show. And to give you one example of how crazy it is, their 517 jeans, which is like a popular old school style, Carolyn Bissett wore these jeans. they saw a 25 % increase in the sales just from this quarter for that gene type. I will tell you, there are other things from the 90s that I'm not into that are going on. So I know Coachella just happened and I didn't go, but I was very into it because there was a lot of great singers there, whatever. A lot of 90s people were there.

5:21What's his name? Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins was there, which was so cool. Okay. But then people were doing things like Kylie Jenner, who I generally don't have a problem with. She's one of the Kardashians, but she posted on social media herself smoking a cigarette. Now, listen, you smoke a cigarette, you do you, whatever, but I don't think this is a trend that we need to bring back. And when people like Kylie Jenner, who have hundreds of millions of followers, their literally first image on their social post is her smoking because it was cool in the 90s. I don't think we need to bring back stuff from the 90s that was bad for you and have these mega influencers doing that.

5:59So I don't like that. That was not cool. I'll tell you what was cool and people are giving him heat for it. Justin Bieber was at Coachella and he did the coolest thing. Okay. He kind of did this. I don't know if it was 90s. I don't remember when the, when his music came out or whatever, but he's getting called lazy for his performance at Coachella. And I don't agree. He went on YouTube on stage and he pull up every one of his old songs and he sang with his old songs like you know baby it was awesome and anybody that says he's lazy you stink i don't like you i don't know what to tell you all right let's get into oh before we get to the ridiculous portion of this podcast which i have ridiculous things to tell you about going on in the world i want to tell you about the sponsor of this thing it is knack k-n-a-k i love knack my company uses knack for building and executing our emails on our landing pages.

6:48Here's the deal. Here's the truth. And this is different than the ad copy they gave me. If you are using, okay, the same tool to send out your email marketing, if you're using the same tool to send out your email marketing to actually build the emails that you're sending out, you are not using the best in class. You are not using the latest and greatest. Knack is that thing. You should be building your emails, your landing pages in the ultimate tool using the ultimate AI that can help you do it. And you don't need to know how to code anything. Knack is ridiculously good. You don't need to go back and forth on Slack 400 times and try to do a square peg round hole into your ESP that doesn't have all the bells and whistles to actually get your emails designed properly and out the door.

7:40go to knack.com k-n-a-k.com slash demo i am telling you it's worth a few minutes of your time knack.com slash demo all right let's get into the ridiculous stuff going on out there so i saw xo kitty season three is out i don't care about this believe it or not no none of you care i actually watched xo kitty season one it was okay season two was unwatchable unwatchable and now this show is the number one show on Netflix. Forget about it. You know, I never got a chance to talk about the Artemis 2, but there's something about the Artemis 2. You know, we went to the moon and came back and all that stuff, which was awesome.

8:21It was so cool. But then I went on social media and I saw a bunch of doofuses saying that it was staged, that it wasn't real. I want to tell you something. If you're one of these people that in the Artemis 2, the whole thing was staged and they didn't really go to outer space, please unfollow me unconnect for me i don't like you you are ridiculous i'll tell you another thing i won't be watching i won't be watching the season three of euphoria on hbo not because i have any issue with uh sydney sweeney or zendaya or any of them first of all it's it's too much it's all too much and then also for some reason i know zendaya and sydney sweeney don't get along i don't know why this is in real life they don't get along i don't know why i don't like watching movies or shows when I know the stars of the shows don't like each other.

9:09Something about it takes away from the show for me. What a weird thing to talk about. I don't know. Anyway, this is all really important stuff. Hopefully you go, you follow the show, do this, not that. And what else? Go to jschwedelson.com. There's a button in the upper right-hand corner that says, partner, we are working on our collabs for the rest of the year. I want to partner with you on my agency to work you and we'll see you at the next one later. Wait, the party is not over. Go to jayschwedelson.com because I want to do stuff with you. I want to partner with you. When you click on the button, partner with Jay, you let me know what you got going on.

9:47Work with my agency, work with me directly, get access to all of my free resources at jayschwedelson.com. And I got a book coming out this April. It's called Stupider People Have Done It. And all of the net proceeds are going to the the foundation for cancer research. Go on Amazon, buy stupider people have done it. That way you can help kick cancer's butt with me. And if this podcast wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to, it might've been, leave it a review, follow the show. You are awesome. Go out there and crush it.