Jay Schwedelson: We are back for ask us anything from the Do This, NOT That! podcast. This is our super short episode. We get questions in all week long. We get in work questions, we get in ridiculous questions. We try to tackle one of each. And if you wanna submit a question, just go to jayschwedelson.com. There's a button that says podcast, another one that says Ask us anything.

Jay Schwedelson: And that's how we do it. So let's jump into it. Let's do the work question first. We got a question from Danny. From Hicksville, New York, Hicksville. I know how ridiculous that sounds. I know exactly where that is. 'cause I did grow up on Long Island. I moved to Florida when I was 15 and I grew up in an area called Jericho, New York, and Hicksville was right near there.

Jay Schwedelson: I always thought that. Hicksville, it was like a few miles away from Jericho. Had possibly the worst name of any town, city, whatever you call it. I mean, Hicksville, uh, it was because some dude's last name was Hicks. I think that's what happened. But regardless, you like you tell somebody from Hicksville and you're like, okay, well that's a you problem anyway.

Jay Schwedelson: Danny, what do you got besides for living in Hicksville? Jay? What is the thing almost every marketer sleeps on that you think can have a big impact quickly? All right, well this is a good one. I like this one a lot. I'm gonna tell you what it is, and everyone's like, what? What's he talking about? And it's a little bit of an old school tactic, but I am telling you, you're sleeping on it.

Jay Schwedelson: And that is in your email marketing for business marketers and consumer markers. I'm gonna give you examples, okay? And that is having a branded. From name or a functional from name, you're like, what? I am not talking about your sending email address. When you send out an email campaign, your newsletter, a promotional email.

Jay Schwedelson: Again, business consumer, nonprofit, doesn't matter. You're sending out that campaign from an email address, right? You know, marketing@acme.com offers@nonprofit.com. Who cares? At whatever.com that is your sending email address. But then you have a from name, right? So if your email is coming from Mark marketing@acme.com, the from name of what actually shows up in the inbox that people see might just be Acme.

Jay Schwedelson: I'm saying Acme. 'cause that's like a fake company, right? It might just say Acme and over 80% of all promotional and newsletter emails that go out. Don't use the from name for anything other than just their core brand. It just says Acme, or just says Skims, or it just says HP. It doesn't say anything else.

Jay Schwedelson: Now here's what people don't understand, why we should be thinking about this differently. You should be having. Different from names, depending on the type of email that you're sending out and doing. This one tactic, and I explained to you how to do it, can actually lift your email open rates for your promotional emails, for your newsletter.

Jay Schwedelson: Emails well over 15% and it takes three seconds, costs you no money, and does not have any negative impact on deliverability. It actually helps. So what does that mean? Okay. Let's say you are promoting a. A webinar. Ooh, I hate the w word. Webinars are gross. But let's just say you're promoting a webinar. When that email comes out from your company, let's say it was from my company, does it just say, you know, Guru?

Jay Schwedelson: Okay. And then, then the subject line says, join this webinar, whatever. Or does it say, you know, Guru, live Guru event? When you add into the from name, which you actually could change every time you would send 'cause on every email platform on the planet, it doesn't matter how big, small, whatever, you can actually change what is called the friendly from.

Jay Schwedelson: Or the alias on your sending email address. You're not changing your sending email address. You're just changing that from name. And what you wanna do is, depending on the type of email you're sending out, you want it to be different. So if your newsletter's coming out from your organization. It's just coming from Acme and that's it.

Jay Schwedelson: That's a fail 'cause that's the first thing that people look at. It should be Acme FYI. If you're trying to get them to go to an event, it should be Acme invite and you leave the same exact sending address. You don't change your sending address at all. You just change that branded from name and it couldn't be easier.

Jay Schwedelson: And on the consumer side, same thing. Instead of, let's say your, your company name or consumer said you sold a direct to consumer product. Let's say it was called Acme. When you have a special offer, something that just drops something new, whatever it should be, Acme in that from name in that branded from name, not changing the sending address.

Jay Schwedelson: You change it to Acme just in or Acme New Drop or Acme. Now live, if you are not basically branding in that. From name area you are leaving, one of the most critical piece of real estate that you have to get your email engagement going. 'cause the first people thing people see is that from name. You can't just have it be your brand for everything that you do.

Jay Schwedelson: That's how you become wallpaper. And this one tactic, it actually can lift rates well over 15%. Okay. That's the, that's the lowest amount. If you're not doing that and you're not kind of like breaking apart, these are our promotional emails. These are our newsletter emails. These are our event emails. And then adding that branded element into that from name that alias, you're missing the boat.

Jay Schwedelson: And then the last piece of that is. If you have something really important, really important that you're sending out, have it come from your CEO, have it come from your SVP, you know J from Guru, you actually, right? JJAY, and then FROM, you know, Guru. And that could be your branded from name. It's still coming from the same sending address.

Jay Schwedelson: Now you can't have like 15 of these, I think three to four max. You know, your newsletter, promotional emails, maybe an event email, something like that. And those are three different branded kind of versions that you have, and that's it. 'cause you have too many people get confused, then they start complaining.

Jay Schwedelson: It becomes a mess. Three or four is the way to go. Sorry, before we get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast, I wanted to let you know this podcast is sponsored by CallRail. Now, CallRail gave me a whole script I'm supposed to read. Okay. I'm supposed to read this whole thing telling you how awesome they are.

Jay Schwedelson: I'm not gonna do that because I know how awesome they are and I want you to check them out. You're like, oh, it's not for my business. I don't make phone calls. That's not what CallRail does. Okay. Every single call that your organization receives or does make, every text that your organization gets, every chat message, every form fill, every campaign, everything, uh uh, uh, CallRail uses AI to analyze these conversations and capture these leads 24 7.

Jay Schwedelson: It is wild how much it changes your business, and because of this show right here, they're often a free trial. A free trial. I almost fell off my chair when I said it. A free trial for CallRail. All you gotta do is go to callrail.com/dothis callrail.com/dothis for the free trial. If you're not checking this out, you are a nerd.

Jay Schwedelson: Alright, let's get onto the ridiculous question. We got a question in from Melinda, from Pittsburgh. All right. You know what I love about Pittsburgh is that they, people, I don't know how true this is, but when I was there, I did this multiple times. Um, they stick french fries in their sandwiches in Pittsburgh.

Jay Schwedelson: Like, why don't we do that everywhere? French fries and sandwiches is awesome anyway. Not your question, Jay. You wrote in your newsletter, your email newsletter lately that you tried acupuncture and you also started meditating. This doesn't sound like you, what's going on? Oh, why's it not sound like me?

Jay Schwedelson: Because it's totally like woo woo and like out there. Um, yeah, this is true. So. I don't know. I would say in the last few months, I decided that I needed to do more things to try to chill out. I don't, I, I'm not a good chiller outer at like at all. I don't like getting massages. I never have. I don't know why my wife likes getting massage.

Jay Schwedelson: First of all, they're very expensive, but second of all, it's just like. I'm always waiting for it to be over. And she's like, you don't relax ever. So she's like, you gotta start trying to figure out ways to relax. So first I started meditating in the morning, and I know what that sounds like to some people, but I'm telling you, this has been great.

Jay Schwedelson: I get up, I don't look at my phone. I have this meditation app, and then I, I meditate for either about 10 minutes every morning. So that's pretty cool. But I'm like, this is not enough. I need to go further. I wanna try other things. So my wife, who's a doctor, she's a dermatologist and she's very healthy.

Jay Schwedelson: She's like, you should try acupuncture. I said, really? Come on, needles. The whole thing. I'm not scared of needles, but I'm like, really? Are we really doing this? She's like, I love it. It's the best. Whatever. So this last weekend she took me to a place where she does it, and I went there and it was the coolest thing, the most zen environment you go in, you're like, Ooh, this is chill.

Jay Schwedelson: And then they take you to this room, right? I take off my shirt and stuff. And then, um, uh, the dude's like. Asked me questions about life and all this stuff. He's like, what's up? And I'm like, I, I think I have stress and whatever. He is like, all right, I got you. And then you lie down. And then he starts sticking needles all over my back and in my head, straight into my head.

Jay Schwedelson: It didn't hurt, but I was like, well, I got needles in my head. So that was pretty weird. And then he goes, are you open to cupping? I go. I don't know what that means. And I go, I'm open to anything. So all of a sudden he's putting these like glass cups on my back that're like, I don't know, three inches in diameter, two inch diameter, I don't know, all over my back.

Jay Schwedelson: And I hear this like suction noise, whatever. And then he leaves the, the cups on my back for like, I don't know, four minutes or something like that with the needles. And he disappears. And then he comes back and they do all this other stuff with like noise and smelly stuff and whatever, and then they take the cups off and they take the needles out and I felt great.

Jay Schwedelson: I felt awesome. The weirdest part though is I, you, you have to Google cupping. Then I looked in the mirror when I got home on my back. It looked like I was from another planet. You got these big red, weird circles on your back, which was fine. I could care less, so I'm trying more stuff. I've tried cryo stuff where you go in like the freezing thing I've done.

Jay Schwedelson: Saunas, you could hit me up. Drop me in the comments. What else should I try? I will try. Anything because who cares? It's all somebody's gotta have it figured out. So I give acupuncture and cupping a thumbs up. I know that's random, but I'm down to try anything 'cause I need to chill out. I, I mean, I just need to straight up chill out 'cause I'm up.

Jay Schwedelson: Off. I'm losing it. Anyway, appreciate you being here. I would appreciate if you go to jayschwedelson.com. We are lining up our brand partnerships and um, my speaking gigs and anything else you think you might wanna do with me. We're lining that for the next six months. If you go to jayschwedelson.com, there's a button on the top right that says, partner, I wanna partner with you.

Jay Schwedelson: This is the time. Let's do stuff. Let's hang out. You rock later.