Jay Schwedelson: We are back for ask us anything from the Do This, NOT That! podcast. This is our short episode. We're all week long. We get in Word questions, we get in ridiculous questions. We try to tackle one of each. If you wanna submit a question, it's really easy. Just go to jayschwedelson.com. There's a button that says podcast.

Jay Schwedelson: Another one says, ask us anything. That's where we get the question. So before we get to the ridiculous question, let's do the work question. We got a question from Jordan. From Little Rock, Arkansas. What up? Arkansas? Uh, Jordan, what do you got, Jay? We tried putting the top 10 things to know about our industry as a blog, post title and ours, our subject line, and it did okay.

Jay Schwedelson: Not great. I thought numbers do really well. When you included in all of your marketing, what did we do wrong? Okay. Great topic. And I have a lot of new data to share in this. I'm very excited. Numbers, a lot of you can tune out. You're like numbers, what are we about to talk about? But this works for business marketers, consumer marketers, nonprofit marketers, and these little things I'm about to tell you about how to use numbers are gonna blow your mind.

Jay Schwedelson: So Worldata Research was my research group from my agency where we do, you know, thousands of different marketing domain. We're always looking at stuff. So that's where this data comes from. So, for example, we talk about numbers, and I'm gonna talk about all sorts of different ways to use them. But let's say I was trying to get you to subscribe to a newsletter and one landing page said, Hey, subscribe to our newsletter, another landing page, the B version of that landing page.

Jay Schwedelson: Instead of saying subscribe to our newsletter, it said, join 57,542 other leaders that are reading this amazing newsletter. Which one would you be more likely to respond to? The one that said 57,492. Other leaders. 'cause it's very, very, very specific. When you are weirdly specific in anything that you are doing in any of the marketing that you are doing, it does incredibly well.

Jay Schwedelson: So to give you an idea, let's say you are promoting a newsletter. You can put on that landing page, or you could put in the email or on the social post, join 12,847 other marketers who are reading this. Or let's say you have a product. Okay, join 9,113 other people that are enjoying these socks. Whatever it is that you are promoting, a newsletter, a webinar, a content piece, a a, a consumer product, uh, the number of donors that are donating to something when you are weirdly specific, okay?

Jay Schwedelson: Believe it or not, specific numbers versus generic numbers like. 9,122 versus 10,000, even though 10 thousand's higher specific numbers increase, uh, engagement by over 15% versus generic numbers. Generic numbers make it feel like it's not real. Now, a lot of times when we think about numbers, we're using them at the start of our hook, right?

Jay Schwedelson: We're using them as, as a listicle of some kind. The 11 ways this failed, the nine outfits that made people look. The 13 tests that actually worked, the seven things all HR leaders need to know. Here's the secret sauce thing that you always need to know. Whatever it is you're promoting, that listicle, that thing you want, people downloaded that sale, right?

Jay Schwedelson: Uh uh, the anything, whatever it is, and you're starting it out. That blog post, you're starting out, you should start with a number, that subject line. You're starting it out with a number, that podcast title. You're starting out with the number, but. Do not allow that number to end in a zero or a five. It can't be the number 10.

Jay Schwedelson: It can't be the number 25. Number like nine 11. That is what you're looking for. Seven, four. Anything that doesn't end in a zero or five, believe it or not, we consider those round numbers, zero or five non round numbers at the start of a subject line, a blog post, a podcast title, any content piece. Actually increase engagement over 22% versus those that are a zero or a five.

Jay Schwedelson: I know this is crazy and ridiculous and all this nonsense, but it actually works. The other one is this actual real, uh, uh, s psychological thing called the Pratfall Effect. Okay? The Pratfall Effect is like a legit psychology term, and what it is it's all about is that when there are some numbers that show flaws.

Jay Schwedelson: They're more believable than perfect numbers. What do I mean by this? When I say the pratfall effect, alright, if you are going and you're looking at, um, uh, you're gonna order, you're going to order some, an Uber Eats, okay? You're looking at a restaurant review, a Google review, right? You're looking at a Google Review for the plumbing company that you want to hire for your house.

Jay Schwedelson: If you go on there and you see it as a 5.0 rating. Okay. Or if that same company had a 4.8 rating, believe it or not, the one with the 4.8 rating versus the 5.0 rating will actually do better. We'll actually get more business, more calls. It is more believable when you are not perfect. A lot of people get nervous, like for example, uh, my podcast, right?

Jay Schwedelson: If you go on Apple, and this is not being a flex or whatever, I have a 4.9 rating out of five. On my podcast reviews, you probably are gonna give it a one. Now we'll go down to 4.7 I, whatever. But I have a 4.9 rating. Okay. For a while I had a 5.0 rating and it went down to 4.9 and oddly okay. Weirdly, we actually got more sponsors interested in in sponsoring the podcast.

Jay Schwedelson: When it went down to 4.9, it is more, I had nothing to do with it. I just got some bad reviews, ironically. But it is more believable. Everybody can't love what you're doing. Okay? So actually having reviews and highlighting them that are not perfect does really, really, really well. It's so odd how that works.

Jay Schwedelson: The other one that people sleep on is negative numbers. Loss framing actually crushes it, and I'll tell you exactly what I mean. But here's the stat. Negative numbers, for example, in your subject lines and your blog post titles, and in your sale titles will actually lead to about a 10% boost in engagement.

Jay Schwedelson: So imagine you saw a subject line that says something like this down 17%, dot, dot dot. Until we fix this or lost 22% of clicks overnight, it's almost like, I feel bad saying it this way. It's almost like rubbernecking. When you're on the highway and you see an accident, you don't want anything bad to happen, but everyone slows down.

Jay Schwedelson: That's why traffic occurs. 'cause everybody's looking at it like, oh, what happened? That's not good. Right? When you see negative numbers and it's framed as a negative way in that, uh, uh. Podcast title in that subject line in that whatever it gets us to do, that millisecond pause and it works. It's really strange.

Jay Schwedelson: The other one that is the weirdest one that we're testing right now, a lot of which is the strangest thing in the world, is using, uh, things like, uh, like 3.5 subject line tricks, like in the subject line as a subject line. We're doing that in our marketing, right? Or 4.8 things you should know. It is ridiculous.

Jay Schwedelson: It makes no sense. What do you mean? 4.8 things I should know? Three and a half subject lines tricks to try. It makes no sense, but it gets the person to pause and we're still testing through this, but we're actually seeing it lift open rates a lot on a lot of the email marketing that we're doing, so I'm not advocating for doing this whole decimal thing yet, but it is pretty, pretty wild.

Jay Schwedelson: Alright, before we get into the ridiculous question, I want to let you know that this podcast is sponsored by a company called Knak. k-n- Listen, we have all spent a zillion hours designing email campaigns and landing pages, and we're trying to find the person at our company that knows how to code stuff, and they're busy.

Jay Schwedelson: They're out to lunch, they're out sick. Oh no. Our email's gonna take three more weeks to get done. It takes forever. So my company switched over to Knak platform. Their platform is. You don't need to know how to code anything. You could design all your emails, your landing pages. They have this collaboration tool.

Jay Schwedelson: They now have this AI thing. You could even just talk to it and say what you want your email to look like, and Knak spits it out. Some of the biggest brands on the planet use Knak. I am telling you, it is radically changed how fast we can get our emails done, what they look like. It is incredible. If you don't know Knak, go to k-n-

Jay Schwedelson: a-k.com/demo. That's knak.com/demo. I love what they're doing. All right. Let's get into the ridiculous question. So, um, over time, I don't know why people submit, uh, dating advice questions, but on the form, on my website, on jayschwedelson.com, we get a lot of people submitting questions that they want me to answer about dating advice.

Jay Schwedelson: First off, I know I'm gonna answer them right now. We have a series of them. We group them together. Uh, I have not read them. So I'm gonna read them for the first time. Now, my team grabbed them together, but I will tell you, you should not listen to me about dating advice because first of all, I'm an old nerd.

Jay Schwedelson: Second of all, I've been married. I have the greatest marriage. My wife is the greatest human being of all time. I've been married for 22 years. I don't know anything about dating and my teenage kids, um, that are, uh, 18 and well not, and 20 not teenage. When they talk to me about dating, I don't know what they're talking about.

Jay Schwedelson: I'm clueless, but I will give you my advice because here we are. But take it with a grain of salt 'cause I don't know what I'm talking about. Alright, here are the questions that have come in over the last few weeks about dating Jay, if he still likes his ex's photos on social media. Is that normal or am I supposed to pretend?

Jay Schwedelson: I don't notice that? That's not normal. First of all, I think that's very bad sign. I don't even think, I mean, maybe they could still be connected, but I don't think the person should be, your ex should be viewing their stories, in my opinion. Um, I definitely don't think they should be liking their posts. If they're liking the person's post.

Jay Schwedelson: That's it. That is a massive red flag. Anything other than that get outta that bad situation. That's my take on that. Okay. Next. Jay, if she never asked me anything about myself, is that just how she is or is that the whole answer? Uh, I don't really know what that means. But if she doesn't ask you anything about yourself, then that sucks.

Jay Schwedelson: That's not a relationship, and it's not gonna get a lot better. And even you, you say to her, Hey, you don't ever ask me anything about myself. She'll do it for a little bit, but then she'll go back to the way that she is a narcissist and get outta that. That person seems like a loser. That's my opinion.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay, Jay, if they cancel and then I see them out somewhere else, is that really a deal breaker? A billion percent? What type of question is that? You're telling me if you have a date with somebody and they go, sorry, I can't go, and then you go out and you see 'em at the bar with their friends, guess what?

Jay Schwedelson: They would rather be doing that than be with you. It's the instant deal breaker. If it was me, I would go up to the person and say, Hey, you clown. Hey you loser. Hey, you tool, you blew me off to be here. Guess what we're never gonna do again? We're never hanging out again later. Smell you later. That's what I think.

Jay Schwedelson: Anyway, last one, Jay. If he disappears for a day or two and then comes back like nothing happened, what am I supposed to do with that? You're supposed to be. Where the hell were you? Are we dating? Are we together? Like, hello, uh, uh This ain't it. You know, it's not like you, uh, you, unless you give somebody the heads up, right?

Jay Schwedelson: Hey, I'm gonna go and hike this mountain. They're not gonna have cell service. Uh, but in the, in the world that we live in now, constant communication. And I don't like these games. Oh, they're not gonna talk for two days. 'cause they're trying to seem like they're not that into it. Screw that. I think that's weird.

Jay Schwedelson: I don't like it. Um, alright, listen, two things I wanna work with you. Go to jayschwedelson.com. There's a form there. We should work together. I have an agency. I do demand gen, I do database growth. I do all this stuff. I do a lot of brand partnerships. I wanna promote your brand. Just go there. There's a partner form on the top, right.

Jay Schwedelson: Click it. Leave this thing a review. Leave a comment. That's how it circulates. You are awesome. Submit your questions and be cool later.