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

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Why Your Listicles Are Failing 🛑 (And How to Fix Them)"

BATHROOM Break #97, Special Collaboration with The Marketing Millennials
Podcast: Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson
Date: March 2, 2026
Hosts: Daniel Murray (The Marketing Millennials), Jay Schwedelson (Do This, NOT That, Subjectline.com)

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Episode Overview

In this lively and fast-paced Bathroom Break episode, Daniel Murray and Jay Schwedelson team up to dissect why traditional listicles aren’t delivering results—and share tactical, data-driven tweaks to turn them into high-performing marketing content. They exchange rapid-fire tips, personal stories, and surprising findings about audience psychology, what AI really favors in content formatting, and how minor changes to newsletters and listicles can yield outsized rewards. The pair keep the energy fun (complete with food poisoning sidebars), but never stray too far from actionable marketing advice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Food Poisoning Icebreaker & Segue

• The episode kicks off with Daniel asking Jay why he’s so prone to food poisoning, segueing into a personal story involving questionable takeout fish and the unforeseen consequences of food risk aversion.
  • Notable Quote (Daniel):

    “When Ari was pregnant… we ordered salmon from a Thai place. And why would you order salmon from a Thai place?” ([01:46])

  • Sets the tone for the episode’s blend of humor and marketing wisdom.

2. Listicles: Why “Best” Beats “The Most” or “Top 9”

• Jay’s Main Insight:
  The listicle format is evolving. Rather than generic “7 things you need to know”-style headlines, value-anchored, ranked listicles—like “the number one solution” or “top three strategies”—drive much better performance both with AI search and email engagement.
  • Why? AI search platforms and consumer attention currently reward specificity and clear hierarchy/significance.
  • Practical Application:
    • Update your subject lines and blog titles to feature “best,” “number one,” or “top three.”
  • Notable Quote (Jay):

    “Instead of saying the seven whatevers… it’s saying the top three, the number one, or the best whatever... That is actually what’s pulling exponentially higher on the AI platforms. And that’s actually what’s working better in email.” ([03:11])

  • Timestamp: 03:11–04:17

3. Leveraging AI to Source Content – Strategic Curating

• Daniel’s Nuanced AI Advice:
  Instead of letting AI write your article, leverage AI (Perplexity, Claude, ChatGPT) to find what resources those models are citing, include and reference those in your own content. This increases your own authority and discoverability, as you’re helping curate the internet for search engines and AI, not just parroting information.
  • Actionable Tip:
    • Research with AI, extract sources it references, and integrate those into your writing as credible links, add your perspective for differentiation.
  • Notable Quote (Daniel):

    “Go on like Perplexity and Claude and ChatGPT, look at what is pulled into the resources, and use those resources in your article… you become a source of what these AI models want to see.” ([04:18])

  • Timestamp: 04:18–05:32

4. Newsletter Subject Line Advice: Edition Numbers Are Back

• Jay’s Data-Driven Discovery:
  Contrary to his previous advice, including the newsletter edition number (in brackets) at the start of the subject line dramatically increased open rates (+20%).
  • Why? Readers like to reference specific editions, and it gives a sense of sequence and novelty.
  • Key Test Result:
    • “[Scoop #12] Subject Line” outperformed just “Subject Line.”
  • Jay’s Reflection:

    “…the one where we put it in brackets, the open rate is about 20% higher… I used to tell people to avoid like the plague. And now… it’s working incredibly well.” ([05:32])

  • Daniel’s Analysis:
    References and chronology matter for repeat engagement, especially when content is topical or serialized.
  • Timestamp: 05:32–07:31

5. Audience Psychology: The Power of Referencing and Recall

• The benefit of numbered editions: readers want to reference past content, especially for news or serialized educational emails. It creates a system by which high-value information is more easily tracked and recallable by subscribers.

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Memorable Moments & Fun Quotes

• Daniel (on food poisoning recalls):

  “Three times a week I get food recall, text messages or email from Ari's dad… For today, I got a cottage cheese recall and me and Ari did not eat cottage cheese, but I got an email that says, cottage cheese been recalled.” ([07:52])

• Jay (on saving bad fish):

  “Saving it is never something I would ever recommend, but maybe saving this episode is worth saving. What a transition.” ([02:46])

• Jay (signing off):

  “Put stinky fish in your fridge. Do it. Why not?”

• Daniel:

  “Back from my 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.” ([09:22])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–01:46 — Food poisoning banter and funny backstory
• 02:46–04:18 — Listicle evolution: “Best/top” outperforms “seven ways”
• 04:18–05:32 — How to use AI as a research/citation tool, not just for writing
• 05:32–07:31 — Newsletter edition numbers in subject lines: Old advice, new results
• 07:31–08:49 — Food safety paranoia and audience risk aversion
• 08:49–End — Sign-offs, repeated encouragement to try and test these techniques

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Actionable Takeaways

• Update your listicle headlines: Focus on “Best,” “Top 3,” or “Number One” over generic numbered lists; this boosts AI visibility and audience engagement.
• Use AI for resource curation, not just text generation: Reference real sources AI pulls to increase your authority and ranking.
• Test adding edition numbers to e-newsletter subject lines: Use brackets and a consistent format; track open rates for improved performance.
• Understand human psychology: Recall and referencing matter—use sequence and hierarchy in your content to aid your audience.

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Final Tone

Conversational, quick-witted, and pragmatic—Jay and Daniel mix hard data with humor, demonstrating the power of retesting old assumptions and making small tweaks for big returns. If you’re in marketing, don’t sleep on these “small nuances that are radical game changers right now.”

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom. Or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.

[B]

This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwedelson from the do this, not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing top topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out.

[A]

We are back with another Bathroom Break. I'm here with the Jay Schwedelson and I have a question for you, Jay. Something that I've noticed over the, like, 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 yesterday Jay got food poisoning. Two months ago, he got food poisoning. Before his trip, he got food poisoning. I don't know how he keeps getting food poisoning.

[B]

Well, first of all, I want everyone to know I wash my hands because I'm about to get, like, slammed in 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. Or on a plane.

[A]

Oh, I had the funniest story about that.

[B]

Oh, what do you got?

[A]

When Ari was pregnant, we were saying, oh, hey, let's get you more salmon because it's good. It's Omega 3. So we ordered salmon from a Thai place. And why would you order salmon from a Thai place?

[B]

It's stupid.

[A]

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 tastes disgusting. It smells off. Something's wrong. And I'm like, why did 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 in the fridge just in case it was contaminated so you could take it out and go get it tested. So we saved this fish, disgusting fish in our fridge for a day to wait and see if Ari got sick.

[B]

It was terrible.

[A]

So ordering disgusting fish is not a good idea, right?

[B]

Well, it's terrible. Wow. And saving it is never something I would ever recommend, but maybe saving this episode is worth saving. What a transition. What we want to talk about is some small nuances that actually are radical game changers right now in marketing performance that I'm sure everybody's sleeping on because I wasn't even aware of some of this stuff until recently. I'll drop one first and then we'll go 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, because 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, whether you're a business or consumer marketer. And that is focusing on the absolute best. Meaning that instead of saying the seven whatevers or the nine whatevers, 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 what's working better in email. So it's like listicle within a listicle. And so if you're just playing the old playbook with 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.

[A]

I'm going to add one about AI too. 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 the nuance I want to say is if you're writing an article or a deep article about a topic, what you should be actually doing is going on like Perplexity and Claude and chatgpt, 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'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 go into writing, use it as a resource too and find links that perplexity is pulling up. ChatGPT is pulling up, clause pulling up and put it in your article.

[B]

So I love that one. And it literally is the smallest things that 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, newsletters across the board forever. I used to even tell people, don't put the addition in your subject line. Don't be like, the name of my newsletter is 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. So 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.

[A]

I think that's a great one. I think I've tested in the past and I know people go back and forth on if that's actually a good tactic, but I like that it's actually working. And I think why it works is people want to go back to certain editions and they can reference certain editions. And then also, and also I think it, 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 newsletter because my newsletter is not going to be, I don't know how many editions.

[B]

I've done like 4 billion editions. So wait a minute. I'm just curious about something so, like, do you normally, like, if you eat something at home and you're like, oh, that's gross, and you throw it out, do you now customarily, just because you did it once, do you take stuff out of the garbage on a regular basis now and put it in your refrigerator?

[A]

I'll give you the reason. Ari's 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 Ari's dad. For today, I got a cottage cheese recall and me and Ari did not eat cottage cheese, but I got an email that says, cottage cheese been recalled. So now I. So he is a freak when it comes to that. So when we told him, he said, save it so it could get tested by the lab. If you do have this, to see what bacteria it is.

[B]

And that's hardcore.

[A]

That'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.

[B]

All right, well, that didn't work out well. But either did this episode. Neither things worked out. But we appreciate you being here. Listen, give Daniel a Follow the market Millennials Follow. Do this, not that podcast and put Put stinky fish in your fridge. Do it. Why not? Daniel, Come on, man, I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, 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 I hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.

[A]

Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Mark and 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. A shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.