Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Marketing Strategies That Still Work in an AI-Driven World with Jay Schwedelson

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Right About Now with Ryan Alford Join media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential.     Resources: Right About Now Newsletter | Free Podcast Monetization Course | Join The Network |Follow Us On Instagram | Subscribe To Our Youtube Channel | Vibe Science Media   SUMMARY In this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford interviews Jay Schwedelson, founder of Guru Media Hub and email marketing expert. Jay discusses why email marketing remains a top-performing channel, sharing insights from testing over 15 million subject lines. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on a clear niche, using human language, and adapting to new AI-driven inbox filters. Jay also explains how authenticity and strategic subject lines can boost open rates, and cautions against over-reliance on AI-generated content. The episode offers actionable tips for marketers looking to improve their email campaigns. TAKEAWAYS The enduring effectiveness of email marketing as a conversion channel. The importance of defining a clear brand identity or niche. The impact of focusing on a specific area of expertise in marketing. Strategies for improving email subject lines to increase open rates. The role of human touch and authenticity in email content amidst AI-generated content. The influence of AI on content creation and its implications for SEO. Current trends in email marketing, particularly regarding Apple’s Mail app sorting. The significance of using engaging language and formatting in email marketing. The value of data-driven insights from testing email subject lines. The necessity of adapting to evolving marketing technologies and consumer behaviors.  

You are about to get the high-octane growth blueprint you need to stop wasting time on fleeting trends and start building a real asset because email marketing is the one legacy channel that still crushes every conversion rate metric. We're unlocking the high converting secrets big brands rely on from using power words and emojis in your subject lines to leveraging the revolutionary data behind 15 million tested email intros with Guru Media Hub's Jay Schwettleson. If you're ready to drastically increase your open rates, generate unstoppable leads, and future-proof your business against the AI content trash wave, then hit play and let's get down to business right about now.

I've learned that putting a flag in the ground saying, yeah, this is me, this is what I'm about, then people are willing to learn more about you over time if you don't suck at what you do. So having that vehicle or whatever business that you're in as a listener, it helps to define why people should work with you. And that's kind of how I got rolling. When you're not in the room and your name comes up, you already know what they're saying about you and what the topic is that your name's coming up for. Because then you could build your business around that. If it's just generic and just all over the place, there's nothing there. You have nothing.

And you could then grow from there. That's everything. You need an entree point in, whatever your business is. That's kind of the secret sauce. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a radcast network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash in checks?

Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. Hey, I like talking marketing. You guys know that. That's why a lot of you, the originals, the OGs listeners came. You stay for the good stories, but we got a good one today. We like to do this and not that. That's what my good friend and guest, Jay Schwettleson says on his show,

do this, not that, and he's the founder of Guru Media Hub. What's up, Jay? I'm fired up to be here. I've been listening forever, so this is going to be really cool. Thanks for having me. We've hit this world where you can get knowledge from a lot of different places, and I love what podcasting does for sort of knowledge enrichment. And I think you're a big part of that.

We try to keep it kind of 10 foot level, stuff you could implement really fast, really quickly, kind of stupid proof because that's what I am a little stupid. So it works out well. We like to chase the shiny objects. Everybody gets excited about what's new. But damn, email and direct marketing still fucking work. I'll tell you that. I spend a lot of time in the world that email.

Like emails legacy, emails dead, emails old school. But you know what? That's only if you're not doing it right. And I'd like to see everybody just get rid of their email address, not have an email accounting more. How many people really willing to do that? About zero, it's crushing it. Let's tell a little bit of the Jay story and building to kind of where we are today. I've been at this for a long time. Over 25 years, I've had an agency. When my agency was getting rolling, we do everything in my agency. We do email, direct mail, digital media, print media, all this

crap. And I would go into these pitches to try to get business. And I would go in there with these PowerPoint decks that were like 50 slides long saying, I do everything great. I'm awesome at all this stuff. And almost every time I'd walk out of there, get no business. And I would I bang my head against the wall. I'm like, I'm going to go out of business. What the hell is going on? I can't get any business. After a few years of really driving myself nuts, I walked out of this one meeting. This guy said to me that we were pitching to, he said, you know, that stuff you were talking about email. If you would just kind of double down on that and just focused on that, you probably would have gotten that business. And then after you got that, maybe you would have gotten our other stuff. It was like a light bulb moment for me. I was like, what the hell? I go, you know what? I'm trying to be known for everything. And I believe that when you're known for everything, you're known for nothing. So that night, literally, I was sitting in my couch. I'm like, I got to be known for something. I said, screw it. Email was just getting going in a big way. This is like almost like 15 years ago or so it was really starting to explode in terms of marketing and using it for sales. And so I sat on my couch. I went on like GoDaddy or network solutions, whatever the hell it was called. And I bought a URL. I found subject line. I could buy it. It was 500 bucks. It was like a premium domain.

I was like, screw it. And my idea was that everybody has a subject line. Why don't we put up a site where you can go and put your subject line in. It'll tell you if it's good or bad using whatever information we had and we'd keep it free. And in order to use it, just give us your information, but you could test out your subject lines. And this was my idea. And it turned out to be a decent one because people started using it. And you fast forward now, we've checked about 15 million subject lines on that site. And I became known a little bit as this email guy, which is fine. Not that I'm just an email guy, but it was an entree point into my business, which once you come into my agency, then, you know, we torture you, we do all this other stuff for you. I've learned

that putting a flag in the ground saying, yeah, this is me, this is what I'm about. Then people willing to learn more about you over time if you don't suck at what you do. So having that vehicle, whether it's subjectline.com or whatever it is, wherever business that you're in as a listener, I think it helps to define why people should work with you. And that's kind of how I got rolling. I also like to say, if you don't become known for something, then they get to make it up themselves. You can help define and shape it or they're going to kind of shape their own opinion. A lot of it is like if you're not known by lots of people for the same thing, then it's kind of like getting a million impressions for 100 different products. Well, that's great. But what's it driving to?

When you're not in the room and your name comes up, you already know what they're saying about you and what the topic is that your name's coming up for, because then you could build your business around that. If it's just generic and just all over the place, there's nothing there. You have nothing. And you could then grow from there. That's everything. Look at Starbucks. You go there for coffee because that's what you think of, but more than half their business now is nothing to do with coffee. Go look at your iPhone, Apple. The majority of their revenues coming from all sorts of stuff, not just their phone. Or it could be anything. It could be Tommy John underwear. Yeah, you buy your underwear there, but now they sell all this other crap. You need an entree point in, whatever your

business is. That's kind of the secret sauce. It helps when you've got a great tactic. Subjectline.com was brilliant. Coming back to that a minute, 15 million. I like to pause on numbers and like say them again for people. Because in today's data world, between the news or anything else, we kind of get lost in the numbers. Like, oh, like that sounds like a lot. But like people also throw around making a million dollars, like that's just easy to do or something. Fifteen million times it's been used to check a subject That's incredible, man. It's funny because then we look at what are the most common things that people are doing, right, or doing wrong. And the thing about subject line, the thing that gets me excited about it, it's one of the tactics in marketing or in sales outreach that literally it costs you nothing.

It takes five seconds. And by changing a few words, a few symbols, a few things, you can change the outcome of your business. And it's just knowing what those little things are. It gets me excited to be able to share what some of those quick wins are all the time because it changes everything for you. And that's kind of fun. We've got a savvy audience, but I mean, everybody's listening is always trying to improve some facet of their marketing. And even if they don't specifically oversee email, they can pass some learnings down to their colleagues or otherwise. Talk to me about some tips for that.

The thing about a subject line, whether it's a sales outreach email or a marketing email, you don't send an email without wanting it to get open. Hello, that's why you send the email. And what people don't really realize is nobody reads the whole subject line ever. You could write, Jay is a giant loser at the end of your subject line, no one will ever see it. Because all they're doing is they're doing kind of that social scroll in their inbox. and you've got to grab their attention, and they'll see the first half of your subject line. What really is the most important thing are those first few characters, literally the first few characters is your subject line where, for example, if you start your subject line, I know it sounds

ridiculous with an emoji. And people think emojis are stupid, but there's a million emojis. You don't have to use a smiley face. You can use a calendar or a checkmark or whatever. It gets people to stop and open up the emails. And just by using an emoji and you start your subject line, it will lift the percentage of people opening up your email by over 20%, just by doing that. Or if you started with a number, the three pitfalls to avoid, the four things you didn't know about, whatever, it grabs that attention. People want to see what it's about. And they don't realize that it grabs their attention, but it does. Or even capitalizing the first word. Like it might say new. Like the entire word is capitalized, not just the first letter of the first word. And it grabs that millisecond attention. And you know what people don't necessarily understand about email anymore is it used to be that the words that you put in the subject line, like free. Okay. Or if you put a dollar sign the subject line, it used to be that would cause you.

you go to the junk folder or the spam folder, 10, 15 years ago, but technology has changed. And that's not the reason you go to the junk folder spam folder anymore. So you can liberate yourselves and use the words and the symbols and capitalization that you want to use because the reason you stay in the inbox now has everything to do with how often you're getting your emails opened and clicked and all that stuff. You want to be using all the stuff that you probably were avoiding in the past. That's why I like email, even though it seems legacy, it's always changing. And there are little things like this that can change the outcome of everything.

Some of what I heard, you didn't use this word, but I'm going to use it for you, is just being human. Like, how do we text people and how we do things certain ways? It's kind of applying that to the subject line. Humanity in marketing, especially in email, is everything now, especially with AI. The problem now is we have this tidal wave of garbage that's coming at us with AI in terms of content creation. Using AI to write better subject lines or better emails or better social posts or better whatever. And what AI recommends, by and large, is generic. We just did a study where we found two of the words at the start of your subject line that are increasing the percentage of people opening up your emails more than any other two words are the words and and the word but literally

starting your subject line with the word and like and you need to see why or but but you didn't realize this and the reason and and but are doing so well in the last 90 days is because AI would never recommend you to start a sentence with and or but it's like the most unAI thing ever and that's the crazy world that we're in now we have to say okay what will the robots never recommend so that way we stand out and seem more human. And it's like you need the worst grammar possible in order to stand out, which is great because I sucked at that in high school. So it's perfect. I love AI. I'm embracing it. We use it. But there is some just garbage, repetitive content coming out. And being someone so heavily in the spoken word or the written word,

I love hearing your perspective even a little further about what's the good and the bad and the ugly with AI so far today. I love AI also. AI is incredible for so many things. But the problem with AI when it comes to your content. If you're writing a newsletter, a blog post, social media posts, content for your website, emails, there's two pieces to it. There is a technical problem with it, and then there's just kind of an engagement problem with it. The technical problem it is, is that, for example, Google. Google scans all of our websites, right? And that's how they're determining the ranking when someone searches for something. Google is very good at being able to identify content on your website that's been written by AI versus written by a human. And what

Google wants, Google wants human written content. So because they're able to identify AI written content, they're actually now depressing rankings for those websites who have more than half of their content that's actually being able to identify it as AI written. From a technical perspective, you actually getting dinged negatively by just using AI to write all your stuff. So you can't just have AI do that. You will lose because of that.

Now, in terms of an engagement thing, the other issue is that like our email newsletters, for example. A lot of people are using AI to write their email newsletters. And what we have seen from all the data, we send out about six billion emails a year, we have seen that those email newsletters that are predominantly written by AI, AI content generated newsletters, their click through rate on their email newsletters is about 40% lower than those that are written by a human being. Because we feel it. When you're interacting with a blog or an email or social posts, you could feel when there's a person behind it versus when there's just a robot behind it. While you should be using AI to edit things, Maybe it's a little bit of an idea, kind of kick-around starter thing.

It can't be your content creator because for a variety of reasons, it's going to hurt you. Jay, talk to me about getting back to maybe some of the core, like email marketing, things that are happening real-time today in the field, maybe knowledge for our listeners, for how and what they should be considering and how to do it better. The biggest change with email marketing right now is Apple. You have your iPhone, and on your iPhone, you have a mail app. Apple's utilizing AI, what they're calling Apple intelligence. And in real time, as we receive our emails, using this AI, Apple is going to be bucketing

all the emails that we receive into four different buckets. There's going to be a bucket for primary tab bucket, a transactions bucket, an updates bucket, a promotions bucket. And depending on what the emails are about is where they're going to fall in these buckets. Now, it goes without saying that if you are marketing something, you're trying to do sales outreach, you don't want your email necessarily going in that promotions bucket because how often are people going to check that? not be that often. Understanding why an email may go in the primary bucket or the update bucket,

those are the top two that you want to be in as opposed to the other buckets is going to be a really, really important thing. And what we're seeing is just as this is starting to roll out, is that there are going to be certain trigger words that if you use in your emails, that you have a greater likelihood of going into the buckets that you want to go into. So for example, if you have the word, let's say, preview or confirmation, these are trigger words that are like, oh, telling the AI, this email is important. It's not just selling some guard. Let's move it to the update tab or the primary tab or something like that. As this unfolds, really staying in tune with what are these trigger words that AI is looking for in order to stay in the buckets that you want to stay into is going to be a game changer because email is evolving a lot.

Talk to me about where anybody can keep up with what you're doing, the show, all that good stuff. I'm all over LinkedIn. I post way too much garbage there, but please connect with me. Hit me up on LinkedIn with my horribly long last name. you'll find me. My show, do this, not that for marketers. It's a pink square. You'll see it. Again, that's kind of fun of fun. And give subjectline.com a try. It's 100% free. It's kind of fun to do. You can check that all out and you'll find me. I appreciate the opportunity. I love the show. I'm going to go to subjectline.com. Go check out Jay's show.

You know where to find us, Ryan is right.com. We'll have all the highlight clips to full episode from today and go to our YouTube channel to check it out all the interactive content we've got going on over there. And of course, we'll have links to all of Jay's stuff in the show notes. We appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time. Right About Now. This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.