Holiday email engagement is somehow both nerdy and genuinely fun here, as Jay Schwedelson and Daniel Murray use Thanksgiving food opinions, Hallmark movies, and Bathroom-Break banter to get into why replies matter way more than most marketers think. They dig into how to engineer responses in your emails and stories, why reply rate is a killer signal for both humans and algorithms, and how AI plus simple prompts like “Reply GUIDE” can quietly blow up your results. It’s basically a playbook for turning “one-way” campaigns into conversations people actually want to have.
Follow Daniel on LinkedIn and check out The Marketing Millennials podcast for sharp, no-fluff marketing insights. Subscribe to Ari Murray’s newsletter at gotomillions.co for sharp, actionable marketing insights.
Best Moments:
(00:50) Daniel shares his not-so-traditional Thanksgiving background and why dry turkey is an instant no.
(02:06) Jay’s hard rule for Thanksgiving dinner: mac and cheese is required, salad is banned.
(02:49) Jay explains why the reply rate on promotional emails is about to explode thanks to AI and better follow-up.
(03:28) Daniel’s tricks for prompting real human replies, from light personal questions to hidden Easter eggs in the middle of an email.
(05:20) Jay’s “just reply GUIDE” tactic for content and discounts that crushes landing page forms and boosts inbox placement.
(07:14) Daniel shows how the same reply mindset on Instagram Stories boosts distribution while keeping interactions feeling human.
(09:28) They break down how replies become a goldmine of first-party data and even shape future content topics like reality TV.
(09:49) A rapid-fire holiday movie riff that goes from Die Hard and Home Alone to The Grinch, romcoms, and why Hallmark is secretly elite.
(11:15) Jay and Daniel pitch their very on-brand Thanksgiving “gain 5 pounds, then lose it” logic as the ultimate holiday hack.
Check out Jay’s YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelson
Check out Jay’s TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelson
Check Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/
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