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/

Daniel Murray: Welcome to a new special series called The Bathroom Break, that extra 10 minutes, you either have to listen to marking tips or use the bathroom or both, but I don't recommend. But

Jay Schwedelson: that's your choice. This collab is gonna be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schon from the Do This Not That podcast@subjectline.com.

Jay Schwedelson: Each episode in this series, we are gonna go over with tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out. We are back for the bathroom break. I'm Jay sch Wetson from Do This, not that I'm here with the marking millennial, Daniel Murray, and we're gonna talk about some really I important marking stuff or not.

Jay Schwedelson: But before that, Thanksgiving is right here. So Daniel, I want to know something. You know, you, you were born in Africa. That's not a joke. You were, you moved here when you were seven and so for like Thanksgiving, do you like eat, like. Giraffe and stuff before you, before

Daniel Murray: you say, I used to tell people growing up that, that I lived in a, a hut number six in the, and my, my like hut, like the hut name was a Kuna matata and like I used to like get to my hut and there was a bunch of huts in this village.

Daniel Murray: I used to ride elephants and, and people would straight up believe me for it. I believe it right now. And no, it's a civilized place, um, in South Africa, but I didn't really, Thanksgiving was never really huge in my family. Uh, so we never really had a tradition about Rhonda. Now I wish I had a tradition around it, uh, but I do not, I'm not a fan of dried Turkey.

Daniel Murray: I just think, okay. Yeah, I'm not a fan of

Jay Schwedelson: it. Do you eat, like, will you eat the uh, uh, like, uh, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on it, or are you not on that team?

Daniel Murray: No, I, I think that's good. I think, do you think, the big question is, do you

Jay Schwedelson: think Thanksgiving should have mac and cheese

Daniel Murray: or not?

Jay Schwedelson: A hundred percent you have mac and cheese.

Jay Schwedelson: The only thing that Thanksgiving shouldn't have is salad. Like if someone's like, we need a salad at Thanksgiving, like, you missed the memo. This is the one day of the year. We could like get stretchy pants, get outta control. We don't need salad.

Daniel Murray: I also don't like when you, you go to a place where you ordering good food and someone says.

Daniel Murray: Can we add a gie and it's like, we're ready. What is that gonna do to this meal of pizza, pasta and stuff. Like what is it? Makes you feel better.

Jay Schwedelson: Replying to those emails and thinking they're interacting with you or your brand or your company, and it's going to explode because AI is allowing us to kind of react to these replies, uh, in a faster, and there's a lot that we could be doing there, and I don't think enough people realize that this. Kind of reply rate on promotional emails is gonna be a game changer.

Jay Schwedelson: So Daniel, what do you think about kind of this idea of replying to promotional emails?

Daniel Murray: Yeah, so Jay said that AI is gonna be able to track it better, but I think the reason why you should. Track this metric is showing that your content is resonating with humans and humans are actually interacting with you.

Daniel Murray: And that means you're writing content that is above what's going out in the market of all this ai, um, o AI only email. So what a couple ways you can think about it is. Um, a couple ways I do it personally and I'll tell what I do, is I always have like a personalized question because people, you, you're talking to humans here that have lives, so I always make the question something like, what is your favorite hobby?

Daniel Murray: I'm looking for new hobbies right now. Or What is your favorite dish on Thanksgiving? Or, send me recipes for something like that. Something that just lightens the mood of the email. Another thing I like to do is add Easter eggs into like the, the email. So I'll be like, if you see this, reply this, like in the middle of the email, reply a word and um, I will send you something or something like that.

Daniel Murray: And, and people, I got a bunch of replies, but it showed that people. We're reading to the middle of my email, which was a good sign for me that people are reading. So adding things into your email where you could add replies and also show that people are making it to the bottom of your email, making it to the middle of your email are really good signs.

Jay Schwedelson: First of all, I've never done the Easter egg thing in the middle of my email, so I'm definitely gonna do that. I think that's a really interesting thing to test. But you know, if you are out there and it's not even your newsletter, let's say you're trying to get a piece of content downloaded, or you're trying to get a discount code utilized.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay, you are gonna get flooded with people replying and saying the word guide. You're gonna get a much, much higher number of people doing that than going to fill out your form. And you could also do this with discount code. Say, Hey, you want the 20% off? Just reply back to this and say. Discount. And then what's gonna happen is you're gonna get flooded with that.

Jay Schwedelson: And here's the, the great benefit of that. Not only is your response rate gonna go up, but when you get the number one signal to stay in somebody's inbox, in email marketing, the way that you don't go to spam or junk folder is getting them to actually. Reply to an email that you sent. It is a signal that they like your stuff, so getting them to reply will get you more interaction, but also allows you your future emails to stay in the inbox.

Jay Schwedelson: I wanna add

Daniel Murray: another thing. It's on the reply rate, but it isn't for email. Things on social, like Instagram stories. If you get people to reply to Instagram stories, it will show your Instagram story to more and more people because they say, think that's an interactive story, and they want more and more people to do that.

Daniel Murray: So if you do the same thing like. I do this for events, I do this for guides, I do this for anything. I'll put, Hey, I'm giving away this free thing reply guide to, and we'll send you in the dms, uh, a this, the guide or the link to a private event or a link to this or link to that. Um, it excellently gets you more in the story feed on Instagram as well, so like.

Daniel Murray: Reply rate is gonna get even more better because people want to interact with you as a brand, interact as you, as a human, um, but it also helps you. Get more attention in the email, uh, inbox and on social as well.

Jay Schwedelson: It's so true. It was so funny. So I was just doing, uh, this is not a flex, but I was giving a speech at this conference this past week, and this dude comes up to me after the session and you know, we got stuff running on Instagram all the time.

Jay Schwedelson: We use ManyChat, you know, where somebody comments a word and then it instantly sends them a link to whatever the content pieces that we're pushing out there, whatever. He goes, oh, while you were speaking, I saw one of your social posts and I commented, and you DM me instantly. The thing. He goes, how did you do that while you were on stage?

Jay Schwedelson: I'm like, I'm like, are you kidding me, bro? Like, I, I like, I didn't do that. Okay. Like, it wasn't me. Like, it wasn't like a magic trick.

Daniel Murray: Wait, it's not you, you do. I thought you do magic tricks. But I think I do. I do think that, I mean another, I also think you do something really cool. If you're, if you are going to events and you're trying to be, get yourself in front of brands where you do the reply technique to your Yeah.

Daniel Murray: Your, to get all my, my stuff at the end. I think what we're trying to say is getting people to reply in your inbox in 20 is one, we'll get you more deliverability, but it also will get you. Human, human interaction. The amount of first party data I get from replies and insights about my, my audience from reply rate is.

Daniel Murray: Astronomical. And now I know like you, you talking about like if you, if you weren't talking about reality TV and nobody replied, I think you would stop talking, but Right. You know, your audience loves reality TV so you keep doing it 'cause people are applying and showing your interest that they like that topic.

Daniel Murray: So marketing doesn't always have to be about your thing. You can integrate like pop culture and stuff and understand your audience in a deeper level where you can integrate these two. Obsolete things and make your marketing more fun and interesting because you know, your audience likes reality TV and this, and, um, they're interested in your offer as well.

Jay Schwedelson: So, well along those lines, and that leads into the end of this whole thing, which is on my last newsletter or whatever I send out. I said, uh, I need a new holiday, movies or whatever. Reply back and let me know your favorite holiday movies. So Daniel, right now, for all of humanity, what are Daniel Murray's favorite?

Jay Schwedelson: Holiday movies.

Daniel Murray: Oh my goodness. You're putting me on the spot right now. Um, well, I'll give you,

Jay Schwedelson: I'll give you some examples. Like Die Hard, obviously a holiday movie. Yeah.

Daniel Murray: I mean, that's like the biggest debate in the history. Die Hard. I love Die Hard. I, I think Die Hard. I like Home Alone. Um, I think that's a great holiday movie.

Daniel Murray: I think, I think. The Grinch, like, I love the Grinch Grinch.

Jay Schwedelson: What about like, love actually, or the holiday

Daniel Murray: or, oh, oh, the holidays are good, are great. Um, but it's, the thing is like if I, if I recommend that to Ari, we just like go down a rabbit hole of all like ro cons for, for what's

Jay Schwedelson: wrong with that? Romcoms are great.

Jay Schwedelson: I watched Hallmark Channels where Magic happens and there was a, a Netflix movie that came out last year called Noel Christmas or something. That was really good actually, I think. I

Daniel Murray: think Hallmark is like one of the un most underrated movie Jan in the world, and they're so badly promoted that they, how they promote their movies, but some of the movies are just so good and they're just, no, they get lost in the ether because they don't get distributed well.

Daniel Murray: Like you have the beat on Hallmark channel to know that. They exist. Well, they also

Jay Schwedelson: release a new movie every day. I know, but

Daniel Murray: it's hard to, I mean, you after that's, but that's a good lesson. Then you'll have one hit if you, if you like launch something down

Jay Schwedelson: to stick. Yeah. Right. They're a volume game. Um, well, everybody, uh, have an amazing Thanksgiving.

Jay Schwedelson: Eat an enormous amount. This is the day. 'cause here's what I believe. If you go into the end of the year and you just eat as much as possible and your New Year's resolution is to lose some weight, you wanna start out high, and that way it's easier to lose weight. So crush it now, get really high.

Daniel Murray: Yeah, I, I mean go gain up five pounds on Thanksgiving.

Daniel Murray: Yeah. And then lose it. And then you've lost five pounds. A hundred percent. That's a great, you're back where you started, but it's

Jay Schwedelson: a

Daniel Murray: hat

Jay Schwedelson: you lost for five pounds. Uh, all right. Follow our shows. I don't know. Have a good Thanksgiving later. Daniel. Come on man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there.

Jay Schwedelson: Alright, 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

Daniel Murray: back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Market Millennial podcast, but also tune into this series's.

Daniel Murray: 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 later.