Standard listicles are becoming less effective. Content focused on superlatives—such as 'the best,' 'the number one,' or 'the top three'—is performing exponentially better on AI search platforms and in email marketing. This refined approach is a small but powerful evolution of the listicle format.
Instead of using AI solely for content generation, use it for research. Identify the sources that tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT cite on a topic, then incorporate and reference those same sources in your article. This signals to AI models that your content is a valuable, well-curated hub, improving its visibility.
Contrary to old advice, adding a newsletter edition number to the subject line is now highly effective. Specifically, putting the edition in brackets (e.g., "[Scoop #12]") before the main subject line has been shown in A/B tests to increase open rates by approximately 20% compared to a standard subject line.