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I create a newsletter called GrowthCandy. Each issue shares one idea to help build and spread your work, delivered as a short comic. Fast to read. Easy to apply. Hard to forget!
How the interaction feels from first contact through trust, delight and championing. There are 1060 posts in this topic.
Something marketing folks need to rediscover:
Not every marketing act must be empirically self-liquidating.
Picking up the phone instead of silly phone trees, with a smile that can be heard down the line? It just looks more expensive… and you can’t draw a direct line to “it kept a customer who was thinking about leaving, but after everyone else had annoying phone trees and you actually picked up the phone, you became the top choice again”…
…But it doesn’t stop that from being the case.
People aren’t “tidy” enough for the economist’s view of brand building to be the best way to build a brand.
Something that’s always irked me about online education:
Education is not the same thing as “giving the answers”.
If “giving the answers” were it, school would last one day. One big pile of books with answers in them. Done.
But that’s not an education. That’s just a pile of information.
Education is where teachers create the conditions for learning to happen. The student does the work, and learning is the byproduct.
If you want to learn, you need to learn forward and participate, wrestle with challenges, and find success through your own efforts. Yes, even online.
“Thanks for the thoughtful questions, and for the quick response!”
I copy-paste’d this from an email I received the other day. It stood out to me because I hear it a lot.
It’s a reminder:
1: Most people don’t ask thoughtful questions. If they did, it wouldn’t be worth making a remark about.
2: Most people don’t respond quickly. If they did, it wouldn’t be worth making a remark about.
When you truly care about what you’re making, you show up to it with care, regularly.
Thoughtful questions and quick responses are, you might say, natural expressions of those things.
There’s a bonus reminder:
3: The bar is low. Most simply don’t care enough, regularly enough.
If they did, it wouldn’t be worth making a remark about.
If you’re creating for a specific audience, a persona one-sheet isn’t enough.
It never was.
Understand their problems. Goals. Fears. Wants. Secrets. Listen what they listen to, read what they read, watch what they watch. Try to think how they think. See the world through their eyes. Like a “method actor” who tries to become the character they represent on-screen, off-screen, for maximum appreciation of their responsibility.
If you think it sounds extreme, it’s likely just because you haven’t tried it, and seen what results it produces.
For instance, my “StrategyComics” product immerses company stakeholders in a story specifically to make the insights as easy to understand and remember as possible. It’s the same sort of thing: immerse yourself in the world of those you wish to serve, so you can operate from a place that resonates with them.
It’s not extreme… it’s our responsibility, if we’re to put ourselves in a position to make experiences designed to help them.
If you want your brand to inspire creativity in humans, don’t phone in your creative to AI.
If you want to be seen as a luxury vehicle brand, don’t put Spider Man trailers on the dashboard.
If you want your brand to educate children, don’t price it out of reach of their parents.
If you want to appeal to any demographic, don’t represent the opposite of what they believe in.
These branding mistakes are happening in real life, right now.
The bar for excellence has never been lower.
Part of getting traffic is making a promise. the other part is keeping it.
People stay on social because they’ve learned that scrolling is more likely to produce novelty than leaving.
A webpage isn’t just for selling. It can be almost any experience you can imagine. What would they like?
Give somebody a novel experience that improved their lives somehow and they’ll tell others who need it too.
Make good promises. Keep them.
We’re cancelling a SaaS subscription in our business soon.
One we’ve maintained for close to 15 years, every month, for a not-insignificant sum of money.
One I even used to have a tshirt for.
Why?
Because they got lazy and greedy.
Rebranded, tacked on AI features nobody asked for, then increased our subscription fee by 11X, overnight, with nothing more than an email notification.
11X.
People have taken to forums worldwide, outraged and confused. The company has said nothing in response.
It’s a good lesson that if you look after your people, they’ll look after you (long, tshirt-wearing tenure). And if you take them for granted or treat them unkindly, they’ll move on.
Everyone thinks they can “vibecode” a Slack competitor in an afternoon.
Yet no one is trying to compete with Slack right now (unless you’re Microsoft or Jack Dorsey etc.)
Why is that?
Clearly, the moat isn’t the code.
It’s something bigger than that. More amorphous. More difficult to produce.
It’s the network.
The “people like us do things like this” factor.
Perhaps the code was never the moat, or the onramp, or the eagerness to try something new.
Perhaps the moat was an experience so novel, special, unique, and fit for you, that you had to tell the others.
Perhaps it always was.
In scriptwriting, “Save the cat” is an expression that basically means “make your characters likeable up-front by having them do something nice”.
Blake Snyder named multiple books by that expression, to represent remembering the small details.
I think “Save the cat” should make its way into other areas too:
Restaurant? Have the chef introduce himself to guests, and bring out goodies gratis while people review the menu. Knowing the head chef cares connects you to the place.
Newsletter? Have the writer send a little personal welcome email to each subscriber, with a gift based on something unique about that subscriber.
Ecommerce store? Leave hand-written notes in your deliveries, complimenting them on their purchases, and what may go well with it. Maybe even include a tiny gift.
Are these things hard? Not really. They take some effort to do, sure, but they’re not “hard”.
Do they make all the difference in the world to recipients? You bet they do.
Seems like a pretty good trade, doesn’t it?
I don’t know about you…
But I’d rather a short, thoughtful video emailed to me, than a show-and-tell screen-share Zoom meeting. That way, if we meet, we can do so quickly, where I’ve been briefed, and I’ve had a chance to digest what you wanted to show me.
Now apply this to what you’re building…
Are you sending 30 page PDFs for review, or shooting fun videos folks can watch without thinking too hard?
Are you writing sterile, lengthy, AI-esque emails, or sharing brief, hand-written emails filled with your personality?
Are you blasting everyone with cryptic pitches, or popping over witty-yet-insightful gifts that folks can inquire about if they’re genuinely interested?
It’s always possible to respect people’s time, remember they’re human too, give them a gift, and make them smile.
It’s, dare I say it, excellent for business.
People are saturated with “interesting” things on social media.
Yet few stop to think about what “interesting” means.
When you create “interesting”, you satiate curiosities, dragging folks into more scrolling. “Oh that’s interesting. And so is that. And so is that. And so is that.”
When you create “interested”, you capture an interest and nurture it as someone becomes increasingly happy, educated, or both. “I’m really interested in this, I wonder where it leads.”
Both introduce your curiosity to the unexplored.
One of them changes people for the better, is more fulfilling, and could be an excellent foundation for your venture.
Which is it to be?
Someone commented on my watch the other day.
In a world where most people have Apple Watches on, they observed I had a cartoon bunny on my wrist.
“What does your watch do?” they asked.
“It tells the time and it makes me smile” I replied.
“Is that all?” they inquired.
“Isn’t that enough?” I replied.
Telling the time is a useful feature.
Making me smile is also a useful feature.
When we make things, we don’t need for our things to do everything. We get to choose which things make the cut. Focus on just those things. Be great at those things.
Isn’t that enough?
If you think great images will resonate with your choice of market…
But an algorithm wants you to make trendy videos instead…
Do you do what your audience wants, or the algorithm wants?
It’s seen as a tough question. Brands and individuals wrestle with this question among many.
Do what the algorithm wants and you’ll receive a boost of distribution, garnering the attention of those who will engage with it, but never engage with you, because they were there for the trend, not for you.
Do what your people want and you’ll never be blessed with that distribution, but with enough effort you’ll find a much smaller group of people who will sometimes see what you made, and appreciate your contribution.
Big and empty.
Small and engaged.
One option engages marketing directors who have reports to write, full of numbers to impress their higher-ups.
One option engages whomever is thinking about the whole, and wants to make change happen.
They both have their place. It’s useful to know which one you’re choosing, and why.
“Delight at every stage.”
This sentence stood out to me today in a meeting while reviewing a new “cold” campaign experiment that tests some edutainment theories we’ve been sandboxing.
Not because it’s novel and new.
But because it’s not. It’s what we teach for every stage of a product, or a product’s marketing, pre-and-post-sale.
It just stuck out to me because it’s long been obvious in those domains, yet “cold” campaigns have always been slightly more amorphous, due to the regulations and headwinds they typically face.
And yet, despite all that, it really comes down to the same principles we use elsewhere, and this one is no exception.
Sometimes, headwinds and other influences make us think something has to be different, or harder, or more complex than they should be.
Challenge those assumptions.
It might be that they’re just as philosophically aligned, simple, and on-pattern as the rest of your strategy.
Brands invest in UGC, CSR, influence, all sorts of things.
Every one comes with a huge list of to-dos, best practices, and gurus who reportedly know best.
But what’s it all for?
Likeability and trust.
It’s for likeability and trust.
Why not just focus on that, instead, and let the rest come along for the ride?
Some brands use marketing to “capture” us.
They snag our emails and phone numbers, harassing us with their “earned attention” like we owe them something. They make you comfortable then jack up the prices because, well, you’re “captured”.
Other brands use marketing to “contribute” to us.
They send goodies to our emails if we want them, and create experiences so valuable we spread the word like we owe them something. They make you feel comfortable and don’t break their promises.
There’s usually a choice, in most markets.
Vote with your wallet.
Recently I’ve been thumbing through artist profiles on Discord.
There are channels dedicated to folks posting their creations, often nervously so, in hope that someone likes them.
They’re often from junior or young talent, working on their craft, hoping someone cares.
They’re often missing one or two key lessons that will unlock a whole new level of skill.
It’s a joy to leave encouraging words. To let folks feel seen. And to message some of them if I think they’re close enough to take on a project for me, with a little training.
If you see someone trying…
Whether it’s an artist in a café or online… a musician on the street or on YouTube… whatever they’re doing… compliment them. Ask to see or hear more. Ask where you can follow along online. Show care. Show them they’re not invisible.
It means more to almost every single one I’ve spoken to than you’d ever think.
Try it. It’s as good for your soul as it is for theirs.
If you fit in and look like the others, you lose.
If you stand out and look very different, you might also lose… or you might win.
Which is it to be, friends?
Great client services require you saying “No” sometimes.
Not to be a jerk, or to wring them for more cash.
But to protect them from themselves.
A wonderful service that does one thing really well, bent out of shape to satiate an individual’s needs, is no longer a wonderful service. All the magic and promise was removed.
And for what, to avoid a difficult conversation that could guide them to a greater impact? Or to make sure you don’t miss out on an extra suboptimal buck that leads them nowhere?
Doesn’t sound like great client services to me.
Sony discontinuing physical media isn’t a war on physical media.
It’s a war on customer happiness.
They invariably saw the outcries when Microsoft made the same decision, and followed anyway.
I’m sure there’s a financial motivation behind the decision, and I don’t fault businesses for wanting to be profitable.
I’m just not sure that going to war with customer happiness is the best path to achieve that goal.
Google isn’t sending as many clicks anymore.
The shift to “zero click search” means many formerly-popular indie sites are losing up to 58% of their traffic since early 2024.
That’s over half in less than two years.
That stinks. The web thrives on open, decentralized effort from enthusiasts. It decays in closed, walled-gardens from corporations.
The only lesson to be learned here is, don’t trust the corporation to do the work of enthusiasts, and don’t expect the enthusiast’s work to look like the corporation’s.
Support your enthusiasts. Remember how your browser bookmarks work. Show ‘em some love. They won’t know you’re there rooting for them unless you show them.
Every day, I watch my son learn and grow.
It’s a delight and a privilege.
But it’s also fascinating to watch HOW he learns and grows.
Despite studying edutainment as an artform for ~20 years now, most of that study has been on adults, and young adults. Because, lets face it, most education for adults is boring, not very memorable, and uncomfortable when done right.
But it’s true for kids too. Most of it is low-effort and void of results.
In my home, my wife and I watch what engages my son, and lean into what works in a big way.
A show doesn’t engage him? Gone. A show really engages him? We go get every season of it and give it to him, while watching closely for what it is about each episode that grips him or teaches him most.
A toy doesn’t help him learn or grow? We stop buying toys like that. A toy really brings him along? We get lots of it, and construct games that unlock more toys for progression and further incentive.
We do it because we love him, of course.
But its fascinating to see how much I’m learning in the process, about using fun for growth in young minds.
It’s really not that different to adults. I assumed it would be very different, and very saturated, but it’s really not.
I love that, 20 years in, I’m still having huge revelations on the topic.
The more you know, the more you don’t know.
Everyone talks about promotion. Promotion promotion promotion. How you should be doing more promotion.
Promotion is important…
But why must we assume it must be you doing all the promotion?
Path 1: Make something good, then promote it forever.
Path 2: Make something great, designed to be spread, and let those you made it for promote it for you forever.
Its a choice.
Google Maps will take you straight “there”.
You’ll never really learn where anything is, but it’ll always take you “there”.
You’ll not notice the details on the road, the trees, the signs, the changes, but it’ll always take you “there”.
You’ll not discover the side roads and country paths that give you ideas for other journeys, but it’ll always take you “there”.
You’ll not encounter the opportunity to get lost, pay closer attention, correct your course, and learn so much more about your environment, but it’ll always take you “there”.
Where is “there”, again?
A linear, efficient path to your destination?
Or a meandering, exciting adventure that may eventually lead to your destination?
What if the latter is the “there” we’re really looking for?
We forgot how to get lost, and lost some magic along the way.
That’s been on my mind lately.
What do we do when “new and improved” isn’t working?
When videogames get ridiculous prices and bloated with in-app purchases, enthusiasts produce gems like “Goldeneye X” to add their favorite improvements to their favorite old games.
When car manufacturers pepper their new offerings with subscription extras and annoying beeping features, enthusiasts turn to renovating their old rides and sharing an appreciation for vintage.
When big tech offerings become ad-laden, ai-stuffed and pricier without any improvements actual customers want, enthusiasts turn to linux distros and build on-ramps to open alternatives.
“New and improved” isn’t a given.
If you stop listening to customers, some will shift to “old and improved” instead.
If you make your price cheap because you think it’ll win more customers, beware.
The moment someone else is cheaper, they’re gone. Because they bought you on price.
Do you want to be bought for price?
Or do you want to be bought for value, novelty, relational equity, contribution, status, or any number of other reasons?
Most of them are a race upwards, to provide more value, more novelty, more contribution, etc.
Only price is a race downwards, to zero.
Are we really going to choose that one?
I wear a wristwatch I was given for Father’s Day.
It was my dream watch when I was in my early twenties.
You can pick them up for about £25 on eBay (depending on condition). It’s priceless to me.
Not just because it was my dream watch. But specifically because of who got it for me.
Other people have different dream watches. Most of them won’t share my dream.
They’ll all tell the time “the right way” for them. Yet “the right way” is completely different to them all.
When you try to create something for ‘everyone’, and they all have differing ideas of what they want…
How can you create for ‘everyone’, really?
Maybe there is no ‘everyone’.
Maybe there’s a much larger number of people in the niche of “someone” you choose, than in the pool of “everyone”.
Better just choose your “someone”, then.
Wired headphones are back.
Breaking into fashion amidst increasing distrust of tech companies and the cost of living crisis.
Let’s keep in mind:
Wired EarPods cost $19. Wireless AirPods (the wire killer) is closer to $250, but we don’t have headphone jacks anymore.
A DVD costs $5 one-time. Netflix (the DVD collection killer) is closer to $20/month, but we don’t have DVD players anymore.
A CD costs $10 one-time. Spotify (the music collection killer) is closer to $13/month, but we don’t have CD players anymore.
But some people are going back to wires, buying adapters to get their headphone jacks back.
And they’re ripping physical media again, so they can use DVDs and CDs with the tech they have.
Perhaps the old pattern of “create new technology, strangle the old way, creep up the price” isn’t working out so well anymore for the Silicon Valley elite.
Perhaps there’s a limit to how far the public can be pushed, before they push back.
Perhaps listening to what customers want, and making that for them, could be a better model than playing games with them until they revolt.
Perhaps thats what companies should have been doing all along.
Perhaps thats what consumers should have voted for with their dollars all along.
Perhaps there’s still time.
Meta declined for the first time since ever, reportedly down 20 million daily active users last quarter.
It could be because people didn’t want to be legless avatars in a metaverse.
It could be because people didn’t want an AI model nobody asked for pushed on them.
It could be because people didn’t want to see back-to-back ads instead of organic posts.
It could be because people didn’t want creepy smart glasses nobody asked for pushed on them.
It could be because listening to customers, and making things they want, is a lost art among the tech elite.
Yeah, it’s probably that.
Old, musty car. No air conditioning. No music. The driver is socially-awkward, but knows the specific route you want to take like the back of his hand, and has taken that sole route every day for almost a decade.
Compare that to a brand new, year-model car. Freshly gassed AC. Chilled waterbottles in seatback nets. Your favorite jazz band on the radio. Friendly driver, who makes his way around with his smartphone’s maps app, joining the same congested route as everyone else because he doesn’t know the local secrets.
Which ride do you choose?
The answer tells us a lot about how much we understand about focusing on what matters.
I create a newsletter called GrowthCandy. Each issue shares one idea to help build and spread your work, delivered as a short comic. Fast to read. Easy to apply. Hard to forget!