The Growth Vault

Google has bots that crawl the internet clicking on links. It does this periodically, and it uses sitemaps that website owners submit to help it find pages—particularly new ones.

We all know that a page that gets a lot of external links (ones from different sites) have a huge effect on SEO (hence why people play the backlinking game). 

But you wouldn't assume that adjusting internal links (ones pointing to other pages on your site) to drastically influence your SEO rankings.

But according to the 3 SEO experts above, it is one of the biggest levers you can pull. Ethan Smith's agency says it can increase search impressions by 10 to 50% within 50 days.

Here's 7 tips for internal linking: 

#1. Don't just link to a page once, do it 7+ times. If you want a page to be found via search, link to it from multiple pages. Graphite says there an inflection point at 7+.‍

#2. A link from the homepage is the most important. Have your homepage link to all of your most important pages. 

#3. Create an HTML sitemap page that links to every page. Link to this page from the homepage. Here are some examples of HTML sitemaps.

#4. Add site-wide navigational links in the header, footer, or sidebar.

#5. Don't just rely on footer links. Google gives more weighting to links in the main content area of a page than it does a footer as they're more likely to be clicked. 

#6. Use contextual "anchor text." Don't say "Join our marketing community by clicking here." Instead say "Join our marketing community."

#7. Make sure you don't have any broken links. Find broken links using audit tools like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Semrush.

If you invest in SEO at all, then spend some time adjusting your internal linking.

A group of 11 young women arrive in Italy for vacation, only to find that the villa they reserved via Booking.com doesn’t actually exist.

Alix Earle, a TikTok influencer with more than 5 million followers, laments about the scam to her audience. 

But it’s not Booking that responds to make it right—it’s Airbnb. They save the day by putting them up in a nearby villa straight out of White Lotus:

Alix’s videos documenting the saga got more than 20 million combined views on TikTok. One social media expert estimates the earned media value for Airbnb at around $100,000.

All for what probably cost a few thousand dollars to compensate the host.

Booking did eventually respond... with a boilerplate comment asking Alix to reach out on another social media platform for support. (Yikes.)

Maybe it’s no surprise Alix’s videos have inspired other users to create videos sharing their negative experiences with Booking.

The moral of the story: "Social listening" can really work. Look for opportunities to swing in and be the savior.

ConvertKit founder, Nathan Barry, did this when their competitor, Gumroad, jacked up their prices suddenly. They even offered to handle migrations for people for free.

We've figured it out. The one growth hack to rule them all:

A great product that solves a painful problem or fulfills a need.

I know that's incredibly difficult to achieve, but that's truly the thing that matters.

All of the 400+ tactics we've shared in this newsletter over the past several years are useless if it's trying to grow something that is not useful.

In fact, a truly amazing product, service, or piece of content will grow despite poor marketing execution. But these tactics are what you layer on top of a great foundation of a sound product, a sound brand, and a sound strategy.

OR to get initial users for your product to help you determine if it does solve a painful problem or fulfill a need.

And that's why ultimately we prefer the term "growth" over "marketing."

Because growth is cross-disciplinary. If changing your product in a way that makes it more useful is the best way to get more users, then that's what you should do. 

If people aren't buying or retaining then continuing to throw people at a "meh" product is not going to magically make it all better.

I know this isn't our normal actionable advice. But I've felt funny sharing tactic after tactic when the above is what we firmly believe. It's the ethos of what we do at Demand Curve and at our agency, Bell Curve.

The foundation is the most important. So make sure to build a strong one.

The easiest way to get invited to be on more podcasts?

Be an amazing podcast guest.

If you wow both podcast hosts and listeners:

1. Hosts will recommend you to their friend's podcasts.
2. Hosts of others podcasts will invite you on.
3. Listeners will tell hosts of other podcasts to invite you on.

Obviously a big part of it is charisma, which is hard, but here are some tips from Jay Clouse that anyone can implement:

#1. Weave examples and data into stories

Don't just spout facts and ideas.

Make it tangible and engaging by weaving them into entertaining stories.

#2. It's not just about you

People often listen to a podcast because they like the host. Listeners care about their perspective.

So pause to let the host cut in. Ask for their opinion.

Make it feel like it's two smart friends having an intellectual conversation. Not a TED talk.

#3.  Do your homework

Listen to the show beforehand. See how conversations normally go and the types of questions the host normally talks about, or the things they naturally gravitate toward.

And ask the host questions about the audience to understand what they care about.

#4. Talk up the show

Make the host look good. Reference another one of their episodes or talk them or the podcast up a bit.

They'll appreciate, and they're fans will appreciate it.

BONUS #5: Be pleasant, friendly, and helpful throughout

• Make it easy to book time with you.
• Hang around after the recording and get to know the host.
• Suggest some of your friends/contacts that might be good for the show.

Make the host and listeners like you and you'll be asked to go on more podcasts, and likely get more out of the appearance.

Which of these stands out the most? 🐶🐱🐭🐹🐰🦊🐻🍉🐼🐻‍❄️🐨🐯🦁🐮🐷🐸🐵

What about? desk, chair, bed, table, chipmunk, dresser, stool, couch

What about in this image?

I imagine most of you will say the 🍉, chipmunk, and the pink shoes (I know at least one of you won't—yeah, I see you)

In 1933, German Psychiatrist, Hedwig Von Restorff, discovered that when presenting someone with a bunch of pieces of information from a single category (animals), and one that isn't (fruit), people recall the "odd one out" (🍉) much better.

That makes intuitive sense, right? As Seth Godin points out, you'll notice and remember the purple cow in the pasture way better than the brown or white ones. 

So what does this mean for marketers?

Easy, you can be clever with design. Make the thing you want people to notice and remember be visually different than the rest.

That can be your product or brand, a feature, a price option, or an ad.

Ways you can do this:

1. For physical products in stores, be like a tube of Pringles instead of another bag of potato chips.
2. For brands, choose an entirely different aesthetic than competitors, like Liquid Death's heavy metal vibe.
3. For price options, make the tier you really want people to buy visually different than the other options.
4. Comparisons, have your product compared to competitors and make them all black and white (drab) and yours in full color (exciting and noticeable).

Be as creative as you can be with this. 

Most brands play it safe and do what everyone else does. But the wild and creative stuff will make you stand out and be remembered.

Stories are powerful.

They capture our attention, and carry with them powerful lessons with enough context to help us envision how they're relevant to our lives and how to apply them.

Compare these two pieces of copy:

The first focuses on the what.

The second is a simple story that illustrates why someone should use the tutoring service. 

But imagine instead the story was:

‍"Little Johnny, a 10-year-old boy in New Hampshire, liked to ride bikes, collect pennies in his stomach, and crush cans of Liquid Death.

Oh which reminds me, I don't really like the UX of Liquid Death. I can't close the can and throw it into my bag after opening it!

Anyway, did I mention Little Johnny was not doing so well in Math class? Well, his parents Suzy and Bob, an engineer and a doctor, are deeply ashamed...blah blah tutoring blah blah he's doing well now!"

Snore, right?

Wes Kao (founder of Maven and altMBA) says to find your story's MVB (Minimum Viable Backstory). Find the perfect amount of context to set the stage—and cut the rest.

For example, that camping trip where you almost got eaten by a bear:

So tell stories in your copywriting, but cut out excess context. Your audience will be more captivated. And your message won't get lost in a sea of irrelevant details.

People hate paying for shipping. In fact, 48% of US shoppers abandon shopping carts due to the shipping costs.

The classic workaround is to offer free shipping at a threshold like $75, which pushes people to add a few more things to the cart.

BUT, if it's someone's first purchase, maybe they don't want to make a $75 risk instead of a $25 risk. So here are some other options:

1. Offer free shipping for first-time purchases

Particularly if they're buying a "sample pack." This will let them make a test purchase to see if they like it. Then a $75+ order in the future is less risky.

Of course, you'll definitely get people trying to game this by creating new accounts each time—so it's not an ideal solution.

2. Offer a "free shipping" subscription

According to a recent study, a flat-rate subscription for free shipping can boost revenue per customer by 34%. The obvious example of this is Amazon Prime.

Each order will be lower value on average, but subscribers will order more often. Over the course of a year, this nets out to more revenue.

But, you can only really do this if you have a variety of products (like Amazon) or you sell consumable products they need to keep replenishing.

3. Just bake in the price of shipping

If your product costs a decent amount, and they order relatively infrequently, just bake shipping into the cost. If I bought a mattress from Casper and they charged me $100 to ship it, I'd be quite annoyed.

Charge me $100 more for the mattress and I will likely think the bed is more comfortable—thanks to its increased perceived value.

Humans are not logical. Quite the opposite. Clever marketers know this and leverage it.

This is why marketing and behavioral sciences expert, Rory Sutherland, says to focus on "perceived value" over actual value.

Here's how you do that:

#1. Specificity

A painkiller that's for "back pain" can be more effective at relieving back pain than a generic painkiller, even if it has the exact same ingredients.

It's more effective because we believe it will be. The classic placebo effect.

#2. Cost

An expensive painkiller is more effective—again even if the ingredients are identical. (Waber et al. – 2008)

Same goes for the taste of wine. That $100 bottle will taste better than the $10 bottle—even if they're the same wine with different labels.

#3. Packaging and presentation

There's a reason why Apple invests heavily into its packaging and unboxing experience—a premium package subconsciously signals that the contents are premium.

And a glass of wine will taste better in France on your honeymoon, than from a bag on a couch by yourself on a Tuesday night.

#4. Exclusivity and scarcity

If there's something you can't have, your perceived value of it often increases. There's nothing inherently more valuable about a First Edition Charizard Pokemon card besides the fact that you don't have one, and very few others do.

This is why "limited editions" and "this is the lowest price it'll ever be" are effective.

#5. Brand storytelling

The brand TOMS used to donate a pair for every pair bought. This story of social impact increased the perceived value beyond just the physical shoe.

Many people paid more to get the good feeling of having "done the right thing" even if the shoe itself was no better..

#6. Social proof

If you're a soccer/football fan, and you know this ice cream flavour is Lionel Messi's favorite, you're going to desire it more. You'd probably even pay extra.

Or, if you know that it's the number one selling car in the world, clearly it must be pretty good and you'll be willing to pay more for it than an average-selling car.

Takeaway

This isn't about tricking people—perceived value is still value.

If someone is more satisfied after purchasing shoes because they feel good about someone in need getting a new pair of shoes, then you've enhanced their experience of shoes on a completely other level.

Or if their back pain goes away, or their wine tastes better, then the increased cost or the slight "trickery" still led to a better outcome.

Just make sure that the claims you're making are true!

Social ads (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) have a big advantage over Search, Display, and YouTube Ads.

The ads come packed with social proof—likes and comments. The more positive engagement you have on them, the better the ads will perform.

A really good ad for a good product will accumulate organic engagement—but this can take a while. And if you’ve set up your campaign targeting to exclude current customers, the chances of getting positive reviews from happy customers is slim to none.

One workaround: ask satisfied customers to like your ads and leave testimonials as comments. Here’s how:

#1. Automate an email to go out after purchase, e.g., a few days or two weeks. Adjust the timeframe based on when someone is going to be most excited about your product.

For example, if you sell a product that gives immediate benefits, like a cell phone case, they'll be most excited in the first week. But for project management software, it's gonna take them a lot longer to fall in love with it—so trigger it after a "magic moment."

#2 In your email, ask whether customers enjoy your product.

Provide two clickable options: yes or no.

Clicking “yes” sends them to a page asking them to like your ad and leave a comment. Encourage participation by offering an incentive like a coupon or store credit.

If using Facebook, here's how to grab the URL of the ad:

Clicking “no” should lead to a one-question survey asking for feedback.  

(Might as well do some customer research in the process so you can improve your product.

Important: Do this with your best-performing ads. Incentivized engagement won't turn a "meh" ad into a "WOW" ad. So start with a "WOW" ad and amplify it.

If you're older than 30, you probably remember late-night informercials for knives and exercise equipment. 

"You might pay $100. You might even pay $200! But we're selling it for just $39.99 for the next 20 minutes.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! If you order in the next 10 minutes, we'll give you a second knife, and a knife sharpener worth $20 for free." 

Here's how that worked:

1. They price anchored you at $100 or even $200.
2. $39.99 seems cheap in comparison—what a deal.
3. But they "quantity anchored" you at 1 being 39.99. Now they offer 2 for the same price!
4. Oh wait, AND a $20 knife sharpener too? I'd be crazy to not order several. 
5. For good measure, they added time pressure to get you to order right away—at 1 AM while your partner is asleep and not there to talk sense into you.

These were really effective.

We can use similar sales tactics, just in a less obvious and cringe way. 

Here's what Alex Hormozi recommends for creating effective "bonus offers" on sales calls:

Psychologically, if there’s all these bonuses, the buyer will think: “Well, the core offer has to be more valuable than all these bonuses."

And if you assign a price point to the bonuses that exceed that of the core offer, it’ll become a no-brainer—like an extra $40 knife and a $20 knife sharpener.

Everyone loves to say, "Let's run an A/B test!"

But it's actually not the right move in many cases—particularly for startups. Make sure you can answer “yes” to these 7 questions before and after running an experiment:

Before

#1. Is your hypothesis testable?

Testable: “If we change our landing page header, our CTR will increase.”

Not testable: “If we change our landing page header, site visitors will like it better.”

That’s subjective and not measurable.

#2. Have stakeholders committed to abiding by the results?

We tend to reject outcomes that contradict our beliefs (called the Semmelweis Reflex, for gross reasons). That can be a problem if an experiment’s results are at odds with HIPPOs: highest-paid people’s opinions.

So ask: Are the HIPP actually willing to change it?

#3. Is the test doable?

Be realistic about the amount of time and resources it’ll take to reach statistical significance. If you don't have high volume, it probably isn't. Use this calculator to find out

#4. How can we make sure results are reliable?

Pay attention to Twyman's Law: Any figure that looks interesting or different is usually wrong.

Be very skeptical of the results, particularly if they're surprising.

After

#5. Are there clear cause and effect?

People shop more when it’s cold in the UK. That doesn’t mean they shop more because it’s cold. It probably has more to do with the holidays.

Correlation is not causation. Drill into the deeper reason.

#6. Have we gotten the most value out of it?

Your results could affect your market, product roadmap, future experiments, and entire growth strategy. One way to increase experiment value is to share your findings with your entire team.

#7. Are our experiments truly driving decision making at our company?

Are you just doing them to checking them off of a to-do list? Or is it actually something that's driving decision making? If not, they’re not worth the resources you’re putting into them.

And as a handy reference, here's a graphic!

‍

If you've never seen it, the Will It Blend? YouTube channel is one of the viral greats. For years they'd use their blenders to rip apart different everyday objects:

But what exactly makes a campaign like this spread and get 293,926,912 views? And for a boring old blender company, Blendtec, no less.

Jonah Berger (professor at the Wharton School) outlines in his book, Contagious, that we share content because of:

1. Social currency. Sharing it makes us look smart, cool, or interesting to our peers. For example: the ridiculousness of a blender tearing up a brand new iPad.
2. Triggers. A stimulus in our environment prompts us to talk about it. For example: a friend busts out their blender to make a smoothie—or mentions their breakfast.
3. Emotion. When we care, we share. Activating emotions like anger, excitement, amusement, and awe drive action more than happiness, sadness, and contentment. For example, the amusement and awe we get watching marbles get pulverized.
4. Public. Can others see that people are using or engaging with the product? It's hard to emulate the behavior of others if we can’t see it. For example, we see the millions of views on the videos.
5. Practical value. We believe it to be legitimately useful to someone—even better if it's niche and we can think of "just the right person this'll help." For example, knowing that this blender is more than enough to grind up your smoothie.
6. Story. What broader narrative can this be wrapped in? Embed ideas and products into stories that people want to tell. Make your message so integral to the narrative that they can’t tell the story without it. Like the blender that's able to rip apart a crowbar.

Contrast this instead to Blendtec making videos that simply talked about the tech specs (5 speeds, 1hp motor, etc) and showed it effortlessly make a mango smoothie.

BORING! Who cares, right?

If you want people to talk about your product, infuse your marketing campaigns with these elements to drastically increase the chance of it going viral (and driving sales).

YouTube is arguably the best social channel to grow a presence on. It's massive, it builds a ton of affinity, you generate ad revenue, and videos can get views for years (unlike a tweet).

If you don't know Ali Abdaal, he has over 4.5M subscribers on YouTube—and generated $4.6M in revenue and $2M in profit in 2022.

One of the main ways he's generated that revenue is by teaching people to grow on YouTube, here are his top 15 lessons after 6 years posting regularly:

We recently ran a market research survey for one of our clients.

We used Survey Monkey to pay for respondents from their network, who were selected based on specific demographic (age, location) and firmographic (job) criteria, given the client's limited existing audience.

Honestly, the answers were pretty bad—most were unusable.

This outcome isn't entirely surprising, given that survey participants are typically paid per completed survey—they're incentivized to race through them as quickly as possible. Same goes for incentivizing people with $25 Amazon gift cards

To address the issue, we decided to do something unusual: We added a skill testing math question at the beginning of the survey. Nothing hard, just simple addition of two 2-digit numbers.

As we expected, this caused a huge drop-off at the start. But the quality of the remaining responses improved dramatically – they were well-thought-out and highly useful. 

The working theory is that the question:

1. Weeded out those only interested in answering as fast as possible, or
2. Forced participants to briefly pause and reflect, setting a more thoughtful tone for the rest of the survey.

Either way, it significantly improved the results of the survey.

If you run incentivized surveys, consider adding some mental friction to the process.

We're naturally attracted to and influenced by people who are similar to us, or a have a shared identity that we value.

For example, if I meet someone online who is from my hometown in Canada, or is from Ireland (because I have an Irish passport), or went through YC, or studied at the same university, or has an aussie shepherd—it immediately makes me feel closer to them.

This phenomenon is called the Unity Principle. Here are four ways to leverage it:

#1. Share personal stories to build affinity‍

The founder of a fitness startup can share a personal story of struggling with their weight.

The personal story creates a sense of shared identity (past struggle with weight). Other people with similar weight control issues can see themselves in the founder's story, feel a sense of unity, and are therefore more likely to trust the exercise program and sign up for it. 

Just make sure the story is true.

#2. Highlight a cause you care about

Patagonia talks a lot about their cultural values like environmental activism, transparency,  and community:

If you value those things too, you're more likely to purchase a Patagonia jacket instead of a North Face jacket because you feel a sense of kinship with the brand.

#3. Loyalty programs or "group name"

Raise up and label your best customers with loyalty programs and special perks. 

Even better if you give members a special name. Like how Lady Gaga fans are called Little Monsters, or how Ship30for30 cohort members are called "shippers." If you give people a label they'll feel more connected to each other—and to you.

#4. Lean into geographical/cultural unity

Ryan Reynolds goes by the handle VancityReynolds on social media. "Vancity" is the nickname for Vancouver. 

I'm confident that due to this, Vancouverites (and Canadians broadly) have a stronger affinity for him because he proudly wears his Vancouver-ness. An easy way to get millions of people on his side without upsetting anyone in the process. 

To learn more about the Unity Principle and more pre-suasive techniques, Katelyn Bourgoin created a great free, email course on how to Pre-sell with Pre-suasion.

Nearly six years ago, before Substack, we had a client at our agency who helped creators offer premium, members-only content on their WordPress sites. 

Their budget was limited, and the total market was relatively small: WordPress creators who monetized their audience with memberships. So ads and content were not a good fit.

We opted to grow their business using cold email.

But as you know, almost all cold emails are terrible and instantly deleted.

You know when they're not? When they:

1. Look like regular emails from people you know
2. Talk about solving a huge pain point you actually have

For #1, we wrote in a casual tone. For #2, we did our homework. 

We paid for scrapers and virtual assistants to go through lists of WordPress sites that sold memberships and label them based on the tool they were using. We did research into the top objections people had about each tool—likely their biggest headaches as creators.

In our emails, we called out those headaches and highlighted how our client's tool would relieve them. 

Another common objection was the headache of migrating. So we offered to do it for free.

Our response rate was nearly 80%. And we booked tons of sales demos.

To make cold emails work, do your homework, and speak to your prospects' biggest headaches that you know they have.

If you’re struggling to prioritize the content you create, you probably don’t have a well-defined content center of gravity. That's the core element that the rest of your content strategy is built around.

Defining your center of gravity (COG) helps inform the direction of your strategy.

Below are a few different COGs, plus companies built around them.

Keywords (SEO): Companies create content around the keywords their audience searches for. That typically includes blogs, white papers, and FAQs.

This is the most traditional COG—which also means a lot of people think of it as the default content strategy. But growth agency CEO Ethan Smith advises holding off on SEO unless you have 1,000+ visits a day from non-SEO sources and 1,000+ referring domains. Otherwise, reaching SEO success is a slow grind. 

Example: HubSpot has written content about nearly every possible keyword related to sales or marketing.

Use-case content: Think customer stories, webinars, templates, and other formats homing in on user pain points.

The goal is to provide solutions to those pain points with your content. This strategy is often informed by speaking to customers and determining common problems.

Example: Besides creating guides and templates, the productivity software company Scribe also runs a Slack group to understand user needs. 

Podcast: Repurposing content is the name of the game with a podcast as your COG.

Using this strategy, you might turn interview transcripts into blog posts or newsletters, and publish short audio/video clips on social media. You leverage smart things said on the pod. 

Example: The media company Testimonial Hero doesn’t rely on full-time writers to create content. It repurposes snippets from its podcast as YouTube videos and LinkedIn ads.

–––

These aren’t the only possible COGs out there. Find a core format that's ideal for your product/industry, and use that to inform how you build and distribute your content.

Runners end races with a sprint finish, getting faster as they approach the finish line. The chance of them quitting plummets.

This is an example of the goal gradient effect. We become more invested in completing a task when we think the end is getting closer.

It’s yet another reason why reducing uncertainty during the checkout process is so important. If a shopper doesn’t know how long it’ll take to complete a purchase, they’ll miss that final sprint-to-the-finish-line burst of investment. 

And be more likely to abandon their shopping cart.

The easiest way to leverage this effect is to display a progress indicator during your signup or checkout process, such as the percentage of steps completed, the number of steps left, or a checklist. That way, shoppers know exactly how long until they can sit back and celebrate their new purchase.

Here are two examples, from Adobe and HelloFresh (I think HelloFresh's specificity is better):

You can also use encouraging copy before and during the signup/checkout process to let users know how close they are to finishing. For instance:

• “Signing up will only take three minutes.”
• “You’re halfway done.”
• “Almost there! Just one more question…”
• “Last step: Where should we send X?”

If you're on Shopify, you can use an app like iCart for this.

There’s a reason Skittles wants us to taste the rainbow instead of seeing it.

Skittles’ famous slogan “Taste the rainbow” is a great example of using a sensory experience to make you want some sugary treats right away.

Imagine instead of encouraging you to taste the rainbow, Skittles said “See the rainbow.” 

You probably wouldn’t be as tempted to impulse-buy a bag.

The reason? In ads, some senses are more likely than others to drive faster conversions. That’s according to a study led by researchers at Brigham Young University and the University of Washington.

• Proximal senses like touch and taste lead to earlier purchases.
• Distal senses like sight and sound lead to more delayed purchases.

In one of the study’s experiments, participants saw fictional restaurant reviews that emphasized either: 1) taste/touch, or 2) sound/vision. The taste/touch participants were significantly more likely to book reservations closer to the present date.

In another experiment, participants read ad copy for a festival that highlighted either taste (“You will taste the amazing flavors…”) or sound (“You will listen to the amazing sounds…”).

People who read the taste version had higher interest in attending the festival that weekend, whereas sound folks were more likely to be interested in going to the festival…next year.

Takeaway: If you want your ads to drive immediate sales, create a touch- or taste-based sensory world in them. Either with words or imagery.

If you've ever used Instagram, you've probably seen people add 30 hashtags to their posts and nothing else for their caption.

A recent study that analyzed 65,000 Reels and 180,000 posts on Instagram has two big findings on what helps content perform better:

#1. Hashtags help.

A Reel with >1 hashtag has on average 30% more reach (and about 18% more engagement) than one that has no hashtags.

The optimal number of hashtags falls between 2 and 4.

So use some, but don't do 30. 

And of course, make them relevant to the content.

#2. Posts benefit from long captions. Reels do not.

I was both surprised and not surprised by the results below.

I wasn't surprised that short captions dominate on Reels. Videos are fairly self-explanatory, and Reels are a quick dopamine hit and move on. 

But I was surprised by the effectiveness of 1,000+ character captions across posts and Reels. That's starting to get to LinkedIn post length—something you don't often see on Instagram.

So go ahead and tell a story and add context along with your posts.

People often talk about sales copywriting frameworks. A very popular one is PAS: Problem → Agitation → Solution.

For example:

• Problem: "Tens of millions of people have been laid off in 2023."
• Agitation: "And the recession still isn't even over—more are coming."
• Solution: "Here's how to make yourself invaluable at your company:"

You make readers think about a problem. You make the problem seem worse. Then offer a solution to that problem now that it's top of mind.

Now that you know the PAS framework, you'll see it being used a lot. 

To extend PAS and apply it to a multi-email sales campaign, Jon Brosio recommends:

• Email 1: Establish a problem (Problem)
• Email 2: Amplify consequences (Agitation)
• Email 3: Share a transformation story (Tease the Solution)
• Email 4: Back up your offer with social proof. (Prove efficacy of the Solution)
• Email 5: Finally reveal the offer and show how it works. (Solution)
• Email 6: Create urgency by limiting the time or added bonuses. 

The next time you're setting up a sales email campaign, try this framework out.

Threads (Instagram's Twitter clone) is officially the fastest growing app of all time—hitting 100M users in just 5 days. For context, Twitter has 250M users total.

But... it's completely unclear if this is going to be the next TikTok or Clubhouse. 

Every creator, founder, and social media manager is asking themselves, "should I be posting on Threads right now??"

The benefits of doing so could be:

1. Land grab. Typically when a new social platform launches, it's easier to grow on it due to reduced competition.
2. New audience. Anecdotally, only my weird tech friends use Twitter. Yet everyone I know uses Instagram. Threads could give access to a new group of people.

But social expert, Jack Appleby, argues that the best strategy right now is actually to do almost nothing. 

Because frankly we have no idea if this could die out in a few months. It's not like Threads offers any unique value over Twitter. In fact, it currently offers less.

So at the moment, the risk-reward ratio tips towards more the risk category of wasting your time and resources. That being said, Jack does recommend doing the following:

1. Create an account, update your bio, and add a link to your site.
2. Do one post as a placeholder so the account isn't blank.

That way if someone searches for you, they find you, and you avoid a negative experience.

But then just wait a few months and see what happens. If it proves itself to have a ton of organic usage and a unique value prop, then great, invest then. 

Hi, it’s Joyce 👋—here to break down another piece of marketing spotted in the wild. This time, direct mail from my local Chevrolet dealership.

This mailer set off my market-y senses for a few reasons:

• The personalized gift card. That’s an actual gift card—and it even has my name. The personalization leverages the endowment effect—when a sense of ownership enhances value. In this case, a gift card with my name makes me value it more than if it were just a generic “save $35” coupon.
  
  
• The QR codes. They help make it easier to take action—no need to type in a phone number a URL yourself, you just scan a code to book an appointment. Going one step further, the dealership includes instructions in big bold font so that the less tech-savvy can still take advantage—a great call since people of all ages own Chevies.
  
  
• Who can redeem this offer. The offer isn’t just for existing customers: “all Chevrolet owners we have yet to assist” are also welcome. It’s the perfect way of encouraging recipients to share the deal with Chevy-owning friends.

All that good stuff aside, the copy is... well, not great. Here’s how I’d clean it up.

Here's how we improved it:

1. Straight to the point. No flowery and meaningless copy.
2. Shorter paragraphs and lists. Making it way easier to scan and digest.
3. Highlighting the most important parts—expiration dates, phone numbers, and offer.

People have short "consideration spans"—particularly for something they randomly got in the mail and are trying to decide whether to huck into the junk mail bin (or keep scrolling). 

Make it as easy as possible for people to get the point.

I still wouldn’t trust AI to generate or write these insights. Or our playbooks. Or our course material. Or our teardowns. (Maybe for outlines and edits, but not core writing.)

BUT, it could be good for more mechanical SEO content and not “thought leader” content. 

A glossary that goes deep on industry/niche specific words can be an SEO treasure trove. If you’ve ever searched for anything related to investing, you’ve probably landed on Investopedia's glossary. It’s massive. Every term is defined in great detail.

According to SEO expert Jake Ward, most brands barely invest in glossaries due to the cost-benefit of paying someone to write them. That means they’re generally easy to outrank.

Assuming $0.05 per word (the low end for writers), 1,200 words per article, and 300 glossary items, it’s a $18k investment minimum ($600 per article). And a ton of time. 

With AI tools you can generate them for about $1k total ($3.33 per article).

It's a fast way to generate a ton content that's underserved and targeted to your niche.‍

BUT here's the problem with this strategy.‍

This is 100% a growth hack. As we shared last week, SEO is fundamentally going to change for top-of-funnel queries once Google bakes in generative AI responses. Glossary items are definitely going to be one of the first to be answered adequately by AI. 

So sure, you can use it quickly scale your SEO today. But it will not last as AI quickly develops and gets integrated into search. It could still be worth it given the low investment cost, but don't expect it to be a long-term growth solution.

To hook people, you need to tap into their emotions.

One of the best ways to do that is to eloquently put a voice to an unvoiced concern, frustration, or opinion.

You want people to say:

1. "Finally, someone said what I've been thinking!"
2. "That’s so damn true."

Finally, someone said it

Many of the comments on the following post were people saying: "Yes, finally somebody said this thing that I've been thinking."

Chris clearly hit an emotional nerve. People are tired of companies simply virtue signaling, rather than fixing a fundamental problem.

Because this post resonated, it got thousands of responses.

That’s so damn true

Here, Andrew tapped into a feeling that every entrepreneur has had:

We all know that dumb luck and great timing play a huge part in success. We just don’t always say it.

So when someone else does, we go, "That’s so damn true."

For eloquent hooks, you need to be able to:

• Identify a concern that people haven't adequately voiced, which means keeping a pulse on trends like shared frustrations
• Give voice to that concern in a way that rings true

If you can nail it, it really works.

You could be quoted for years to come as various accounts share your post. 

We recently launched a free email course on crafting un-ignorable hooks. Join 860 others learning how top creators hook our attention—with tons of examples. This was a sneak peek 👀

Many ecomm founders think of product images as a one-and-done investment.

They schedule professional photo shoots, then use the pics from them for years.

But product photos have a major impact on purchasing decisions, so it's worth experimenting with them. Here are five ideas. 

#1. Use something for size comparison (show your product in context).

Even if your product description includes dimensions, people will understand your product's size better if you show it near something familiar. For example, if you’re selling a picture frame, show it over a couch in the living room.

Don't make people think—uncertainty is a conversion killer.

#2. Test photos without smiling models.

Product images with smiling models are overdone. So test photos in a natural scenario. Consider how hotels show photos of rooms without anybody in them, making it easier for you to picture yourself in those rooms. 

#3. Try different image sizes.

Size can influence our perception of value. In one study, a dress shirt seemed more valuable when shown in a small image, whereas a hard drive's perceived value increased with a bigger image. It’s worth testing different image sizes and the amount of white space in your photos.

#4. Include complementary products.

If you plan to capture your product in a natural scenario, why not include other relevant products to show how they benefit each other? This is a major upsell opportunity—just remember to link those other products shown.

#5. Have fun with it—it's just a test.

Use Midjourney, Photoshop, and other AI and design tools to throw your product into strange scenarios. Like a watch on Honest Abe's wrist.

For that matter, if you can't afford actual product photos for initial or test images, play around with AI. If something does really well, consider staging an actual photo.

Although ChatGPT can already answer a lot of search queries, most people still don't use AI as their default search tool.

That's soon to change.  

Google is rolling out generative AI answers at the top of its regular search results, which could kill the need to click to a website for most queries.

Here are SEO expert Eli Schwartz's recommendations for a new strategic approach to SEO.‍

#1. Focus on mid- and bottom-funnel keywords 

AI will adequately answer basic and broad questions.

Examples: "What is a demand curve?" "How long are Instagram stories?"

Searches like "hotels Vegas Strip" will spit out lists of hotels. On the other hand, "Usher Las Vegas" is further down the funnel—the person searching for that is either looking for reviews of the show or interested in booking it. They're more likely to click on a result, rather than read an AI response.

#2. Focus on revenue from SEO, not volume

Because a lot of "tire kicker" searches will be handled by AI, traffic and clicks will go down. So revenue is a better metric to track SEO success.

#3. Use "People also ask" for content ideas rather than keywords

"People also ask" is a window into the types of queries people are trying to get answers to, and they're generally longer-tail (and more specific). It'll be useful for spotting mid- and bottom-funnel queries that can help generate content ideas.

#4. Prioritize "domain authority" less and relevance and topical authority more

Backlinks from sites with high domain authority were once useful for the most competitive search terms. That might not be the case anymore, since those competitive broad terms will be addressed by AI.

So instead of fighting (or paying) for backlinks from Forbes and TechCrunch, focus on backlinks from less popular sites that are highly relevant and specific to your niche.

Us marketers are nerds. We love judging the ads in our feeds.

Like this Facebook ad from Nood, the makers of hair removal products. Let’s break down what makes it so effective.

This stopped me (Joyce) in my tracks for a few reasons:

First, the creative is a black and white hand-drawn image—a far cry from every other sleekly designed ad on Facebook and a good example of a pattern interrupt. It also made me wonder, "What exactly is going on here?"

That brings us to the copy, which takes a “story first, product second” approach. Take a look:

“Well it happened… our designers went on vacation and now the marketing team is on their own creating ads.”

Nothing about the actual product until the next line.

“But we don’t need fancy graphic design to get our message across: The Flasher 2.0 provides Permanent Hair Reduction in the comfort of your home.”

This is a clever and entertaining way to sell your product, no flashy visuals needed.

And even though the ad copy is long, people actually read it all. You can tell because it ends with Nood inviting readers to draw a better ad for a chance to win a prize. And plenty of people actually shared their drawings in the comments!

Taking full advantage, Nood repurposed one for a retargeting campaign.

Ricky from Trailer Park Boys would say that’s "4 birds getting stoned at once." The ad:

• Sells Nood’s product
• Incentivizes people to engage
• Generates creative for future ad campaigns
• Personalizes the brand to make it more fun

Profitwell has collected over 10 million pricing data points for SaaS products.

One thing they've found is that companies that offer "add-ons" (aka upsell) can boost revenue by 12-22% relative to when they just include them into base tiers. And boost LTV by 18-54% by increasing average order value and retention rates. 

Ironically, this happens even when that feature was previously included for free in a tier.

But how do you choose which features to include and which to make add-ons?

Here Patrick recommends the Rule of 40%:

1. List each feature in a spreadsheet. 
2. Assign a % to each feature based on the % of users who use that feature monthly.
3. If it's used by less than 40% of users, consider turning it into an add-on.
4. Often this could be integrations, analytics, or priority support—supplemental things that aren't core to the experience for most users.

Just make sure you don't do this with a "core" feature that most people use—or else people will likely be upset or just not sign up in the first place.

There are a few reasons why this add-on strategy works;

1. It makes the initial price lower, making them more likely to continue down the funnel.
2. Once they've already said "yes" to the base plan, a quick add-on that increases the price by 10-20% is a quick "sure, why not." It's the equivalent of the grocery store impulse buy candy bar. 
3. It means they get the features they want without needing to upgrade to the higher tier and feeling like they're paying for a bunch of stuff they don't need.

Try this out; it could be a meaningful boost in revenue.

Mutiny, a website personalization tool, doubled their conversion rate on their homepage with a single word change.

Absurd, I know.

Normally we wouldn't even recommend an A/B test so small unless you have tons of traffic.

What did they do? They changed the button text on their homepage hero from "See it on your site" to "See it on your homepage." That's it.

The button links through to their live website demo. You enter your URL, and they let you play around with personalizing your website for different audience segments. 

This demo has two benefits: 

1. It lets you "try before you buy," alleviating a lot of objections or concerns, and
2. Nothing explains your product better than just seeing it in action. 

Now, you'd think the difference between "site" and "homepage" is minimal, but the word "homepage" is a lot more tangible and specific. Even our website has hundreds of pages. I can't clearly picture our "website" in my head. 

However, I do know what our homepage looks like. I know how valuable our homepage is.

And when I do hit the demo, I'm already primed to enter the URL of our homepage, rather than stopping to think which page would be best to test.

Uncertainty is a conversion killer. So remove as much of it as you can.

The lesson here? Words are powerful. Use ones that prime and remove uncertainty.

Imagine being served a fancy restaurant entrée within 23 seconds of ordering.

What would you think?

You'd likely question its quality and feel you overpaid for a precooked dish.

This is the Labor Illusion in action.

Customers perceive services as more valuable when they see the effort put into them, even if that labor doesn't necessarily improve the outcome.

This even applies to digital products and services.

For example, Kayak (a flight search tool) found users were more likely to convert if search results rolled in more slowly, giving the impression of a thorough, exhaustive search. 

Pretty counterintuitive since we'd typically think faster = better.

You can also leverage the labor illusion in your content

People will take your content more seriously and value it more when you lead with the amount of work it took to create it:

Naturally, this makes people think: 

"If this took 16 hours to make, it's worth 5 minutes of my time to read."

So it hooks them in. And then they value it more.

In short, experiment with showing users the amount of time and effort that goes into your content to increase its perceived value. 

If you'd like to dive deeper into this hook type (the Credibility one), and 11 other hook types, join our free 14-day email course, Un-ignorable Hooks. Learn how top creators grab your attention and keep it—without being clickbaity.

I spent dozens of hours studying hooks to make this course 😉

When we started the Growth Newsletter we didn't realize they'd become "the cool thing."

It seems like everyone’s got their own newsletter these days—and we get it! When you're building an audience, you want to get them off social and into a newsletter. It lets you have a direct relationship with them.

Anyway, if you’ve got a newsletter but are struggling to grow your subs, here’s a cool idea.

Newsletter referral programs can be tricky to incentivize correctly. Unless people love you, they probably don't want your swag. You also don't want to cannibalize your paid products. And some percentage of people will just try to game it.

One cool thing that Chenell does for her own newsletter, Growth in Reverse, is she regularly features folks in a Community Spotlight section (it was the inspiration for our own!).

In it, she highlights the newsletters of people who have referred at least 10 subscribers to her newsletter (and she makes sure they aren't all spam ones before she does).

It's a perfect win-win.

Her newsletter breaks down how creators grew to 50k subscribers. So her audience is made up of people with newsletters. They can easily plug her newsletter into theirs—and they are actively trying to find ways to grow their own.

This same tactic might be good to test on your own. OR you can use this as inspiration for a creative win-win way to incentivize people with a referral program.

Would you believe Tesla if they claimed they created the Car of the Year?

Definitely not. They're biased.

But if a reputable (or reputable-seeming) third party said it, maybe you would, right?

That's why Savannah created her own Facebook page called Savvy Finds. She's done a ton of tests where she runs her clients ads through their own page, and through Savvy Finds. 

The result? The ads that ran through Savvy Finds were nearly always the winner.

This technique is especially clever for agencies since it allows her to use client money to increase the reach of her page (which will naturally get likes/followers)—which builds an asset that becomes a competitive advantage for her agency.

If you spend a lot on social ads, consider testing this approach. Even minor improvements in conversion rates can make a significant difference—especially when you're paying for eyeballs.

Say you’re in the market for some biker shorts.  

You find the perfect ones: 

But drat, they’re sold out in the macadamia color! So you hurry up and order them in red, before those sell out too.

When you see sold-out options/models, you’re more likely to buy whatever’s left (assuming you weren’t looking for a super-specific version).

Why? The "sold out" label acts like social proof. It tells you that the product is desirable and high quality. 

And it adds time pressure. If you want it, you better buy it before it sells out too.

But there’s a caveat: Seeing too many sold-out products reduces the likelihood of a purchase. Shoppers expect a certain amount of freedom of choice. We’ll jump ship if we think that freedom is being threatened.

Two important takeaways:

1. Don’t immediately remove sold-out product options from display. Keeping them may make people perceive your product as being higher quality.
2. But don’t display sold-out products if they make up more than 30% of your inventory. Between 10-30% is a good range of sold-out products to feature.

The first number we see becomes our point of comparison for future numbers—known as the anchoring bias.

For example, if someone says their service costs $5,000 per month and up, you're anchored to the number $5,000. If they then give you a quote of $25,000 per month, you're gonna have sticker shock—even if you're being offered way more value than the $5k/mo package. 

Snickers grew sales by 38% simply by adding an anchor (the number 18) to their ad:

By including that number, Snickers suggested that 18 chocolate bars was a typical amount to have in your freezer. If you ordered fewer than that, you were being positively virtuous.

As in Tactic #1, the specificity here makes it easier to picture the items in your life. I know what 18 Snickers bars in my freezer look like. And now that I can picture them, I realize that that’s where they ought to be.

When I was fresh out of university, I worked at a coffee shop called Second Cup. This Canadian chain trained its staff in a simple but effective sales technique: 

"Make one specific, contextual cross-sell suggestion."

For example, if it was first thing in the morning and someone ordered a coffee to go, I might’ve asked them, "Would you like a blueberry muffin to go with your coffee?"

Or if it was 9pm and a couple ordered drinks, the barista might follow it up with, "How about a slice of cheesecake to go with that?"

Most of the time, people would say yes, effectively doubling the order value.

Specific suggestions were far more effective than generic ones like, "Would you like anything else?" To those, people automatically replied, "No, just gimme what I ordered." 

A specific suggestion, on the other hand, made them picture the item and start craving it.

This is what makes cross-sells on Amazon and other retail sites work so well.

Amazon’s "Featured items you may like" and "What do customers buy after viewing this item?" sections make you go, "Hmmm, maybe I do need that nice-looking bag for this camera I'm buying." You can picture using the two items together.

Cross-selling can bump up order values at checkout too: 

Try out specific suggestions in your sales funnels and conversations to boost average order values.

As a species, we crave belonging. That’s why we often look to others for cues on what to do when we’re in an unfamiliar situation. We follow the herd when it suits us.

This instinct to conform is what makes descriptive norms so powerful. They tell us how the majority of people act in that situation.

In one experiment, more hotel guests reused their towels after seeing a message with a descriptive norm (“75% of guests use their towels more than once”) than after seeing an environmental appeal (“Help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay”).

Here's how to use descriptive norms in your emails, ads, landing pages, and so on:

• “Most clients reserve $1,500-2,000+ for their ad budget.” (ex: ads agency)
• “Over 2 million people have a 365+ day streak!” (ex: Duolingo)
• “63% of our customers bundle [product A] with [product B].” (ex: ecomm)
• “The majority of users complete this section in under 10 minutes.” (ex: onboarding)

Important: Descriptive norms work best when they show large numbers of people doing the behavior you want them to do. Descriptive norms backfire if you highlight the behavior you don't want them to do. Consider this sign about towel use:

Why it fails: It's telling you that the norm is to use multiple towels. Why would you defy the norm and only use one? It may seem unfair or that you're getting less by only using one.

But what if only a minority of people are doing the behavior you want?

Try using dynamic norms instead. These describe how a growing number of people are doing the behavior you want to increase. For an example, take a look at New York City’s GreeNYC campaign ("more and more New Yorkers"):

The most important factors in ad performance:

1. Great brand/product.
2. Kicka** creatives. 

It has less to do with targeting and optimization (and let's be honest, AI does most of that these days), and more to do with an intriguing product and creative and captivating ads.

Here are 7 ways to improve your ad creatives:

#1. Show the outcome

Start your ad with the desired end result of using your product; then in the second frame, introduce the product. This will increase video watch time as people will want to know how to get the result.

#2. Close-up‍

Start your ad with a very close-up shot of the product. 

Get people wondering... What is that? They'll stop because they want to figure it out.

#3. Lean into the Negativity Bias

Start the ad explaining why you are NEVER using the alternative to your product again.

It triggers an "Oh sh*t, am I doing it wrong?" and they'll want to know what they should be doing instead.

#4. Good lighting, good sound

The quality of the camera matters way less than a nice natural light source or a killer lighting setup.

Microphone quality and good music/sound effects are much more important than video quality.

#5. Leverage trends and seasons

People like it when content feels relevant and timely. If they're in the mindset of Christmas, or setting New Year's resolutions, or planning their Valentine's Day date, leverage that in your ads and content.

#6. Don't trigger "this is an ad"

Get creative to avoid setting off the alarm bells in people's heads that they're looking at an ad.

Make it look as natural as possible. Don't include music or pop-up captions for the first second or two—once they're hooked, you can bring them in.

Include a screenshare of someone texting a recommendation to their friend.

#7. Be different

You'll never stand out if you do the same thing that everyone else is doing. Be completely illogical.

Instead of focusing on your features, try including a photo of a cute bunny. It might just work.

The 6 tactics above may work today, but tomorrow they may not. The brands that win are the ones that can consistently come up with interesting and novel ideas.

A single ad campaign can be talked about for years. Think Budweiser's "wazzup" or Apple's "Think Different" or "Mac vs PC."

But that won't happen if you do what everyone else is doing.

Most people only use Twitter for a few minutes here and there per day, sometimes per week.

One way to ensure people see your tweets is just by tweeting A LOT. 

If you haven't heard of Dan Go, he goes by "@FitFounder."

His first tweet was April 10th, 2020. More than 84k tweets later and he has 500k followers (as well as 200k on LinkedIn, 450k on Instagram, and 80k newsletter subscribers).

On average, that's ~74 tweets every day. But he peaked at ~350 tweets per day. 

(Note: Twitter considers a comment/reply to be a tweet, not just original content.)

Chenell found that in the first several months, Dan's follower count was directly correlated to his total number of tweets:

Sure, not every tweet crushed.

But they didn't need to. Even if each one only got 100 impressions, that'd still add up to 35k impressions per day. And of course, many of them got way more than that.

Dan grew by outworking everyone else on Twitter.

It's honestly hard to find creators with more tweets than him. Sure there are accounts with a lot more, but they're mostly companies or automated.

Even Jack Dorsey (the founder and former CEO of Twitter), has a measly 29k, and he's been tweeting since day 0.

Dan is one of the most active Twitter users of the past 3 years.

Sometimes you can win just by being the most active.

I've always been skeptical that giving away free swag was an effective tactic.

But it definitely can be if you have the right strategy. 

Take it from InVision, which used swag to amplify its brand’s reputation. Customers loved to post their swag packages on social (creating a viral loop) and were also more likely to give feedback when asked—which is normally hard to get.

Get more from your swag by following these best practices:

• Gift swag at your "aha!" moment. For InVision, that was after users had completed simple onboarding activities like creating a project.
• Choose memorable items that relate to your product/service. Since it’s a design company, InVision’s free swag included custom stickers, pins, postcards, and envelopes. Users who upgraded to a paid subscription got even more—a sketchbook and gel pen. Other examples: A company in the music space could gift headphones, while a meditation/sleep app could gift eye masks.‍
• Use an attractive design. Don’t just default to your logo. Giving away logo-branded swag is like asking a consumer to be a walking billboard for your company. Instead, commission a design that ties back to your company. (Here’s InVision’s.) Your logo can still be included, but it should be secondary. Exception: If your merch doesn’t have much creative real estate, like headphones, just your logo is fine.‍
• Include a handwritten note. Early on, InVision’s swag packages included a handwritten message signed by the company’s CEO. This added a personal touch.‍
• Go over the top. Airtable gave branded Airpods to people at YC companies and key accounts. People would proudly sport them at the office and think fondly of Airtable every time they used them—I know because I've had a pair for 4 years.

Done well, swag can actually bring in new customers.

In fact, when InVision started a weekly Twitter contest giving away their shirts, it got messages from people wanting to buy the shirt without entering the contest. InVision’s team told them to sign up for the software’s professional plan and screenshot the invoice as proof.

Since users usually stuck around for a bit, that meant a few months of revenue for a shirt that only cost $15—not to mention they became walking billboards.