The Growth Vault

LinkedIn is getting hotter and hotter each year.

And one of the great things about LinkedIn (unlike other social platform) is that you can bootstrap your first followers by sending connection requests.

Databox’s Nikos Ntirlis shares how:

#1) Make a list of the people you want to connect with—potential customers, influencers, partners, affiliates, etc.

Pro tip: Choose people with a similar audience size as you. If you have 1,000 followers, someone with 3,000 is way more likely to accept than someone with 300,000.

#2) Read their posts and check out their website. The goal is to identify the topics that interest them and their communities.

#3) Thoughtfully engage with them. That includes commenting on their posts, responding to their comments on someone else’s, and quoting and tagging them in your own posts.

Do this several times over the course of a few days or weeks.

Pro tip: Prioritize commenting on viral posts. You'll get more organic followers.

#4) Send a connection request after your targets respond.

They'll be way more likely to accept than if you did it cold. Why?

Because they recognize your name, have started to develop a relationship with you, and want you to keep engaging with their posts (so you help amplify their reach).

Note: you can also comment on people commenting on their posts, and send connection requests to them. Just be careful to only send up to about 20 per day to avoid being suspended by LinkedIn. 

And even if your targets don’t accept your connection request, interacting with their content can get you exposure to their audience.

Want more insights about growing your LinkedIn presence organically? Check out our comprehensive playbook.

Good copywriting isn’t about glorifying your product or exaggerating its features.

It’s about getting people to understand your product's core benefit. Only then can they consider becoming a customer.

You can reach that core benefit through dimensionalization. That involves identifying a key feature and then asking, “So what?” not just once, but again and again.

Keep asking, “So what?” until you reach one of these desires:

1. Physical: Food, drink, warmth, and shelter
2. Safety: Security and safety
3. Belonging and love: Companionship and intimacy
4. Esteem: Feelings of success and superiority
5. Self-actualization: Achieving one’s full potential

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs describes our fundamental needs as humans.

Dimensionalizing helps connect the dots between a product feature and at least one of these underlying desires.

Here’s an example of dimensionalizing:

Product feature: A fine art print that comes in extra large dimensions

• So what? The XL sizing makes the print the focal point of any room in your home.
• So what? The print commands everyone’s attention.
• So what? It becomes a conversation piece whenever guests are over.
• So what? You can show off your knowledge about the artwork.
• So what? You’ll impress your guests—earning you esteem from their social approval as well as your own feelings of success.

Figma has quickly become one of top design tools. Partly because it was the first Sketch-like design tool to double-down on web.

And it's inherently viral. I send you a link to our Figma file, we start collaborating immediately.

Figma makes this process even smoother with their permissions and billing.

#1. Editors (basic users) can add new editors to their team at any time and at no upfront cost. This allows folks to share designs, get feedback and move quickly without admin approval.

#2. If the number of editors exceeds the current plan, admins get an email a few days before the next bill is due, and highlights any new editors that joined.

#3. The admin can then decide to remove these new editors before the next billing cycle. BUT they're way less likely to now for two reasons:

1. Loss aversion: It's psychologically harder for them to remove access from someone than to say no in the first place. 
2. Effort: It requires the admin to actively remove someone. Often, people are busy and don't get to it—or don't bother since it's only $12/mo.

This makes it:

• Easier for users. They can invite folks without waiting for admins.
• Easier for admins. They don't have to invite everyone. They can batch remove people as needed each month. And they get a free month for each user.
• More revenue for Figma.

On Sunday, thousands of people scrambled for their remotes.

During the final quarter of the Superbowl match, Tubi, the streaming service, created an ad that looked like someone was changing the channel to watch Mr and Mrs Smith.

It was an incredibly clever way to get people's attention—and perfectly demonstrate exactly what Tubi is. It shows rather than tells.

It reminded me a lot of a classic prank:

Change a coworker's desktop background to be a screenshot of their desktop or currently open windows. Then close everything and hide the files on the desktop.

When they return to their computer, they'll desperately click around trying to get their computer to respond. Office pranking at its finest. 

A similar thing could be done in a YouTube video if coordinated with the creator. Or in an Instagram story/reel or TikTok video.

Entrepreneurs fail when they focus on businesses that don't provide value to people.

That's why nailing your value props is critical.

If you can tell a well-formed value prop story, it's a sign you’re creating something valuable.

Here’s the template. 

Example: Relationship Hero (relationship coaching SaaS)

• Describe a specific person with a specific problem: A 23-year-old male who can’t get a date.
• Describe their current best effort to solve their problem: He gets a Tinder account and does his best to convert matches into dates.
• Describe why it’s still a problem: His matches barely respond, and when they do, the conversation feels boring and forced. He uses it for one hour every day but only gets one date every two months.
• Describe how their life gets better thanks to you: Once Relationship Hero coaches guide him through writing his texts, he suddenly has much better conversations that result in a date each week.

This simple framework helps you validate a plausible business/product idea without having any market research or empirical evidence to show. (Although we recommend those for deeper analysis—talking to customers is incredibly important.)

You can then use that story on your website and marketing copy.

The vast majority of cold emails are ignored.

In the worst case, people flag your emails as spam (causing future emails to end up in spam), and have a negative impression of both you and your brand.

That's why Lemlist, a tool for automating email outreach, warns against doing "cold emails." Instead, they should be warm 🔥

What does that mean?‍

That means only reaching out to people who already have some idea of who you are, and have a positive association with you and your brand already.

For example, if you got a personalized message from your favorite influencer or celebrity, you'd welcome it, and not just flag it as spam. You'd happily respond.

To do that, sadly it's not a quick fix. Which is why most people don't do it. 

You have to:

1. Produce a lot of free content, say on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, podcast, etc.
2. Then engage with people who engage with you. And engage with others writing and commenting on relevant posts in your niche.
3. And then eventually DMing them a personalized message either to get to know each other, give them a free resource, or pitch an offer.

If you do this, your response rates will go from single digit to double digits.

Lemlist believes this so strongly that they encourage their entire team to be active on social media and build their own personal brands.

What motivates people to buy? Look to the psychology of spy recruitment for answers. 

Intelligence officers use an acronym to size up potential recruits’ motives:

• M = money
• I = ideology
• C = coercion
• E = ego

These also align pretty directly with the emotional triggers behind purchasing decisions.

Money

Emotional triggers this motive aligns with: greed and lust

Sadly, greed drives human behavior. Wealth, power, and social currency—all things people instinctively want.

Appeal to prospects' aspirations. Like this copy from Horst Studios: “Where the women you hate have their hair done.”

Ideology

Aligned with hope and a sense of belonging

Two thirds of Gen Zers will stop using—or even boycott—brands that clash with their values.

Speak to the values that matter to your audience.

Talk about values a lot. Two brands that do an A+ job with this: Ben & Jerry’s and Patagonia.

Coercion

Aligned with guilt and fear

We don't actually recommend this one. Don't guilt people into buying your products. 

A better approach: Reveal how your product is the guilt-free alternative to the others that are out there. Especially if that benefit ties into your value props.

Ego

Aligned with vanity

A little flattery goes a long way.

Which one stands out the most?

We’ll bet it was the Pringles. Unlike the other two brands (and dozens of other chip brands that come in crinkly rectangular bags), Pringles come in a tube.

This is a pattern interrupt—something that breaks the norm.

Pattern interrupts grab attention.

They draw your eye even if they're inherently LESS noticeable than the competition:

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🦾🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

And in a crowded market, they make your business stand out.

To get in front of more leads, try incorporating pattern interrupts. Some ideas:

1) Like the Pringles example, give your product distinctive packaging.

2) If most companies in your industry have a certain aesthetic, make yours the complete opposite.  

Think of how Liquid Death embraced hardcore branding in the minimalist world of bottled water.

3) Use unusual imagery in your ads.

Ever seen Squatty Potty’s pooping unicorn commercial? Or Poo-Pourri’s “Girls Don’t Poop” ad? These videos got a lot of attention because of their weird visuals. (The bathroom humor just happens to be a coincidence—but we’re not not saying it’s worth a shot.)

4) Along the same lines, use contrasting colors in your ads.

The agency Biddyco used neon colors in its Facebook ads for the cereal brand Magic Spoon. Compared to everyday photos from friends and family in your feed, these bright shades were a total scroll-stopper.

5) Plan a different kind of event.

Instead of organizing a generic marketing conference, the SaaS brand SparkToro hosted an event where each speaker told a story they'd never shared before. Sessions were short—30 minutes max—and nothing was recorded. This made speakers more comfortable with being vulnerable and incentivized people to tune in live.

Good copywriters know the power of future pacing. That's a technique that encourages readers to visualize the positive results your product will help them achieve.

Example: A coding bootcamp can say, "Learn to become a programmer so you can earn a 6-figure tech salary and work from home."

That paints a picture of a big win after completing the bootcamp. It's easy to visualize.

Just one problem with future pacing: It doesn’t work well on skeptical buyers. Their objections cancel out the rosy picture.

To win over skeptics, give instant gratification in your copy. Highlight the good things that are just around the corner. 

Disney does this by making its vacation-booking process just as appealing as the trip that’s months away.

A few examples:

• "Disney Cruise Line gives families dreams to wake up excited about." → Become your family's hero.
  
• Page headings like "Discover Value in Vacation Packages," "Trip Planning Made Easy," and "Book with Confidence" → Enjoy the trip-planning experience.
  
• "With over 50 different hotels to choose from, you're sure to find one that fits your family’s travel style, size, and budget!" → Easily find a place that fits your needs.

As a result, skeptical prospects perceive an immediate reward from booking.

To deliver instant gratification in your copy, frame the purchase itself—and not just the product—as a win. For instance:

• “Order X now, and you’ll feel relief knowing you made the right decision.”
  
• “By saying yes to X, you’ll be one step closer to achieving your big goal.”
  
• “Buy X now, and you’ll wake up tomorrow knowing you finally did something about it!”

Your prospects may still have reservations about your product. But they’ll be more likely to act when you sell them immediate confidence and relief.

Duolingo has one of the best viral growth loops.

And it has nothing to do with the gamification they're known for.

What is it?

👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿
👉🏿👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👈🏿
👉🏿👉🏾👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👈🏾👈🏿
👉🏿👉🏾👉🏽👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👈🏽👈🏾👈🏿
👉🏿👉🏾 👉🏽 weirdness👈🏽👈🏾👈🏿
👉🏿👉🏾👉🏽👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼👈🏽👈🏾👈🏿
👉🏿👉🏾👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👈🏾👈🏿
👉🏿👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👈🏿
👉🏿👆🏿👆🏿👆🏿👆🏿👆🏿👆🏿👆🏿👆🏿👆🏿👈🏿 

They purposely make people translate really bizarre sentences.

I have an entire album of them on my phone. I send them to people all the time.

And I'm not the only one. People share them on Twitter constantly.

There's even a Twitter account with 100,000 followers called "Shit Duolingo Says."

Weird sentences delight users. They keep you asking, "What's gonna come next?" Which is critical for an app that does one of the hardest things: teach people a new language.

And they cause people to talk organically about the app with others.

Be weird to stand out, delight people, and get them talking.

Each year Google kills tons of its own products.

Why?

Because a company like Google needs each product to generate hundreds of millions in revenue (or be strategically relevant) to justify relative to their other products.

It doesn't mean they're bad ideas, they're just too small for Google.

Killed by Google shares every project sent to the graveyard by Google. It's worth going through it regularly to see if there are any ideas worth replicating.

Often these have many thousands or millions of users who suddenly need a new alternative—making them an attractive market to target if you can act fast.

Imagine this: You’re not an expert in SEO, and are rather mystified by it, so you decide to hire an SEO consultant. You find an expert on Upwork (for example).

They seem confident, so you decide to work with them. Because you're inexperienced, you're totally unaware that there are gaps in their SEO knowledge.

Later, when someone else offers sound SEO advice that contradicts to what your Upwork consultant told you, you’re more likely to take it with a grain of salt.

This is caused by "the anchoring bias." 

We trust the first piece of info we’re given more than newer information.

That first piece of info (Upwork SEO consultant) acts as our reference point—we judge new data against it, letting it skew our opinions on quality. 

We naturally lay the burden of proof with the new information, even if we never validated the old information.

Oh humans.

Applied to creative work, the anchoring bias can make us complacent. We get stuck on the same process, messaging, and copy we’ve used for years—unaware that switching things up could lead to better results.

To avoid a stagnant marketing strategy, run interesting experiments. Or try a new SEO consultant, different freelancers, or an AI copywriting software. 

We’re not suggesting that you fire any loyal employees or partners—only that you try something new on occasion. See if your marketing efforts benefit from a fresh spin.

As you've probably noticed, at the top of every newsletter edition, we tell people how to break up with us... err I mean unsubscribe from the newsletter.

Seems counterproductive, right?.

We tell people how to leave after we fought so hard to convert them to a subscriber. 

So why do we do it?

It's one of the many things we do to make sure our emails keep ending up in people's inboxes. And that they have a positive impression of our brand.

So first, it builds trust—we’re not here to hold your inbox hostage.

And if someone doesn't want to receive our emails, we don't want to keep hammering them until they're so upset that they mark our emails as spam.

Spam complaints hurt your emails’ future deliverability. That is, they increase the chances of your future emails landing in people’s spam folders.

So make it easy for people to unsubscribe. You’ll be doing both readers and yourself a favor.

The entire point of a free trial is to prove value and convert leads into customers ASAP.

So how long should your trial be to maximize conversions?

Most companies offer free trials of 7-30 days, though some run as long as 90 days.

You can justify both ends of the spectrum.

1. Longer trials mean users have more time to get familiar with a product.
2. Shorter trials create a sense of urgency.

So which leads to more customers?

In a study of 7-, 14-, and 30-day trials for a SaaS product, the shortest length (7-day) did best at increasing subscriptions, retention, and revenue.

Meanwhile, there was little difference between the 14- and 30-day trial results.

According to researchers, urgency explains why. With a short trial, we use a product more intensively because we want to maximize its use in the limited time frame.

But with a longer trial, we tend to use the product much less per day. And as a result, we forget about it in the trial’s last days—the most important period because that’s when we decide whether or not to become a customer.

Experiment with short trials to boost conversion. Let us know how it pans out.

Creator Sara Renae Clark offers a lot of freebies to her audience.

It's a really effective strategy. In fact, it's our entire ethos at DC.

Provide a ton of free value. Slowly build people's trust over time. Eventually, they'll trust you enough to buy one of your paid products.

But instead of only offering her freebies as instant downloads or newsletter rewards, she places some as products in her online shop.

To get them, users have to go through the normal purchasing process: create an account, add the item to their cart, and check out.

But they don’t have to pay, of course.

According to Sarah, offering her freebies this way “warms up” leads into becoming paying customers. It’s a practice run that builds her credibility.

The idea is that by going through the motion of buying something without actually spending money, leads will feel more comfortable making a real purchase later on.

And they'll already have an account. Making checkout even smoother.

Other creators, such as Jack Butcher (Visualize Value), offer both a free and a $1 product.

Eye contact is one of the most powerful persuasive tools on the planet.

But staring down the lens of a video camera is an insanely intimidating and challenging task.

Seriously. It's really difficult. 

Despite that, maintaining eye contact can:

1. Make you more persuasive.
2. Make your words more memorable.
3. Make YOU more memorable.
4. Make people more honest (and they'll also think you're more honest).
5. Create and deepen attraction.

In short: making eye contact in your videos by staring at the camera is hugely beneficial.

Here's the great news:

AI can now make you maintain eye contact even if you spend the whole time staring at your speaking notes. 

Or awkwardly darting your eyes around the room desperately waiting for it to be over.

For example:

Windows 11 already offered this. But honestly, it looked creepy.

NVIDIA took a step out of Uncanny Valley. It's basically impossible to tell that it's fake.

This will likely become the norm. Try it out before everyone else is doing it.

Google Analytics just doesn't cut it.

It was made to measure the ROI of campaigns within the Google ecosystem (ex: Google Ads). And to give Google an all-seeing eye across the Internet to make ads more profitable.

It was not built as a product analytics tool.  

With the update to GA4, you get a bit of that. But many users shared that it's still lacking in funnel analysis, retention, and segmentation analysis.

So, what’s the solution?

Amplitude Analytics’s new campaign reporting feature helps you understand how acquisition investments drive product growth.

Amplitude Analytics enables product and marketing teams to view how acquisition sources impact product outcomes, attribute product success to campaigns, measure the ROI of digital campaigns and activate campaigns with better customer segmentation.  

Amplitude is also the only digital analytics platform to combine acquisition campaign reporting with best-in-class product analytics.

It's also the analytics tools we use and love at Demand Curve.

‍Check out their demo environment here

That last tactic notwithstanding, there is a category where the warmth-competence dynamic isn’t as applicable: luxury.

Luxury brands don’t have to be warm to succeed. In fact, it might benefit them to be cold.

Let me introduce you to the greatest academic-study title of all time: “Should the Devil Sell Prada? Retail Rejection Increases Aspiring Consumers’ Desire for the Brand.”

What the authors uncovered was that when it comes to luxury, if a consumer is treated rudely by a salesperson, they want the product more.

Here’s how they put it:

“After threat, consumers have more positive attitudes and higher willingness to pay when…the rejection comes from an aspirational (vs. nonaspirational) brand.”

If you work in luxury, we don’t actually think you should be a jerk to your customers.

A general principle to live by: No a**holes.

But this is a reminder that perceived value directly influences willingness to pay. How much do customers believe your product to be worth?

And perceived value in turn has a lot of factors.

Exclusivity is one of them. So are brand perception, status signaling, and the social currency a company provides to the people who shop it.

A few months ago, we wrote about delighting customers to build loyalty. We used the example of how Apple products always seem to arrive before their estimated delivery date.

Zappos pioneered that type of “pleasant surprise” shipping. If you ordered a pair of shoes off Zappos, they would often arrive a day or two early. 

But Zappos didn’t prove their thoughtfulness just through early shoe arrivals. They also trained their customer service reps to be as patient as possible—even if that meant talking to a customer for nine and a half hours, as one rep did!

Zappos nailed two essential human traits: warmth and competence.

• Warmth: We want to know that a person cares about us and means us no harm.
  
• Competence: We also want to know if they’re capable and skilled.

Those judgments may influence more than 80% of human social behavior.

And crucially, they apply to brands too.

Brands like Coca-Cola have high warmth and competence. They’re trustworthy, friendly, and good at what they do. They even invented the modern-day Santa Claus.

On the other hand, services like the US Postal Service are seen as warm but not so competent (sorry, USPS 🙊).

Brands that score low on both dimensions don't tend to last long. 

Here’s what Princeton psych professor Susan Fiske and customer loyalty expert Chris Malone wrote in their book The Human Brand (emphasis added):

“Companies and brands were judged so strongly along the lines of warmth and competence dimensions that these judgments explained nearly 50 percent of all purchase intent, loyalty, and likelihood to recommend a brand or company. To put that 50 percent figure in perspective, consumer research is normally considered to be significant if it reveals a new variable explaining as little as 15 percent of customer behavior.”

Brainstorm ways to reveal your brand’s warmth and competence.

That doesn’t have to mean nine hours on the phone. Simple gestures—a comped product, a small act of service, or a hand-written thank-you note—can go a long way toward building lasting affinity.

Is your brand more of a Cady Heron or a Regina George? 

Here at Demand Curve, we’re a Ms. Norbury type.

Why? We’re kind of nerdy—and super determined to help our students out. We’re pushers.

(If you haven’t seen Mean Girls, we’ll still be here in an hour and 37 minutes 👀)

What we're talking about is our brand persona.

Thinking of your brand as a character can help you personify it and give it a unique, consistent voice in your messaging.

Now, while it’s fun to think about who your brand would be if it were a movie or TV character, we tend to prefer two other approaches to brand persona.

These are more universal—and you want your persona to make everyone on your team say:

"Ah, yep, I get it. That’s who we are."

Brand as a superhero 🦸‍♀️

Are you a Bruce Wayne who builds tools to solve problems? Or a Hulk who gets raging mad when your audience has a problem that’s holding them back?

Brand as an archetype🕴️ 

This goes back to the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. There are 12 archetypes you can apply to brand.

Think: Patagonia as the Explorer, Harley-Davison as the Outlaw, Disney as the Magician.

We’re still in the “look at what I made everyone!!!” phase of creating AI images.

Oh, look at that, an excuse to share some pancakes from the United Federation:

But we’re also aware of some of AI’s limitations.

For example, DALL-E is great for still images, but video is much harder to do.

So what’s an ecom brand on TikTok or Reels to do?

Fortunately, Karen X. Cheng figured it out. Check out her video.

She tested out different approaches to AI for video until she reached a solid workflow for fashion showcase videos:

1. Shoot your video.
2. Use DALL-E to generate outfits. Erase parts of the outfit in your video, and inpaint over it. (Don’t erase the entire outfit—DALL-E will be able to match color and lighting better if you keep parts of the original.)
3. Use the program EbSynth by Secret Weapons to create consistency between frames. EbSynth is meant to turn paintings into animations, but after testing it out, Karen discovered that it works for clothes too.
4. Run the video through DAIN to blend the transitions between outfits—and create a slo mo effect.

(Sorry if you thought this tactic was going to be about stylish robots.)

"As the person being interviewed, it's entirely up to you to make it a podcast worth listening to or not. Treat it for what it is: A PERFORMANCE. You have to fight to keep listeners' attention through the whole interview. Bring your A-game like a musician or comedian would."

– Swipe Files

Podcasts continue to explode in popularity—making guest podcasting increasingly popular as a tactic for growth. 

Don't leave it up to the host to make it an A+ interview. Take ownership of the experience. 

Here are five tips to step up your podcast appearances:

1. Treat it like a performance, not an interview. Bring energy by smiling and using vocal inflections. Enunciate your words. If you’re going to be on video, use hand gestures for a more dynamic visual.
2. Research the podcast(s) you’re appearing on by asking the host:
3. Who is your audience?
4. What are some of your most popular episodes?
5. What topics will we cover? (Getting the questions in advance = even better)
6. Create a cheat sheet of talking points and send it to the host. It should be an outline with specific examples, not a script. Make sure to include:
7. A 2-minute synopsis answering “Tell me about yourself”
8. Your life background
9. Why you do what you do
10. How people can take action, e.g., sign up for your service or buy a product
11. Your hottest takes or “spiky point of view”
12. Books, podcasts, and resources you recommend
13. Prepare a few interesting anecdotes—telling stories makes for more entertaining and memorable interviews. Rehearse them with your friends so you can perfect the delivery.
14. Invest in good equipment, like a professional microphone. If doing video, get a solid camera and light like the Lume Cube.

Do the above and you'll far more likely dazzle their audiences and generate leads.

Humans are funny.

We tend to prefer things (and people) that aren't perfect.

In a study by Professor Jo Sylvester at Swansea University, candidates who highlighted a weakness during an interview were more likely to be hired than those who didn't.

To put my speculation cap on, it's because it makes the person seem more genuine and believable. They were willing to show weakness, making it seem more likely that they were telling the truth about their strengths.

Phil Agnew decided to put this to the test for his podcast. He did two Reddit ad variations:

One highlighted the benefits of listening to his podcast.

The other very tongue-in-cheek highlighted the downsides of listening to his podcasts.

As you can see this led to a 4x higher clickthrough rate (and therefore a 4x cheaper CPC).

Note that Phil didn't follow the Pratfall to the full spirit, as he actually didn't talk down his podcast. Instead, he framed the benefits as negatives. Which highlighted playfulness and likely got people's attention.

So resist the urge to talk about how amazing you are all the time, and instead be playful and poke fun at yourself sometimes.

The robots are here. Our jobs are lost.

At least to some content marketers, ChatGPT and other AI writing services are seen as a threat to their livelihoods.

But rather than oppose these innovations, we think it’s better to leverage them as another tool in your content arsenal.

Specifically, by using AI to create content outlines.

Software architect Mohammed Osman tested this by asking ChatGPT for a blog post outline about a highly technical topic (C# abstract factory design pattern—huh?).

And ChatGPT delivered.

Why give it a shot?

You can save hours on SEO research.

Since ChatGPT was trained with text from around the web, the outlines it produces reflect how content about a given topic is generally structured.

We don’t advise using ChatGPT to do all of your content creation work, though.

For one, it’s not there yet. The quality isn't the best and GPT3 is notorious for making stuff up if it doesn't know the answer.

Also, Google will find and penalize AI-generated content. Guaranteed.

For now, stick to asking our robot overlords for an outline. It’s much easier to edit than to overcome Blank Page Syndrome.

Then apply your creative adjustments and fresh perspective—something purely AI-generated content can’t do.

My new year’s resolution* was to learn Spanish.

*Of like 2012…still working on it.

I came across a word the other day while trying to read in Spanish: propaganda.

In some Spanish-speaking countries, that means “advertising.” 🤯 This took me down a rabbit hole of language and etymology.

Two things I learned:

1) In the early 1900s, PR folks called their work propaganda—that wasn't considered a bad thing then.

Here’s how the “Father of PR,” Edward Bernays, defined it:

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.”

Hmm…

2) The un-literal meaning of “literally” is now accepted.  

So it’s now okay to use “literal” literally (“you are literally on fire,” get help fast 🔥) or figuratively (“you are literally on fire,” great job 🔥).

That makes it a Janus word—it means the opposite of itself. (Another example: “Left” can mean “gone” or “remaining.”)

–––

In your messaging, it’s not enough to know what a word or phrase means.

You have to understand its connotations.

And those 1) change, and 2) depend on context.

Think about words like:

• busy, which used to imply not part of the leisure class (i.e., working class), but now implies important
• mainstream, which used to mean the predominant way of thinking, but is now super politicized (like in the term “mainstream media”)

Their meanings are generally the same, but the subtext is very different.

Now, how do you stay on top of changing connotations in your copy?

A key step is to deeply understand your customers. What they say. What they do. What they care about. It’s important for understanding how they might interpret the words you use.

For example, Mercedes-Benz launched in China with the tagline “Bensi.”

Sounds cool, right?

Well, it means “rush to die” in Mandarin (奔死)—not exactly the association you want for your family vehicle.

Good marketers persuade. Great marketers listen.

(Thanks to Raf at Bell Curve for thinking through these concepts with me, and to the book Branding That Means Business for the Mercedes-Benz story.)

This tactic helped add over 500 people to the waitlist for our new course in 24 hours—which ended up selling out in six minutes.

One-third of the sales were from those 500 people.

It’s pretty simple:

Instead of sharing the link directly, get people to comment to ask for it.

For example, in my LinkedIn post last Friday, I shared the success stories of people who took our previous audience building course. 

At the end, I pitched our revamped version with Katelyn Bourgoin. To get the link to the waitlist, I asked them to comment with "👀"

The result?

I had to DM so many people that I was afraid I was going to get suspended.

I eventually gave up and added a comment on the post with the link. (Yet people continued to comment for two more days.) 

Compare that to another time I promoted a similar course and didn't ask for comments:

Why does this work?

A few reasons:

1. External links on social platforms are penalized by algorithms. My post had zero links.
2. When someone comments on a post, it gets shown to some of their connections. When some of their connections also comment, it shows to even more. This snowballs until it’s been seen by tens of thousands of people.
3. When people comment to signal their interest, it’s a low-friction first step in the funnel. They’re now more likely to take an even higher friction step: clicking a link and giving up their email address. More so than if I had started by asking their email.
4. When you receive a DM from someone, it feels more real and personal. It starts a connection with someone and increases the likelihood they take action.

I’ve used this tactic numerous times to promote various courses and services.

Each time it’s led to plenty of leads. And hundreds of new followers each time. Here are some other examples for inspiration: Un-Ignorable, Audience Building, and ChatGPT.

200 podcasts in five years. That's how many Casey Hill booked for him and his team. 

The result? According to them, $1,080,000 in revenue and dozens of sales every month.

Why does this work? A few reasons.

Reason one brings us to one of my favorite phenomena: The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (or the frequency illusion/bias).

Imagine you just hear of someone. Then you start seeing them on LinkedIn. Then Twitter. A friend brings them up. Then they're speaking on your favorite podcast.

"WOW, this person is EVERYWHERE! They must be huge."

After you notice something for the first time, you're more likely to take note of it the second time, then more likely the third time, and so on. You believe it must be getting more and more popular or common when in reality, you're increasingly tuned to noticing what was already there.

For example, you'll never see so many motorcycles until you start riding motorcycles.

When the Bonjoro team was on 200 podcasts across the industry, it became increasingly hard for a podcast listener to not notice them. And once they did, they started noticing them across every podcast in the industry.

"Wow, who are these guys?"

Podcasts are also excellent affinity builders. Listening to someone speak for 60 minutes is way more impactful than casually reading their social posts for months.

Check out Casey's LinkedIn post where he breaks down his process for getting on podcasts.

Would you rather win a trip to Hawaii? Or a ✨mystery prize✨ of the same value?

Turns out that people are more motivated by a mystery prize than they are when they know what the prize is.

People love to dream. 

Beyoncé knew this when she released her album, Renaissance, this past summer. She gave people the option to buy a $40 "mystery box."

People were generally told what was inside: 

• Collectible box
• CD
• 4-Panel Softpak
• T-shirt
• Photo booklet
• Mini poster

They also had the option of choosing between four different "poses." This was Beyoncé's pose on the T-shirt—but there was no way of knowing what that meant!

What could a loyal Beyoncé fan do but to buy all four?

That means loyal fans ended up buying four copies of her album for $160, when her album normally sells for just $18. That's a 9x increase in order value.

She sold out of all of her mystery boxes in under two days. And the album ended up being one of the biggest of the year, and one of her biggest of all time.

Use mystery to motivate your customers.

We did this with our course, Un-Ignorable. During the early bird sale, we promised a "mystery bonus." And we sold out 50+ seats for the course in less than an hour.

Content marketing of the past:

1. Do keyword research.
2. Create an article for those keywords.
3. Wait and repeat.
4. (Plus link to the article in a tweet and send it to your newsletter.)

Content marketing now:

1. Do audience research (SparkToro, perusing social, subreddits, etc).
2. Create an article targeting that audience.
3. Share the article in your newsletter.
4. Create 5+ tweets, LinkedIn posts, TikTok videos/Instagram reels/YouTube Shorts.
5. Drive users to your newsletter.
6. Engage with commenters.
7. See which posts get the most engagement and look for frequently asked questions.
8. Create an article based on those, and repeat.

In short, turn every piece of content into numerous smaller pieces and re-use them across channels—tailored to that specific medium and audience.

Drive those people back to your newsletter. You own your email list. It isn't gated by algorithms. It can't be taken away if you were to get banned or if the social network becomes less popular (imagine having a huge Facebook audience!).

If someone came up to you on the street and asked you to marry them, would you?

Of course not.

You also shouldn't push someone who has never heard of you before to buy your product.

You have to speak to people where they're at on the Ladder of Product Awareness:

The higher up the ladder a prospect is, the less convincing and educating you need to do in order to convert them into a customer.

You, walking on the street and getting asked to get married, were at Level 5. When really, people who get married are at Level 1. (At least we hope.)

Focus on people who are at levels 1 to 4. Convincing people who do not have the problem that your product solves (level 5) is a fool's errand. If you're early stage, go for levels 1-3.

Here's how to write copy that pushes people up the ladder:

• Level 5 → Level 4: Call out the problem
• Level 4 → Level 3: Show them that there’s a solution to their problem (your product category)
• Level 3 → Level 2: Motivate them to take action on the problem
• Level 2 → Level 1: Highlight features and benefits to show them that your product is the best solution
• Level 1 → Conversion: Drive them to the product page—maybe with a promo.

Let's use an ad campaign as an example of using the LPA:

1. For a prospecting campaign, assume level 3 or 4. Educate them. Send them to an article, show an educational video, or invite to a webinar.
2. Follow up with a retargeting campaign that highlights how your product solves the problem their experiencing. Can do several ads that focus on different features.
3. If they still haven't converted, follow up with another retargeting ad that compares you to your competitors.
4. Lastly, if they still haven't, try a promotion or bonus offer for converting.

It’s a no-brainer that if you’ve got a podcast, you should be posting it on YouTube. Even if you don't record video (which you should).

YouTube has 2.6 billion monthly active users. Spotify has 456 million (but only ~30M listen to podcasts). Stitcher has 15.3 million weekly users.

On top of that, YouTube is used much more heavily for search. And Shorts have massively increased discoverability relative to regular videos.

Here are 7 tips for podcasting on YouTube:

1. Take snippets of your podcast and share them as Shorts on the same channel. It's far easier to go viral with a Short than it is with a full episode.
2. Organize different video formats into playlists on your channel.
3. Include your host or guest speaker’s face in the thumbnail image. Users tend to gravitate toward thumbnails featuring faces. Find more tactics for YT thumbnails here.
4. Use intriguing titles. Don't write misleading clickbait, but know that you need to capture someone's interest enough that they click.
5. Example: "The Untold Truth about The Mandalorian"
6. Add chapters to your episodes. These make your episode easier to navigate and keep people around longer as they can skip to parts that interest them the most. Type the time for each segment in 00:00 format in the video description. YouTube will automatically generate them.
7. Even if you don’t have video in your recording sessions, you can and should still publish your podcasts on YouTube. Go for an audiogram format—pair images with your audio. For more originality, use an AI art generator like DALL-E.
8. But we highly recommend recording video to increase engagement and to be able to do Shorts. Riverside.fm is great for high-quality remote recording.
9. Add captions. Captioned videos have a higher average watch time.
10. Add a watermark to your video that encourages people to subscribe. Here's how.

Are you a coffee drinker?

Or do you drink coffee?

Same thing, right?

Not when it comes to marketing.

In a series of experiments in the early 2000s, psychologists Gregory Walton and Mazarin Banaji found that people’s self-perceptions hinge on a simple part of speech.

Example:

• Noun: “I’m a Mac user.”
• Verb: “I use a Mac a lot.”

Guess which one reveals a stronger preference for Macs?

The noun does.

We care deeply about our identity and how we’re perceived. Signaling our identity—this is who I am—is more important to us than this is a thing I do.

Three takeaways for businesses:

1. Experiment with noun-based CTAs: “Be a donor” vs. “Donate now.”
2. Use nouns in your content. “Ready to become the best chef on the block?” vs. “Ready to start cooking?”
3. Build social signaling into your brand. An example from Branding That Means Business: In a 2007 survey, Prius drivers said the main reason they bought their car was that it “makes a statement about me” and “shows the world that its owner cares.”

You know, not all the environmental reasons they tell their friends.

This identity can also rub off on others: “One of the strongest predictors of whether someone will buy a hybrid is whether the people in their same neighbourhood own one.”

What tribe do your customers join by buying from you? Proud environmentalists? Cool Mac users? In-the-know coffee connoisseurs?

Think about that in relation to your brand. That kind of social signaling might motivate more purchases than your product’s features and functions.

In last week’s newsletter, a link to Dennis' LinkedIn profile instantly received a lot more clicks than expected. We didn't link to Dennis’ profile anywhere besides the footer.

That signalled to us that these were robots clicking the link randomly.

In general, your click-through rate is a solid metric for gauging email engagement. It signals that someone actually read your email and is interested in what you're offering. 

(Compare that with your open rate, which is mostly a vanity metric—particularly now that many email clients block the pixel that signals that an email has been opened.)

BUT privacy-focused email clients do fake clicks, which make the data pretty meaningless. 

How can you determine how accurate your click data is? The folks at DTC have a tactic: Put invisible links in your emails.

No human will be able to find and click them. But, a robot that's just looking at HTML will.

Put a couple in each email, and see how many times they get clicked.

This won't give you a completely accurate picture, but it'll give you an idea. Then you can adjust your read of your email metrics accordingly.

Want to get users to stick around for longer? Try getting them to set a goal.

The kicker: You don’t actually need to do anything with that goal.

The language-learning app Duolingo discovered this while experimenting with “streak goals.” When a user first signs up for an account, they're prompted to select a learning streak goal of 3, 7, 14, or 30 days.

They can't dismiss this screen—they have to choose a goal. That means extra friction in the signup process—which normally worries us marketers.

But it works.

Duolingo found that making users set streak goals improved retention, even though the app never references that goal again. 

Specifically:

• Users set higher goals than when the app showed a preselected streak goal.
• Users were more likely to stay after viewing this goal-setting screen.
• The added friction of setting a goal didn’t affect drop-off rates.

Our take: Users who pick a goal have made an internal commitment to themselves. That's a strong motivator. They'll feel bad if they don't achieve it and great when they do.

What companies should try testing out this tactic? This could be a good fit for businesses selling products related to self-improvement, like education, health, and fitness.

The most likely person to subscribe to your newsletter is someone who just subscribed to another relevant newsletter. They've already jumped the hurdle and said "yes" to one, so saying "yes" to another becomes a "sure, why not!"

Want proof?

Lenny Rachitsky's newsletter goes out to over 270,000 product managers and growth people. 78% of new subscribers come from other Substack newsletters recommending his newsletter. 11% of them become paid subscribers.

Here's what happened to his growth after Substack launched the recommendation feature:

YOWZA. Parabolic.

How do you get this same trend? Well, first you need an amazing newsletter like Lenny's. A high-quality product is always Step 1.

From there, you have a few options:

1. Write on Substack (not ideal for company newsletters).
2. Get other newsletters to custom code a newsletter recommendation tool (unlikely).
3. Use SparkLoop's new Upscribe feature. It's similar to Substack's, but it's cross-platform.

Basically, when you sign up for a newsletter using Upscribe, a modal will pop up that asks you to subscribe to other relevant newsletters. Here's what it looks like on our website:

And on their websites, they recommend ours. We all get relevant subscribers for no additional effort.

You can organize free cross-promotions to help grow your newsletter, or you can insert paid partner-program links to monetize your subscribers.

(We were not paid, nor were we asked to promote Upscribe. We just think it’s an awesome tool for newsletter growth and monetization.)

After someone subscribes to your newsletter, as much as ~30% of people may not confirm their subscription.

That's huge. If you can cut that down to 20% or 10%, you've just massively increased your subscription growth.

Growth Design has a cool tactic. When you sign up, they give you a CTA that links directly to your Gmail, with filters already applied so that only their confirmation email shows.

They call these links "sniper links."

Clicking the "Open Gmail" CTA takes you here:

This is extremely helpful for two reasons:

1. Most forms just say "go to your email to confirm." This is relying on the user to open their email client. Many will not. The button gets them to do it NOW.
2. Normally when users do go to their inbox to confirm, they also see 100 other unread messages. Many of them get distracted.

Growth Design claims sniper links can boost confirmation rates by 7%.

You can download their Sniper Link Cheat Sheet here.

Good video content does NOT mean it needs to be highly produced.

Try pulling snippets from your Zoom meetings—even internal ones.

For instance, you could pull a 20-second clip about your mission from a strategy meeting about your team’s branding and messaging.

To find these video marketing opportunities:

1. Record your meetings by default.
2. Upload recordings into a transcription tool like Otter.ai or Descript. Then search for key phrases to find share-worthy snippets and write down their timestamps.
3. Transform the snippets into polished clips. You can use a freelance platform like Fiverr or Upwork to find a video editor. Alternatively, if someone on your team has the editing chops, you can do this in-house.
4. Try publishing them on social media, in your newsletter, or on your website.

It's unorthodox for sure. But we're always fans of experimenting, especially when it's simple.

Imagine you're in the grocery aisle looking for cookies. You've got all the classic brands: Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Famous Amos, Pepperidge Farm, etc.

But your eyeballs are drawn to this:

YOWZA. Now that is impossible to miss.

Let's break down why:

• It's completely different than any other cookie brand.
• It's super colorful.
• It looks like a children's book—again, super distinct.
• You feel like you've ingested that mushroom featured on the package.
• You immediately know it's a low-carb version of an Oreo.

This tactic is also how Liquid Death has managed to dominate the water market as a late contender. It's how I notice Smart Sweets at the store every time I'm there.

Brands like these are simply impossible to miss. They refuse to blend in with their competitors.

They're "Un-Ignorable."

Who’s better at delivering a brand’s news: a human or a robot?

Well...it depends on whether that news is good or bad.

A study in the Journal of Marketing found that when the news a company is sharing is worse than expected, people respond better if it's delivered by an AI agent.

But when the news is better than expected, they’ll respond more positively to a person.

Bad news: Think delays, service outages, recalls, product defects, or price increases.

AI agents are preferred because they aren’t believed to have bad intentions. They’re machines who follow the rules of their programming.

Good news: Think upgrades, faster deliveries, or exclusive offers.

When humans share the good news, they might be perceived as having good intentions.

To be clear, we're not saying to delegate damage control to a bot. Imagine if Biden got a robot to deliver all the bad news and only showed up for the good news. YIKES.

But these findings can influence how you prioritize AI vs. agent customer service. Or even whether an email comes from "the brand" or a specific person on the team.

One takeaway: If you have great news to share, encourage your team to share it. It feels good to be the bearer of positive news—and to get that news from a person.

This is not your typical "growth tactic." Instead, it's about creating an environment where you're more likely to make better decisions that lead to growth.

Lately, there’s been a theme in what the smart people we listen to are saying.

Smart Person #1: At our Growth Summit, Shane Parrish talked about the Stormtrooper Problem. That’s when everyone thinks about a problem in the same way. This means there's less diversity of thought, which leads to worse group decision-making.

Smart Person #2: Also at our Growth Summit, Tim Urban discussed Idea Labs. They’re the opposite of echo chambers.

In an Idea Lab, no idea is sacred. It’s a “miniature marketplace of ideas where multiple, varied viewpoints coexist.”

Idea Labs come to better conclusions than echo chambers because of diverse thought and the civil discourse of ideas.

Smart Person #3: Adam Grant explores the concept of the challenge network in his book Think Again. A challenge network is a group of people who question your decisions, look for flaws in your logic, and help you overcome your own blind spots.

Steve Jobs’ challenge network of engineers, marketers, and designers helped convince him that creating a mobile phone wasn’t, as he claimed, the “dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

Smart Person #4: Jonathan L. Fischer wrote a good Slate article about why Elon Musk bought Twitter. Basically, everyone he was texting with told him to. Clearly, he didn't ask people who were willing to challenge him. And now millions are—in public.

In short, create a community of people who are willing to respectfully challenge you. Or else the courts might force you to buy something for $44 billion.

Listen to other people’s differing opinions. Let your assumptions be challenged. Diverse views lead to better decisions.

And better decisions lead to a better product and a better company.