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Adam Fairhead
If you write books, it’s easier to write for your people, than to find people who want what you wrote.
If you make products, it’s easier to make products for your people, than to find people who want what you built.
If you create art, it’s easier to paint for your people, than to find people who want to buy your work.
Learn them, know them, create for them.
Much easier than creating, then trying to find a buyer.
Adam Fairhead
Do we want to be paid for value created, or effort exerted?
They’re not the same thing:
Are we selling our creations, or our costs?
Adam Fairhead
What customers don’t care about:
What customers DO care about:
We’re not in the “features & benefits” business.
We’re in the “relationship & experience” business.
Adam Fairhead
Marketing gurus tell us to ‘seize attention’…
But great marketing doesn’t do that.
1. When you ‘seize them’:
2. When you ‘edutain them’:
Choosing #1 is easy up-front, hard over time.
Choosing #2 is hard up-front, easy over time.
What’s it to be?
Adam Fairhead
Two paths in marketing:
1: Stalk site visitors, wear them down with offers. (the ‘conventional marketing automation’ path)
2: Give people what they want, how they enjoy it. (the ‘make them actually like and look forward to you’ path)
Which would YOU rather buy from? (Do you think your market might feel the same way?)
Adam Fairhead
There are two types of ‘extra mile’.
The first is when you deliver more of a service than expected. If you buy a small slice of cake, but receive a large, that’s the extra mile. Noteworthy, appreciated.
The second is when you deliver more than a service they expected. If you buy a small slice of cake, and receive a ‘cake pals’ sticker with it, that’s a different kind of extra mile.
The first gives you more of a service, so you think you got good value for money.
The second gives you more than the service, so you feel like you’re a part of something alive and relatable.
The first might look like a mistake, or desperation, or maybe it delights them and they indulge themselves or share it with someone.
The second might feel quirky and unusual, where the sticker is given to a child and makes their day.
Both have an important role to play: one is for thinking, the other is for feeling.
Adam Fairhead
Anthropomorphizing a virtual pet makes the virtual pet experience more enjoyable. There’s a whimsical nature about it, where we know it’s a ruse, but we enjoy the experience all the same.
Anthropomorphizing AI makes the research experience more polarizing. Enjoyable when it’s working, infuriating when it isn’t. We forget the ruse, and so we lose control of our tools.
Anthropomorphizing only works when you remember the ruse.
Adam Fairhead
Marketing gurus tell us to ‘seize attention’.
But great marketing doesn’t do that:
1. When you ‘seize them’:
2. When you ‘edutain them’:
Choosing #1 is easy up-front, hard over time.
Choosing #2 is hard up-front, easy over time.
Adam Fairhead
Two paths in marketing:
1: Stalk site visitors, wear them down with offers (the ‘conventional marketing automation’ path).
2: Give people what they want, how they enjoy it (the ‘make them actually like and look forward to you’ path).
Do you think your market might feel the same way?
Adam Fairhead
What’s the biggest difference between Good vs Bad ads?
It seems to all come down to 1 thing: How much you value other people’s attention.
VS
And it’s getting worse, as Meta AI trains to make copy/creative for your competitors.
So now’s the time to do better:
There’s still plenty of room for those who do that.
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