Archive of posts from December 2024

Marketing’s job is to create buyer consideration. Not to make noise or “generate leadz”.

Sales’ job is to create buyer decisions. Not to “close close close”.

When you measure activities by what they’re designed for — rather on external factors — you’re far better equipped to see the critical elements worth optimizing.

Brands are dying and don’t even know it.

They just need to remember one thing:

Don’t go overdrawn on Relational Capital.

That means: if a new sale doesn’t…

• make folks ask to buy more,
• create a new fan,
• create referrals,

…then each time you ‘sell’, you ‘spent’ goodwill.

And need to build it back up with value.

But if a new sale causes those things?

You win.

So before you ask, ask yourself:
“Is this giving more...

Original marketing is in decline.

AI-generated campaigns are growing.

And this is great news. Why?

Because people are dying for new experiences.

• We’re tired of templated content.
• We’re tired of AI-generated posts.
• We’re tired of talking-head videos.
• We’re tired of tired old landing pages.

So when we see something new?

It rocks our world:

• Marketing to look forward to, not ‘skip’.
• Media that’s educational and entertaining.
• Webpages that are experiences, not ‘pages’.

The old way is...

Remember paper?

When you write digital notes, you focus on structure and form, not just ideas. You have billion-dollar companies competing for your attention while you try to focus. You risk over-writing and under-thinking.

When you fill a digital calendar, you focus on what you can fit into the day, not just what belongs in the day. You have no visible scribbles nor edits to remind you of miscalculated estimates, setting you up to repeat past mistakes.

Paper plays an...

Slack is powerful.

I don’t mean the business communication platform (though that is powerful, too).

I mean a little bit of margin between activities.

Whether it’s slack between time blocks,

Or it’s slack at the end of each week,

Or it’s slack at the end of each month,

Have some.

There are few assets as powerful as slack, at ensuring your goals get met.

There’s something strangely alluring about ugly tools.

My favourite animation app looks like it came straight out of the 90s.

My favourite text editors did come straight out of the 90s.

My Gmail interface has a calendar box in it, Salesforce to-dos in there, all on top of Gmail’s regular (somewhat cluttered) interface.

I think it’s kind of beautiful.

While the manicured, minimalist interfaces call you to perfect what you’re doing, they seemingly judge every typo and false start. You...

My family knows me well.

This Christmas, I was greeted with some delightful little plastic toys. They now adorn my desk, as expected.

Some people subscribe to expensive productivity services to get their boost.

Others require very specific blends of coffee in pursuit of their operational gains.

Me?

A few silly toys on my desk that I feel like are cheering me on is my jam.

Find your jam.

The smartphone with the best reviews isn’t automatically the best one for you and your specific needs.

The home that inspires the most envy in others isn’t automatically the one you’ll find most fulfilling.

The profession everyone aspires to isn’t automatically the one you’ll be glad you invested your life into when it’s all over.

Don’t choose for what is best for the greatest number of people.

Choose for what is best for you, your needs, and your philosophies.

Choose...

“Latest and greatest”

Just because it’s “latest”, it’s not automatically “greatest”.

For instance:

• Most of my sites run on a system from 2008.
• Both of my writing apps first launched in 1991.
• Yet other parts of my stack are less than a year old!

Use latest IF “latest IS greatest”.

Use old and stable IF stable is still superior.

Best is best.

“You’re not charging enough!”

“You’re overpriced!”

I figure it this way:

If we can do a great job at something, but it takes a certain amount of time to make it great, then that time needs to be factored into price.

If we can do an equally-great job with less, we might need to be charging less anyway.

If we need that time but compromise on price, then we compromise on service, which is a total disservice to the customer.

The market may be obsessed with AI…

But it’s desperate for craftsmen.

Those who don’t:

• farm creative out to ‘chippity’
• hand you over to cheap labour
• saturate markets with low quality

Here’s what smart businesses want:

• They want teams who strive for the best
• They want teams who sweat the details
• They want teams who care the most

They know delegating to the least experienced won’t help them grow.

They know commoditized creative won’t help them...

Be the show. Not the commercial break.

Here’s how:

Don’t pitch.

• There’s too much good material out there
• Pithy pitching take you out of the race

Don’t use ad spend as a crutch.

• Organic is increasingly a litmus test
• Ad spend won’t save bad material

Don’t make it about you.

• Make it about what they want
• Make it how they like receiving it

Don’t behave like a commercial break.

• Behave like a beloved...

“Are my competitors better than us?”
“Are they giving better service than us?”
“Are they smarter than us?”

More likely they’re either:

• Sharing more value than you,
• More enjoyable than you,
• Both.

Most of us are online to learn, or to laugh.

So combine the two.

Your competitors won’t know what hit ‘em.

Likes/comments are not your social goal.

These are your social goals:

❌ Don’t: Chase followers & likes
(They only impresses your parents)

✅ Do: Collect loyal fans
(Where there’s real relation equity)

❌ Don’t: Chase ill-defined leads
(Everyone is here. That doesn’t make them a lead)

✅ Do: Give well-defined value
(Be like Santa: give gifts until they believe in you)

❌ Don’t: Chase ad impressions
(It just means you’re spending)

✅ Do: Read into...

I’ve been writing some ‘customer success’ stories lately for my Otherworldly studio. I thought you might enjoy reading some of them:

The strategy, videos, pages and UX behind a Deloitte Fast500 brand.
Supporting S2G from 11k to over 35K customers, winning Deloitte Fast500 for 5 years in a row.

S2G is one of the leading email delivery server SaaS companies in the world. We met the founder when the company was serving 11,000 customers in 100 countries, and ready...

I’ve been writing some ‘customer success’ stories lately for my Otherworldly studio. I thought you might enjoy reading some of them:

Otherworldly doubles conversions in competitive insurance markets.
Unlocking the next chapter of growth for well-optimized portfolio pages in high-growth markets.

VEMM is one of the largest insurance management firms in Brazil, providing providing nationwide access to better terms and plans coupled with prompt customer service.

The team wanted to uncover new ways to improve conversion rates across their...

I’ve been writing some ‘customer success’ stories lately for my Otherworldly studio. I thought you might enjoy reading some of them:

Otherworldly brings the most advanced web framework to life.
Giving a framework that powers hundreds of thousands of websites a brand personality that endures for over a decade.

The Foundation framework was among the first modern front-end development libraries to prioritize support across devices, mediums, and accessibility. Foundation became a family of responsive front-end frameworks that makes it...

I’ve been writing some ‘customer success’ stories lately for my Otherworldly studio. I thought you might enjoy reading some of them:

Mindfulness campaign raises six-figures in 6 hours with Otherworldly.
Find out how webcomics, videos and pages gave this project the resources it needed to grow, fast.

The Memento Morti campaign (2022) wanted to help young adults discover Stoic philosophy for the first time. The campaign’s goal was to assess interest in its chosen market, using real market feedback...

The newsletter is evolving!

The Productoon newsletter is now the Marketer From Space newsletter.

That means all the usual:

• Marketing short comics every week
• Tips from your favorite creators

Plus incoming:

• Animated weekly video shorts
• Fully-illustrated 16-page comic

Plus-plus: Recording everyone’s subscribe date, so the longest subscribers get the most future goodies 🥳

If you’re not yet subbed, come aboard: https://mredutainment.com/marketerfromspace/

Newbies mix up ‘Could’ and ‘Should’.

“Could” is an easy one: of course you could! You could do absolutely anything you’d like to do, that’s part of the magic of running your own business. Anything is possible, you can do absolutely anything. Way to go, champ.

Except you can “Could” your way into liquidation.

“Should” is a better question, and it’s answered by knowing what you’re doing, for whom, based on their existing journey, and how they’d like to get...

I used to subscribe to a meditation app. Did for many years. But when I cancelled it, I got 50% off discounts in my email practically practically every month.

Have done ever since.

The brand is training me to do two things:

1. Never pay full price for it, as they don’t think it’s worth it.
2. That they billed me 2x what its worth for years without telling me.

This is a good example of marketing promotions gone bad.

No data point is the holy grail.

No data point tells the whole story.

No data point is worth optimising for in isolation.

It’s like ordering ketchup without fries, quoting scripture at people out of context, or being the person who always buys someone the exact same present every year “because they like it”

Context is king.

Some days remind you of how fast time flies.

Some days remind you it’ll never slow down.

Some days remind you that this won’t last forever.

This is your green-light to slow down, look around, and enjoy the wonderful progress you’ve made.

And it is wonderful.

You just need to force time to slow down for just long enough to see.

The world tells us we need to make more noise.

Get more attention. More impressions. More headlines.

More eyeballs. More data. More clicks. More more.

But no one stops to question why.

The world has enough noise. But it’s starving for signal.

The world has enough headlines. But it’s short of things worth reading.

The world has enough eyeballs. But it’s short of things with heart.

Maybe what we need is less dazzle.

Maybe what we need is more illumination.

Nothing we make ever goes exactly to plan.

If the plan is what determines success, we’re destinated for failure.

But what if the plan didn’t get to decide?

What if the plan was just a think you wrote down once, nothing more?

What if you decided what was important today?

What if you dedided what was success and failure?

Isn’t that better?

Just because it’s popular on social media, it doesn’t make it good nor right for you.

Just because your peers all think it’s a good idea, it doesn’t mean they’re right.

Just because others say you’re missing out, it doensn’t mean you need to care.

Just because others have something you don’t, it doesn’t make it valuable.

Just because you dream different dreams, it doesn’t make them wrong.

Choose the voices you listen to.

Including those in your own head.

Don’t want to be a replaceable hype-man?

You need Evergreen Ubiquity:

Being your company’s ‘hype-man’ means:

• Waste time on checklist productivity,
• Go to market on the back-foot,
• Chase people around,
• Discount your stuff,
• Hamster wheel.Yeurgh.

But ‘Evergreen Ubiquity’ draws folks in:

• Very educational, very entertaining.
• You’re drawn in by its contribution in your life.
• You’re drawn in by the personalities you bonded with.
• You’re drawn in because it’s a small part of your identity.
• You go to...

If your offer sounds like this

We need to fix it, fast;

– “Buy now, 20% off”

• “Only 4 slots left” – “Doors close tomorrow”

These aren’t Offers. These are Modifiers.

You can use them to modify Offers… but they’re not Offers.

Buyers don’t want 20% off. They want a brand they love & trust to solve their problems.

Isn’t that better?

It’s a lie, perpetuated by online gurus:

“The ONE method to need to grow your biz”

Buy their product → ____ → Profit?

There’s no one method. They all work!

I’ve personally helped grow businesses using:

• organic social
• direct mail
• cold email
• cold calls
• paid ads
• seo

…So it’s not about the channel.

It’s about being on-narrative (their words),
giving more than you ask (a resource),
and being enjoyable (vs boring).

Use the methods you...

Here’s how I define “innovation”

Innovation:
“Making new things they’d rather experience”

That eliminates:

• Copying your competitors/peers
• Most biz/social templates
• Playing it safe
• Most MVPs

They’re all called “Invisible”.

Which begs the question…
If you have to choose (we all do)…

Would you rather be Innovative…or Invisible?

We’re in December. A month often used to reflect on the passing year.

Except time is a lousy measurement.

We don’t even really know what time is. It’s an abstract, complex way of measuring motion… a fleeting concept we perpetually try to estimate with, predict, and manage.

It doesn’t like to be managed, and its uneven nature makes it almost impossible to predict.

Let’s focus less on reflecting on time gone by, opportunities past, or woulda-coulda-shouldas. And focus more on...