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.

Last week, I announced the release of our re-imagined audience-building course, Un-Ignorable, with buyer psychology expert Katelyn Bourgoin.

Yesterday, we did a Cyber Monday early bird sale. It sold out in the first hour.

We didn't use a landing page. Instead, we used a Google Doc that pitched the course and used a Stripe payment link for checkout.

We primarily did this for two reasons. To create urgency, and it's simple:

Visitors could see that 90 other people were looking at that page when there were only 30 remaining spots.

And we manually updated the # of remaining seats with each sale. They could see the number ticking down. The urgency was real.

If you weren’t able to grab an early bird seat, don’t worry! More seats will be available during our official launch on Jan. 2nd, 2023.

Un-ignorable is a 21-day group challenge for marketers and founders. You’ll learn how to grow your audience by creating thumb-stoppingly good content. 

The challenge starts on Jan. 10th, 2023.

There will be limited seats for the first cohort. Join the waitlist to be the first to get the invite.

Mobile navigation is hard. Particularly on ecommerce shops with dozens of product categories spanning hundreds to thousands of products.

If it's not easy to find what you're looking for, you might bounce and never return again.

Therefore, try adding a fixed search bar to your mobile site.

An anchored search bar gives users an easy way to find what they're looking for.

Calvin Klein’s Hong Kong team tested this with great success.

They sell swimwear, underwear, and accessories to men, women, and children. It's dizzying.

A sticky search bar at the top of its homepage made it much easier for shoppers to find what they’re specifically looking for.

In fact, this change led to a 267% increase in search bar clicks and 19% jump in shoppers accessing the search results page versus simply having a search icon in the nav bar.

One word of caution in testing this function: try not to fill half their screen with sticky elements. Or else they won't be able to actually use the site.

Imagine it's your birthday and you're scrolling your Instagram feed (mine is mostly Aussie Shepherd videos). Suddenly you see a big image that says "Happy Birthday!"

It'd be a really delightful surprise. And as we said 2 weeks ago, delight leads to much greater customer loyalty. You're now more likely to buy from that brand in the future. 

The tactic is: Run retargeting ads for people with upcoming birthdays.

Simply wish them a happy birthday in a creative way. You can offer something (e.g., “Your birthday’s coming up, here’s a coupon”), but you don’t need to.

The next time these prospects need your product, they’ll be more likely to choose you.

A warning: This is not a "performance" campaign. It's a brand-building campaign. It won’t drive tangible results overnight. In fact, ROI won’t be directly attributable.

However, this campaign will certainly build goodwill and customer rapport—which can lead to improved retention, repeat purchases, and brand affinity in the long run.

My friend, Rob, is the epitome of startup hustle. He translated his intensity from being a 5x Team Canada pro cyclist into bootstrapping a DTC brand called Outway. 

At least once per week he custom designs socks for brands he loves. 

He then pings them publicly on Twitter with the design to prompt them to do a custom wholesale order for their team.

For example, here’s one he did for Canva:

It then led to the Canva team responding positively:

This tactic is an excellent way to:

1. Illustrate the value that the custom order provides. It makes it a lot more real.
2. Approach a brand without being annoying.
   
3. Get both employees and fans of the brand on board.
4. Get exposure in general, as engagement is quite high relative to his account size.
5. Get wholesale leads in the door.