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.