Monday morning. Let’s go!

“Attitudes are caught, not taught.”

Fred Rogers

One of my favorite (and expected) things is Dark Mode. But when Twitter just asked me if I wanted it automatically at night, I didn’t know how terrible it would be. Disorienting on first visit. No in-app help from their team. Also, almost impossible to switch back out! Near panic

One of the rare times I disagree with Seth Godin.

“At the conclusion of the endless surveys when they ask you if you have anything else to add, don’t bother. It’s not like the CEO is busy reading your comments.“

There are companies, more each day, who are listening to their customers.

Feedback is not futile. Often it is the only way that products or services can improve for the better or problems can get identified and solved.

Read more: Sneaky surveys (and push polls) | Seth’s Blog ➚

Showdown!!!! Quilting vs. Knitting: It don’t get much betta than this.

If you find yourself typing “Fwd:” in the subject line of an email (mass or 1-1) just STOP. It’s a lie. You know it. They’ll know it. And it can break their trust indefinitely.

The problem with “customer journeys" has been that marketers think about them as a single long linear path that one goes on.

The truth is that a prospect or customer will be experiencing many journeys at once, out of order.

Admitting that, and using it as fuel, can’t we make better journeys designed to coexist and complement each other?

Wouldn’t adjacent-aware mini-journeys do better work in this out of order world?

Couldn’t that help to reduce confusion, get stuck people unstuck, help confused people understand, and create more successful customers along the way?

Controversial Opinion:

The greatest work in marketing can be written out on a napkin. It’s plain ol' text.

#textsells

Not pictures.

You can draw as eye catching a picture as you want, but if the headline isn’t right…

It won’t sell. 👀

Every word has to sell your eye to move to the next word…

… and every line has to sell you to read the next line. 🧐

If you want to prompt action, you have to ask for it…

…. with the right words.

#copywriting #demandgen

➚ ‘Scrappy’ is not the same as ‘crappy’ | Seth’s Blog

“Ship scrappy.“

I’ve been a fan of Jamie Cullum for a long time. This new album is the first time he’s really made me realize like he’s come into his own with his own hybrid mashup style. You can hear all of his history and influences come together in these originals.

Taller by Jamie Cullum

You don’t do long division by hand. You use excel. To eliminate the possibility of errors and save time.

You don’t manually send emails to everyone. You use email marketing tools. To errr… reduce the possibility of errors and save time.

But compare it to your open rate. How much time are you really saving? Designing the template. Rounds of revisions. Approvals. Oops mistakes. Redos. Spam filters. Just to have a handful open it and even fewer respond.

For a lot of companies, aren’t you better off just sending one offs for a really important message? Unless you have a list in the tens and hundreds of thousands.

Weight the real cost.

Now think, “what if I sent them each a customized video?”

How many would it make sense to send out?

Can you afford the time?

Can you afford not to cut through the noise to get this one through?

The medium is the message.

If this one is really important, think about how you get it through.

Dads and grads y’all. Dads and grads.