What can marketers learn from the Burning Man floods?

Public perception doesn’t matter (to an extent).

Dedicated consumers will keep coming back if you service them, not the masses.

Consumer perception does.

Focus on your consumer’s perception and you’ll actually move the line.

I thought I was going to be done talking about sales vs. marketing last week, but podcasts keep dropping about the same topic. Better yet, they're agreeing with me! (They don't know this, of course, but let's pretend I'm a #influencer.)

First up, Don't Say Content. (YouTube link)

They talk about past experiences with the sales vs. marketing divide and where they think the issues lie. Of more interest, they share some great nuggets to get the two teams working together. Remember: same goal, different path.

Let's start with an ask for marketing people everywhere:

Marketing, give salespeople carrots that they can use in their sales process (and I guarantee you it’s not a white paper)

Next, a grail goal for marketing teams:

The meat for me is in the second half, paraphrased bits below.

Marketing is harder than sales. In sales, you get to talk to one person and understand their situation and tailor the pitch to them. Marketing is doing that at scale, trying to resonate with more than one person with a message that doesn’t get diluted to nothingness.

Marketing’s job is to abstract a little bit,

The sales team’s job is to identify which problems apply to that company and in what ways.

Sales gets super specific, where marketing is more like a diagnosis.

How sales and marketing teams can work together to win:

Cage Match: Sales vs. Marketing

Some rivalries have reached legendary status. Lakers-Celtics. Tom & Jerry. The Hatfields & the McCoys. Sales & Marketing. Everyone knows they don’t get along. But why is that? I have a guess. It’s because they’re the same thing. I know, I know. I know what you’re thinking…blasphemy! But hear

CuriousMarketers.ClubKyle Mensing

A good question to ask on a regular basis:

Are you here for your customers, to give them what they seek, or are you trying to do something to your customers, to squeeze out extra income?

Everything is customer service.

The era of the Western is here (again).

Expectations are the genre will “make a roaring return in entertainment and potentially usurp the superhero as this decade’s defining storytelling genre.”

If all brands and marketing are stories, how can you craft yours as a Western? Or at least compatible with a Western?

How can this story amplify “‘the idea you can live a more authentic, exciting, and rugged life.’”

When you put something out into the world, the bigger it gets, the less control you have of it.

Your intentions and interpretations become less important over time. And the resonance and reverence amongst fans and the public becomes more important.

The meaning of your brand becomes a conversation, not a monologue.

According to behavior science, to boost believability, trustworthiness, and memorability, use:

• rhymes
• alliteration
• simpler words (also makes people think you’re more intelligent)
• humor

To sum up: aim to be clever, not smart (?)

The EU is cracking down on “very large tech platforms.” This means:

• Less personalized ad targeting
• Algorithm-free feed options
• Stricter content moderation
• More data transparency (to people like authorities and researchers)

The platforms are working on efforts to comply. But how will it work? And if it does, how long until the US copies it?

A winning ecomm email framework (that’s working right now):

• Company name in the “from” field
• Great headline (chatty is good) with subhead
• Product shot
• “Watch this video” or “Learn more”
• Product video gif
• CTA

45% Of U.S., U.K. Advertisers Have Used Same Ad Approach For Past 5 Years

71% of this group don’t plan to change their strategy in the next year.

Some Q4 offer planning tips from Foxwell Digital:

• Keep it simple
• People want % or $ off
• Don’t do “up to X% off” sales (consumers know what they want probably isn’t the full X% off)
• $ off only works if it’s a meaningful amount (in terms of total price)

Some email A/B tests to consider running:

• Subject lines
• Message text
• Framing of message (question vs. statement, etc)
• CTA text
• Best days for sending (look beyond open rate)
• Best time for sending

Spicy metric hot take:

Click rates are overrated if you aren’t driving the action you actually want.

I agree.

Click rates (and all click metrics) are proxies for actual business goals. Don’t over optimize the proxy and lose sight of the real goal.

One last story from Morgan Housel to close out the week.

Sugar, milk, and eggs were all rationed during World War II. Many food companies adapted to use different, often lower-quality, ingredients to get by.

See’s Candy was so obsessed with quality that it refused to lower its standards. One holiday season it closed down and put signs in its store that read, “Sold out. Buy war bonds for Christmas.”

Was See's Candy the original Patagonia?

If you believe in the quality and purpose of your brand so much that you would rather consumers not buy it than budge on those principles, you have a strong brand vision.

If consumers cheer the move, you have a strong brand.

More on the Don't Buy This Jacket campaign.

These 5 Prelaunch Secrets can be generalized to 3 ongoing tasks that build strong brands.

1. Learn about your customers: how they function, what their pain points are, what their aspirations are

2. Build trust: brands a promise delivery engines. Break consumer trust, break your brand.

3. Iterate: brands cannot be static

This question from the Growth Daily newsletter is in line with something I’ve been thinking about more and more for brands:

How would your product be branded and marketed if it was in a completely different industry?