THE DMG
A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO DIGITAL MARKETING
Tell your Story, Fulfill your Objectives, and Maximize your Profits
Valentín Fezza
THE DMG
A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO DIGITAL MARKETING
Tell a Story, Fulfill the Objectives, and Maximize your Profits
Valentín Fezza
The Digital Marketing Guide: Tell a Story, Fulfill the Objectives, and Maximize your Profits
Copyright 2016 Valentín Fezza
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Disclaimer: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make
no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book
and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No
warranty may be created or extended by a sales representative or written sales materials. The advice and
strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional
where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss or profit or any other
commercial damages, including but not limited to: special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.valentinfezza.com
To my wife, Clara,
my moon and stars
The Digital Marketing Guide
Contents
Chapter 1: The Digital Marketing Guide 11
Red Bull
12
Humans of New York 13
Welcome to the Internet
14
The Importance of a Map
18
Benefits 20
Chapter 2: Marketing
22
Old Spice: I’m on a Horse!
23
When Things Go BOOM!
26
Seth Godin’s CASE
33
The 8 7 Essential Marketing Questions 41
The CASE for Marketing
43
The CASE for Digital Marketing
Channeling Uncle Ben 44
Chapter 3: Audience45
Blockbuster vs. Netflix46
Mistakes Were Made 49
The Persona Template 53
Audience Mindsets
About Them
64
58
43
It’s All About Trust
65
Chapter 4: Vision & Mission
67
SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI, Musk68
Brands74
The Five Whys
76
Vision & Mission77
The Importance of Prepwork79
Chapter 5: Objectives, Goals & KPIs81
The PewDiePie Effect 82
There Is No Spoon
91
The Digital Marketing Measurement Model
The Checklist
104
Chapter 6: Digital Media 106
Seth’s Blog: A Pair of Yellow Glasses
Keyword: Tactical!
111
Earned, Owned & Paid Media112
The Cash-In121
Chapter 7: Into the Future122
A Game of Hype 123
Hello, Goodbye 129
107
92
Acknowledgements131
Authors132
Notes133
“Everything’s gonna be OK.” - Every marketer, ever. Ever.
…
Ever.
Chapter 1: The Digital Marketing Guide
Red Bull
173… 177… 185...
On October 24, 2012, Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner took center stage in the Red Bull Stratos project
and jumped off a helium balloon hovering in Earth’s stratosphere. Streaming live from 7 GoPro cameras,
over 8 million people watched him fall.
“I wish you could see what I can see”, Baumgartner had said, moments before taking the plunge1.
“Sometimes, you have to be up really high… to understand how small you are. I’m coming home now”. And
without further ado, he had jumped off into thin air2.
Airspeed: 541 mph. Heart rate: 161 bpm.
Airspeed: 594 mph. Heart rate: 165 bpm.
Airspeed: 602 mph. Heart rate: 169 bpm.
Airspeed: 689 mph. Heart rate: 166 bpm. The ground team celebrates as Felix breaks the sound barrier3.
Setting a world record, Baumgartner has effectively become the first man to achieve Mach 1 without the aid
of vehicular power. 690. 700. 720. 750.
Then, at 763 mph, the camera’s view shakes. The horizon starts spinning; something’s wrong. At 822 mph,
a garbled transmission comes across. “Felix, you calling me?”, Joe Kittinger Jr. asks from mission control4.
Nothing. Only heavy breathing.
At 831 mph, another garbled transmission. “Can anyone understand him?” Kittinger asks, now serious. Still
nothing. Heart rate: 179 bpm. “One minute. One minute freefall”, Kittinger announces uncertainly from
mission control.
The GoPro live feed is filming Baumgartner, now in an uncontrolled descent, going into a “death spin”.
Buffeted by turbulence, he tucks his arms in, the horizon still shifting wildly around him as airspeed drops to
668 mph.
Then, his heart rate monitor plummets from 179 to 0 bpm. Baumgartner’s voice comes across his own
comms device. “-anything! I have been in a violent spin for a long time. Feels like I have to pass out”. Silence.
The monitor spikes to 170, then back to 0.
Another spike puts his heart rate at 190 bpm. Another crash sends it back down to 0. Airspeed drops to 523
mph as the cameras swing around dizzyingly. Then, at 512 mph, someone at mission control says “... he’s
slowing down. He’s got it, he’s got it”.
Then, after a final spike to 190 bpm, applause and cheering breaks out. At 488 mph, at a height of 64,519
feet, Felix Baumgartner manages to regain control of his freefall descent. Conscious, his heart rate monitor
stabilizes at 185 bpm.
The sigh of relief is palpable. “Showing Felix in a stable descent”, the announcer at mission control relays
amongst the clapping. “One minute and thirty seconds and stable as a rock”, Kittinger states a short while
1
“GoPro: Red Bull Stratos - The Full Story”. Youtube. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
That’s literal thin air. At 24 miles above the Earth’s surface, you’re officially within the stratosphere. Air density at that
height is only a fraction of what most of us are accustomed to.
2
3
“Felix Baumgartner’s sonic boom captured from the ground”. Youtube. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
Joseph W. Kittinger II is a retired Colonel of the United States Air Force. In 1960 he participated in Project Excelsior,
setting a world record at the time for the highest skydive. In 2012, at the age of 84, he participated in the Red Bull Stratos project
as capsule communicator.
4
later.
After four minutes of freefall and at an altitude of 9,279 feet, Felix deploys his parachute and touches
ground, cheering as helicopters converges on his location. “Great going Felix” Kittinger is heard saying, “Great
going buddy”.
It’s over. Felix Baumgartner had descended 24.04 miles, reaching an estimated top speed of 843.6 mph, and
has lived to talk about it. Over 8 million Youtube users breathe collective sighs of relief of their own as they
finish watching history in the making.
Youtube, in turn, is busy breaking records of its own. Attaining a concurrent viewership of over 8 million
users5, the Baumgartner dive has also managed to set a world record for the “live stream with the most
concurrent views ever on YouTube”.
Within 40 minutes of publishing, Red Bull’s post-jump Facebook photo of Baumgartner gains approximately
216,000 likes, 10,000 comments and 29,000 shares. Half of Twitter’s worldwide trending topics are related to
Red Bull’s Stratos project.
Mission accomplished.
Humans of New York
Of course, rumor has it that the total cost of the Stratos project was in the range of the tens of millions of
dollars. Anyone can get that big with a bottomless wallet, right? Well, money may not be all there’s to it. In
fact, it might actually have very little to do at all.
Just ask Brandon Stanton. In 2010, he bought a semi-pro camera with the money he had earned working as
a bond trader in Chicago. A short time later, he would lose his job and would choose to pursue photography
full-time, ending up in New York.
He didn’t start there, though. At the time6, Brandon had “... no big ambitions ... All [he] had was some vague,
naive idea of making a living by selling prints of [his] best photos. In the meantime, [he] was just posting
them for [his] family and friends to enjoy.”
Brandon’s journey would first take him from Chicago to New Orleans, then to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Taking photos of “anything interesting”, he’d snap thousands every day, at the end of which he’d sieve
through his stock to pick out the best.
His defining breakthrough, however, would come upon switching focus. From taking pictures of “anything
interesting”, to specifically capturing people. Arriving at NYC, Brandon would instantly be captivated by the
city’s inhabitants.
His first NYC album: “Humans of New York”. Then, “Humans of New York II”. Then, “Humans of New York
III”. And then he never left. Abandoning his plans to continue his journey towards the West Coast, Stanton
moved into New York City.
Initially, he had had the idea to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers with the intent of plotting their pictures
on an interactive map of the city. His pictures, however, were getting really good. So he moved them to an
official Facebook Page of his7.
5
Katz, Tim. (14 October 2012). “Mission complete: Red Bull Stratos lands safely back on Earth”. Youtube Official Blog.
Retrieved 5 October 2016.
6
Stanton, Brandon. (03 July 2013). “Humans of New York: Behind the Lens”. The Huffington Post. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
7
You might’ve heard of it: https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/
Brandon built his initial audience from his family and friends. However, after a while, he started noticing
unfamiliar names following his little project. One a day. Then ten a day. Then hundreds a day. Fast-forward
five years and we’ve got “Humans of New York”.
As of January 2016, HONY has garnered over 16.7 million followers on Facebook alone. On October 2013,
Brandon published the first “Humans of New York” book. It generated 30,000 pre-orders in sales before it
had even hit the streets8. You do the math.
In December 2013, Time Magazine recognized Mr. Stanton as one of its “30 Under 30 People Changing The
World”. In January 2015, the former Chicago bond trader was getting invited to the Oval Office to interview
President Barack Obama.
In 2014, Brandon traveled to the Middle East, and in 2015 to Pakistan and Iran. At the end of his trip, he
raised $2.3 million to help end bonded labor in Pakistan through Indiegogo, an international crowdfunding
website9.
A digital camera, five years, hard work and thousands of stories later “Humans of New York” has become a
social phenomenon on par with a company’s multimillion dollar marketing stunt10. Stanton didn’t even have
to drop a man from literal space.
That being said, not everyone is happy with “Humans of New York”, or the man behind it. Sparks have been
known to fly right in the comments section of HONY’s Facebook Page, and many media sources have had
harsh words for Stanton’s project11.
Still, Brandon remains undaunted. He continues to interview the citizens of New York. His followers continue
to respond to his work, putting their money where their mouths are. He’s a man on a mission, surrounded by
enthusiasts eager to tag along.
What he’s looking for? Just “... a story. Always looking for a story. And you’ll find that the stories in people’s
lives, the things that are the most meaningful and impactful and interesting, tend to revolve around a certain
emotion.”
Anger. Joy. Fear. Hope. These are the emotions that Brandon goes looking for every day. They are what power
the lives of the Humans of New York. They’re also what power the lives of everyone else, everywhere else, for
that matter. Day in and day out.
Welcome to the Internet
Have you ever wondered why some projects just seem to innately understand digital marketing, while others
appear to be perennially stuck in the mud12? Why did that video of yours blow up, only to then just kinda puff
out?
Is it really that some people just get digital marketing, and everyone else is just destined to suck at it? Is it an
age thing? Is there some hidden cabal, a secret handshake, an organization we should all be a part of if we
8
2016.
Shapiro, David. (14 October 2013). “Human by Human, a Following Grows”. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 5 October
9
Yeh, Amy. (19 August 2015). “By the Numbers: The World Unites to End Modern-Day Slavery”. IndieGoGo Blog. Retrieved
5 October 2016.
10
Sure, the Stratos project also had scientific motivations going for it, but let’s get real.
Boyle, John Robert. (24 January 2016). “Unfollow Humans of New York: The site engages sentimentally with real political
matters — empathy is much harder”. Salon. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
11
12
Much like “The Simpsons”, there’s always a relevant xkcd to link to: https://xkcd.com/125/
want our stories to spread?
No. Of course not. And you know it. You know it’s something else. Neither Red Bull nor HONY are projects
officially sanctioned by the Supersecret Bureau of Hiddenly Amazing and Successful Marketing. Because
that’s not a real thing. Trust me, I checked13.
The lowdown? Odds are your project doesn’t have an actual marketing strategy, digital or otherwise. It hasn’t
got a plan to turn communication into action. There’s been little thought on how to bake emotion, caring and
results into what’s being said.
And because your project hasn’t got a cogent marketing strategy it has been, is, and will be pretty hard to get
anywhere at all. I have no doubt you’ve been giving it your best, but it’s time to stop faffing about and start
acting like a pro if you want results. Cash.
No matter how vigorously you row or how many hours you sink, without a solid strategy your marketing
efforts will never get far. Still unconvinced? Take another look at Red Bull and HONY. See how they
deliberately follow a planned course of action14.
Sure, they’ve probably had their share of surprises and pivotal moments along the way. Things that
presented surprising twists and turns. That’s amazing, and that’s the spice of life. But it’s just that. Spice. You
need to be able to visualize the meal first.
I know, I know. All of us are hard workers, doers, already using what time we have to stay afloat. Who’s
got the time to plan, right? It’ll all sort itself out if we work hard enough, right? Only it hasn’t. We’ve been
paddling furiously, and nothing’s changed.
Believe me, I understand your frustration. I really do. I’ve had more frustrating moments than I would care to
admit, and still I’ll stand by the doers every single time. Without action, change cannot happen. Execution, as
a friend of mine once put it, is key.
I just also happen to think that a little planning can go a long way in maximizing the impact of what we do.
And if we plan on executing several actions in a row, as it tends to happen with a project, a strategy can have
a dramatic compound effect. Interested?
Into the Wild
When I started writing the Digital Marketing Guide, I was thinking about helping out anybody intimidated into
paralysis by the digital ecosystem’s fearsome visage. So much is going on at any given time, it does look like
going for a swim in a typhoon.
Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Navigation of the online channel isn’t something
exclusively reserved to a cabal of young hipsters in plaid shirts. It, much like anything we ever do that really
matters, just takes a measure of guts and grit.
That being said, many things in the digital space work according to the particular laws of the realm.
Sometimes this generates friction, especially when we try to understand the things that go on in there in
relation to how things work in the physical world15.
I, nevertheless, don’t believe that digital marketing is rocket science16. In fact, quite the opposite. I believe
13
Another relevant xkcd (this could get out of hand quick…): http://www.xkcd.com/1224/
From “taking pictures”, to “taking pictures of people”, to “taking pictures of people and interviewing them”, to “taking
10,000 pictures of New York’s inhabitants”, to “taking 10,000 pictures of New York’s inhabitants and sharing them on a Facebook
Page”, to “Humans of New York”.
14
15
The constraints of physical shelf space, for example, are patently absurd in the digital realm.
16
Regardless of how much your agency might be overbilling you.
that, with the tools available, digital marketing has become simple enough for almost anyone to execute.
Especially when armed with the right strategy.
That’s what the Digital Marketing Guide is all about, and that’s why I wrote it. The Guide is a strategic
approach to communicating in the digital space and tries to be as comprehensive as possible without
overdoing it’s own complexity into intimidation.
Be it a personal pet project, a small business venture or a multinational corporation, I believe the following
concepts apply to everyone looking to get their message across to their audience in the digital space in the
most effective manner possible.
There’s some ground to cover and, like anything new, some things can be carried over from past
experiences. A couple, though, will have to be learnt from scratch. In both cases, the Guide will try to be as
clear as possible.
My hope is that the subjects covered will be developed in a way that is challenging without being exhausting.
A large part of it, however, has to do with the mindset one decides to adopt prior to facing a task. Hence the
few following paragraphs.
The Four Stages of Competence
Not too long ago, I took apart a broken Apple Macbook to fix it. I hadn’t done anything of the sort before, and
a wiser man might’ve counseled me to take it to a repair shop. A few things happened, however, that drove
me to opt for the riskier path.
To begin with, this 2010 machine was neither my own nor anyone else’s main computer, so I wasn’t exactly
risking anyone’s livelihood by tinkering with it. Were I to accidentally convert it into a very expensive
paperweight… well, too bad, but no one would get hurt.
Secondly, I had recently started seeing Louis Rossmann’s excellent Youtube channel17. The dude’s nononsense approach to repairing electronics inspired me to take up the challenge. After all, aren’t most
computers just cleverly organized sand18?
Most importantly, maybe, is the fact that over the years I’ve begun to really appreciate the value of taking
the slightly harder road and applying myself to learn something new. It’s riskier, of course, but it’s also more
rewarding.
Sure, an Apple Store could’ve returned the machine in tip-top condition, with a hefty bill pinned to the cover.
And the problem would’ve been solved, without me ever even breaking a sweat. I just would’ve been slightly
poorer and none the wiser.
This time, though, a series of events had come together to push me into unknown territory. I challenged that
particular dragon and came out the other side unscathed. Basic electronic hardware repair had been all roar
and no flame.
I learnt a lot. Enough that I probably won’t be shelling as many undue amounts of cash as I would’ve, had I
chosen the easier path. The first step, actually daring, was the hardest. Now, every additional step I take has
the potential to increase my knowledge.
What does this have to do with marketing? Well, how often have you shunned marketing because you’ve
never actually tried it? How often have you feared marketing because you’ve tried it, but didn’t actually
understand it? That ends now.
17
If you don’t know this guy and you’re a DIY enthusiast, follow him.
No, they’re not. This is an oversimplification, intended for comedic effect. I urge you not to try to repair your broken
electronics by pouring sand into them. If, however, you choose to do it anyway please send me a link to the video.
18
“They”19 say there’s four stages of competence to mastering anything20. Learning to walk. Figuring out the
optimal way to eat ice cream. Handling delicate electronics. We all go through the same four stages of
competence in acquiring a skill.
There’s the stage of unconscious incompetence, where you don’t know how to do something, yet you don’t
necessarily recognize there’s a deficit until you realize that some things are worth learning. Say, manners at
the dinner table.
Then there’s the stage of conscious incompetence, where you know you don’t know how to do something,
yet you recognize the value of learning a new skill that addresses the deficit. Hey, what do you know, walking
allows us to use our hands for other things21.
Then there’s the stage of conscious competence, where you do know how to do something, yet you require
sustained concentration to execute it adequately. Many compulsive texting drivers would do well to
remember this one more often22.
And finally, there’s the stage of unconscious competence, where you know how to do something so well it
feels “instinctive” or “second nature” to you. You just don’t understand how anyone else could ever find “X”
difficult. Say, breathing23.
Most of the skills we develop through life stay at the third stage of competence, where we require sustained
concentration to execute them adequately. We invest the so-called “10,000 hours” required for unconscious
competence on only a precious few24.
If this sounds familiar, I bet it’s because there’s something you can do with your eyes closed, and it just racks
your nerves to see someone else struggling with it. It feels like you just want to snatch whatever it is away
and say “Look, here’s how it’s done!”
If you’re reading this book, you might be interested in getting to that level of skill with digital marketing. And
if that’s your goal, then my goal here should be to at least get you to the doorway leading up to that stage of
competence and mastery.
See, it’s just like my experience with the Macbook. The hardest thing is that which you haven’t tried to do
yet. Anyone who can walk wonders why babies stumble about for so long before understanding the basic
principles of bipedal locomotion.
This, digital marketing, is exactly the same. There are a lot of big words and acronyms, but lately I’ve been
thinking that their main purpose might actually be to create the illusion of complexity. You know, to keep the
pockets of a few good and lined.
But there’s really no secret. There are no arcane recipes or magic shortcuts. It’s mostly just good, ol’
fashioned common sense. So if get-rich-quick schemes are what you’re after, turn around now. You won’t
find that here.
Now more than ever, an effective digital marketing strategy requires a commitment to the tribe you’re
supposed to be leading. I repeat, it requires it. Commitment has ceased to be an optional variable to achieve
19
“ ‘They’ talk a lot, don’t they?” - M. Wallace
20
Adams, Linda. “Learning a New Skill is Easier Said Than Done”. Gordon Training International. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
21
Say, tools.
The act of undertaking several activities that require conscious effort all at once (and spectacularly failing at all of them
at the same time) is what cretins lovingly refer to as “multitasking”.
22
If you’ve suddenly become all too aware of your breathing process, and how complicated it actually is despite happening
in the background and requiring no conscious effort on your part, then congratulations. You’ve gotten your first taste of the
centipede’s dilemma. Have fun.
23
24
Gladwell, Malcolm. “The 10,000 Hour Rule”. Gladwell.com. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
real success.
Your digital marketing project requires compromise, and a ton of elbow grease. Maybe you’re already putting
these in, in which case this book should help you make optimal use these resources through a strategic
approach.
Whatever the case, here’s my commitment. I wrote this book for it to be of use to you. This is what I’ve got
right now. I’m giving you the main strategic tools at my disposal in the hopes of helping you get to where you
want to go with your project.
If you’re avoiding marketing out of fear of feeling like a snake oil salesman, this book should help you realize
that real marketing goes beyond a sleazy sale and a quick buck. Whether you like it or not, marketing is
already present in every single thing you do.
If you’re already trying to make digital marketing work and are feeling lost because you’re just not making an
impact, this book should help you learn the ropes behind strategic marketing so you can put the pressure
where you need to to get results.
If you’re already a digital marketing pro looking for a good read, you might find a couple of things in here
interesting. If you don’t, and/or feel like I’m completely and utterly wrong about everything ever, email me. I’d
like to get to know your point of view.
Above all, I do believe that the few ideas contained in this book should help you deploy an effective digital
marketing strategy from top to bottom and back to top again, with a focus on measurable return on
investment that’ll leave cash in your pocket.
I also believe that, after a while, you’ll wonder how on earth could you have found any of this difficult.
Remember, the first step is always the hardest. And after all marketing, be it digital or otherwise, is just
communication. What’s so hard about that?
The Importance of a Map
An all-too-common pitfall of any project is to lose sight of its objectives. We do and do and do, and
concentrate a so much on certain aspects of the whole project that by the time we detect trouble and look
up, we’re dead lost in the jungle.
This is because we didn’t stop to set clear goals in the first place. The reason we didn’t set clear goals in the
first place is because they had no overarching objectives associated. These objectives, in turn, had no reason
behind them.
This is a recursive problem that is usually first spotted at the most tactic level of the project. Say an project’s
brand new Facebook community manager finds that content performance has plummeted in the past two
quarters. Worried, he reports this25.
The organization’s lead community manager, or the digital marketing coordinator, or whomever raises
both eyebrows. Was this a stupid hire? We’re making a bunch of revenue, and Facebook is our only
communications channel. We’re doing great.
Our community manager, knowing his stuff, disagrees. The reason revenue has kept up so far is because the
effects of the vastly more aggressive and pimpy sales campaign the project implemented six months ago
haven’t yet been felt.
He points to the graph and shows that, not long after this new aggressive sales campaign was implemented,
Along with, of course, a solution. Always, always, always bring a solution to the table. Otherwise, you’ll quickly make a
reputation for yourself as the bearer of bad news, and we all know what happens to the messenger.
25
Facebook followers began to leave. Engagement dropped like a stone, and clickthrough rates evaporated.
The project’s core audience was leaving.
Sustained revenue is coming from an ever-shrinking diehard audience that is slowly being squeezed to death.
Total collapse is only a matter of time, and it’s already showing in a gently downwards curving revenue slope.
Soon, profits will follow.
The lead community manager checks with the digital marketing coordinator who, in turn, checks with the
CEO. Unconvinced, they decide to keep pursuing the new sales strategy. Not long after, revenue collapses.
Layoffs follow. The project ends.
True story. It’s often not until alarms are ringing everywhere that everyone tries to switch into damagecontrol mode. By then, if all we’ve ever cared about is the quick sale and an ever-thickening profit margin, it’s
usually too late.
It’s also no surprise that instead of calming down, rallying and figuring out which way is North, we panic. The
ship is already at sea, bound for Who-Knows-Where. Noticing water is flooding everything won’t do much
good if there’s no map or compass at hand.
This is where real trouble rears its head and begins taking names. Everyone is too busy throwing bucketfuls
of water overboard to realize that, without the map or the compass, no one’s going anywhere dry anytime
soon.
There’s a good way to avoid this scenario and it begins with having the map safe and nearby. It doesn’t
matter if it’s a full-blown nautical map or a rough sketch of origin, midpoints and destinations, as long as it
does a reasonable job of charting the course.
If you create a digital marketing strategy detailing your vision, your mission, your audiences, your objectives,
your goals, your key performance indicators, your targets, your segments, your resources and your
execution, it’s actually pretty hard to get lost.
You know your endgame. You know how to go about getting there. You know who’ll be tagging along for the
ride. You know the plays and the numbers that really matter. All you need to do is put one foot in front of the
other.
However, the unexpected can and usually does happen.
Maybe that why I like keeping my map and compass handy.
The Book Itself
The book is divided as follows.
There’s a brief introduction to essential marketing concepts that are useful to keep in mind. Odds are most of
these won’t be what you’ve heard about marketing. That’s OK, we also no longer wear suits, work at Madison
Avenue and/or drink scotch.
Once that’s out of the way, our first objective will be to identify your target audiences. These are the people
who are meant to be a part of your journey. We’ll distinguish the casual bystanders from the committed
believers and how to best address them all.
Our second objective, feeding off of our audience work, will be to develop clear vision and mission
statements that will act as guides for your day-to-day work as your project forges onwards into the future.
Think of these as your project’s be-all and end-alls.
Our third objective, get ready, will be to create a digital marketing measurement model that’ll take us all the
way from the ultra high-level objectives to the actual, tangible marketing actions and performance indicators
that look at real coin.
Our fourth objective, hope you’re still with me, will be to sketch a tactics backlog full of digital marketing
actions waiting to be done. This list will help us prioritize our ideas and track our return on investment across
different objectives.
And that’ll be it. Armed with a clear digital marketing strategy you’ll be able to prioritize who needs to be
addressed, what needs to be said, how you need to say it and, more importantly, why. Just remember to
execute and adjust as feedback comes in.
Neat, right?
The Exercises
Each chapter, except this one, has accompanying exercises to help you get a grasp of things. You can try
these out as we go along. You can also wait until you’re done reading to go back and take a shot at them. Or
you can just go ahead and skip them.
Whatever you choose, I’d like to note that I consider of vital importance to do the exercises. If you just read,
you will not be able to extract the full value that this book has to offer and you’ll be already falling on a classic
marketing pitfall: all thinking, no doing.
This is a field guide, aimed at helping make your digital marketing efforts a worthwhile endeavor. It won’t do
anyone any good stashed away in a drawer or folder. Do the work, print the output, and pin it to an easily
accessible place that you can look at often.
If you do this you’ll always remember what you’ve done, what you have to do now, and what you’ll have to do
next. If anything seems dated or out of place, reach out. Cross it, modify it, update it. Make it better suit your
current needs.
Benefits
After you’re done with everything on this book, it is my hope you’ll feel a sense of ease regarding digital
marketing. Everything will be laid out on the table, and this new approach will let you know exactly what
needs to be done26.
Those old vision and mission statements need a tweak? Perfect! You’ve learnt a few things, it’s only natural
you’d want to improve certain foundational elements. The next action is looking rather stale? Cross it out and
move a new one up the queue!
Your digital marketing strategy is a constantly evolving canvas of actionable tasks. Best of all, once it’s in
place, it’ll work for you instead of the other way around. With the full story at your fingertips, you’ll be able to
execute precise change on the fly.
All efforts spent on digital communication will have increased return on investment. You’ll also feel more
comfortable executing because yes, just as you suspected, hard work and authenticity really are the only
secret ingredients of success.
Not convinced? Here’s a couple additional perks you might get out of this:
1) An innate understanding of how your marketing tactics are impacting your objectives: which ones
need tweaking, which need doubling down, which are secret outliers and which look good on paper
but are really just duds.
26
...and what’s just a distraction.
2) A clear and simple way to check for consistency across any and all digital marketing efforts. It’ll have
never been easier to separate the wheat from the chaff when getting down to real actionables and
return on investment.
3) You’ll already have done 90% of the job you’ve been dreading to do without even realizing it: a
strategic, focused, lean approach to marketing to keep the cash flowing and those numbers well in the
black.
And now, for the last time, a disclaimer. if you’re all about marketing just for the sake of it, or have no real
interest in contributing to your business or just feel that this is already too much work, then close this book.
Delete it, send it back. No hard feelings27.
However, if you’re interested in using digital marketing strategically to really grow your business, to better
design the inputs of your tactics to better reap the rewards, to make hard work and success get acquainted,
then we should get down to it right now.
Grab a cup of coffee. Relax. We’re planning your digital marketing strategy.
27
And thank you!
Chapter 2: Marketing
Old Spice: I’m on a Horse!
Hello, ladies. Look at your plan. Now back to me. Now back at your plan. Now back to me. Sadly, your plan
isn’t me, but if it stopped using lazy-ass tactics and switched to REAL Digital Marketing, it could smell like- oh,
you’ve already heard this one? Fine, OK.
It’s almost impossible to talk about Old Spice nowadays without callously ripping off either Terry Crews’ or
Isaiah Mustafa’s now-legendary lines, but way before these two were on their way to becoming Internet
phenomenons, Old Spice did in fact exist.
1934. A time when men were men, shaving soaps and aftershave lotions ruled the male grooming products
category, and nautical themes were all the rage. A year in which an entrepreneurial spirit by the name of
William Lightfoot Schultz would create a legend28.
Believe it or not Old Spice’s trademark sailing ship logo, now little more than a curiosity a particularly
observant person might notice, has endured as a respectful nod to an era when its founder created the
company’s whole marketing strategy around it29.
A lot has changed since then, and a lot hasn’t. The company, now owned by Procter & Gamble, is approaching
its 100th anniversary. It’s kept its sailing ship logo. Their classic bottle colognes still retain their stylized buoy
shape. It’s still Old Spice red.
However, in the 1980s and 90s, Old Spice was in dire straits. Due to the very marketing strategy that had
once made it a success. The brand had grown stale, stagnating at 17% market share. Dated, it held a message
that just didn’t appeal to newer generations.
While the brand had at one point made a name for itself with a solid product and a clever marketing strategy,
the 80s and 90s were a different time. Other matters… well, mattered. Companies like Axe knew this, and
had come to eat Old Spice’s lunch.
Market research revealed young twentysomethings considered Old Spice “their father’s deodorant”. It wasn’t
“sexy”. It wasn’t “bold”. It wasn’t “cool”. Without an angle to appeal to a new generation of men, Old Spice’s
market share was in danger of diluting fast.
No, the message wasn’t bad. It was okay. In fact, at some point, it had been better than okay. It had enabled
the brand to capture a sizable portion of the market. The problem was that the spirit of the times had
changed and Old Spice hadn’t.
In the 80s, nautical and colonial themes were serious business. Serious business for serious men, and World
War II hadn’t exactly turned into a laughing matter either, had it? The 80s were a time when Old Spice was a
serious brand for serious people.
And to 80s’ young men, nothing could possibly be less cool. The generation of Star Wars, Marty McFly and
Alf wanted nothing to do with their parents’ or grandparent’ dourness. To them, Old Spice users belonged to
yesterday. Extremely, decidedly uncool yesterday.
By the 90s, time was running out. After having been already acquired by American Cyanamid, Old Spice was
getting its last chance to figure out what to do with its messaging after another acquisition, this time at the
hands of Procter & Gamble.
Crashing waves, soaring eagles and jean shorts weren’t cutting it30. At the dawn of the new millennium, Axe
28
… and if William Lightfoot Schultz isn’t the name of an entrepreneurial halfling, I don’t know what is.
29
The original ship logo was in fact modelled after the very real Grand Turk and Friendship vessels.
… although this 90s commercial now seems so over-the-top that I can’t help but wonder if they might’ve already been
onto something back then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsIN2fSSjQ8
30
and other brands were capturing the attention of young men in a way Old Spice simply couldn’t seem to.
The ship had to either face the changing winds or flounder, so in 2006 Procter & Gamble decided it was time
to bring out the big guns and put legendary marketing agency Wieden+Kennedy to work on Old Spice.
These were the guys behind Nike’s “Just Do It” tagline. You’ve certainly heard of that one before, right31?
A year later, Old Spice was already breaking some rules, airing an ad featuring cult film actor and B movie
superstar Bruce Campbell32.
In it, Old Spice fused its old-timey heritage with a humorous over-the-top twist that marked a departure from
tradition33. Although largely a test, the zany ad did well enough that a similar approach was deployed two
years later.
In 2008, Old Spice’s “Glacial Falls’” scent was so poorly that it was danger close to being discontinued,
something that would cost the brand precious shelf space34. Wieden+Kennedy was tasked with turning the
scenario around and double sales.
To do this, they rebranded the scent to “Swagger”. New over-the-top TV spots headlined by rapper LL Cool
J, NASCAR racer Tony Stewart and Chicago Bears’ Brian Urlacher were aired, showcasing their incredible
transformations after switching to Old Spice.
SwaggerizeMe.com, a campaign site launched collaboratively with Google, also went up. In it, users could
have the search engine’s results for their names pimped out with fake over-the-top articles, stating how for
example they had helped save 50,000 baby eagles.
It must’ve done well, because the follow-up is now the stuff of legend35. In 2010, “The Man Your Man Could
Smell Like” aired, featuring Isaiah Mustafa confidently progressing through various extraordinary activities,
ending with the now-famous “I’m on a horse”.
POWEEEEER!
At the time, the male body wash segment was steadily on the rise. And although the cake was getting larger,
Old Spice was still losing turf against its competitors, Axe and Dove. The latter, due to its reach with female
audiences, posed the larger threat.
After all, when all was said and done, women were the core segment of the audience that typically purchased
these products regardless of their actual end-user. The reason Isaiah Mustafa opens with “Hello, ladies”
seems clearer now, doesn’t it?
The ad itself had a daunting task to pull off. It had to steal the spotlight, the conversation, away from Dove’s
very, very, very expensive 2010 Super Bowl ad. So it aired, in all it’s glory, a few days early. On Youtube and
Facebook.
And it turned into a digital atomic hit. It was pure, unadulterated, alchemical brilliance. A custom-built
message for digital audiences, both male and female. By Super Bowl time the campaign was so successful
people were assuming it had aired during the event.
What you might’ve not heard is that Nike’s famous tagline is allegedly inspired by the last words notorious murderer
Gary Gilmore uttered before being executed by firing squad in 1977.
31
32
Grant, Robin. (10 August 2010). “WIEDEN+KENNEDY’S OLD SPICE CASE STUDY”. We Are Social. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
Macleod, Duncan. (13 January 2007). “Old Spice Provides Experience Test and Training”. Inspiration Room. Retrieved 5
October 2016.
33
34
O’neill, Megan. (22 July 2010). “How Old Spice Swaggerized Their Brand And Men Everywhere”. ADWEEK. Retrieved 5
October 2016.
35
It, in fact, did do well. “Swagger” sales not only doubled, they quadrupled.
On Day 1, the campaign clocked 5.9 million Youtube views. A week later, it had already been seen over 40
million times. By July of 2010, “Red Zone” body wash sales had were jumping a whopping +125%36. Dove’s
pricey Super Bowl ad, well... who knows37.
That sealed it. Old Spice was back. It had kicked the board by going full circle. It had found its own voice
in parodying the pervasive male aspirational stereotype which it had once embodied with over-the-top
grandiosity and a quirky, hilarious approach.
As of January 2016, the Old Spice Youtube channel has uploaded over 300 videos, almost all of them in the
same vein as its 2010 smash hit. It boasts 542,805 subscribers, a massive reach compared to Dove’s 70,898
or AXE’s 41,080.
Isaiah “Old Spice Guy” Mustafa now stars in film and TV. Along the way, icons like former NFL player and
movie star Terry Crews and 90s italian male model legend Fabio Lanzoni have joined the company’s eccentric
digital marketing initiatives.
OH NOOOOO!
These certainly are impressive stats. Especially when compared to Old Spice’s main competitors. And,
indeed, right about now is where I should start extolling everything else this brilliant campaign did for the
brand to this day.
Only I won’t. To begin with, reports of this campaign’s impact on sales have had a huge variation in actual
numbers. A few in fact claim that sales of the body wash it was supposed to advertise actually went down in
the subsequent 52 week period.
Shocking, I know. Why would I bring up this shining digital marketing example if performance reports were
that widely spread about? Isn’t marketing’s endgame to convince an audience of the worthiness of a product
to bolster sales?
Well, to be honest, the real importance of this example does not lie in the sales it drove. It does not lie in the
amount of buzz, share of mind, or even the market share it generated. It does not even lie in the campaign’s
creativity, style and pizzazz38.
There have been tons of amazing and successful marketing campaigns over the years. You can probably
remember a couple yourself. Old Spice’s “Smell Like a Man, Man” campaign, that was its actual name, was
just another attempt at solving a problem.
If you’ll recall, Old Spice had detected that it was having difficulties transitioning into the lives of a new
generation of men. The brand was considered dated, “my father’s deodorant”. And I’m willing to bet that the
first alarm went off in the sales department39.
And while reactionary or responsive marketing is a perfectly valid approach to the discovery of a problem,
it’s usually little more than a stopgap measure that buys the project a little time if the root causes are not
investigated correctly.
If you feel yourself running a fever, you can always pop a pain reliever and call it a day. Most grownups,
however, know that fever is usually only the symptom of an underlying problem. Cover the symptom and the
problem may only come back worse tomorrow.
36
(2011). “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”. Effie Awards Asia Pacific. Retrieved 5 October 2016. PDF.
37
… which might be the ultimate statement to put on a marketing campaign’s tombstone.
Trust me. Creativity, style and pizzazz are like oregano. They’re just spices. You only need a sprinkle of ‘em. No reason to
overdo it.
38
39
“Case Study: Old Spice Response Campaign”. D&AD. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
Wait. Wasn’t Old Spice making up for lost ground with this fresh new image, wisely yet lightly tethered to
its origins? Hasn’t its market share skyrocketed to the lead of the men’s grooming products category since?
What’s wrong with what they’re doing?
Again, you pop a pain reliever and the fever does go away. You will feel better, for a while. That’s to be
expected, that’s the point of a pain reliever. However, a decrease in sales, much like a fever, is usually just the
symptom that something else is wrong.
Has Old Spice really addressed the root cause of its symptoms? In 2015, only one of Old Spice’s Youtube
videos managed to crack the 10 million view mark, despite having both Isaiah Mustafa and Terry Crews on
set for an over-the-top manliness contest.
Covering the fever with a pain reliever is, at best, delaying the onset of the inevitable. Because fever isn’t the
problem, it’s just the alarm going off. No amount of suave Isaiah Mustafa, ripped Terry Crews or dreamily 90s
Fabio is going to fix it40.
See, there’s an underlying problem with Old Spice’s new communications strategy. It relies on shock. The
shock of the unexpected can generate both disgust and delight. And sure, for some time, Old Spice did
deliver on that delight.
But there’s a problem with shock. It demands a higher and higher leap to achieve the same result as
before. We human beings are an adaptive species, so we tend to adjust our expectations and responses to
unexpected stimuli all the time.
Over time, as you can probably guess, a communicational strategy built upon delight through shock makes
a message’s impact either unsustainable, too shocking for newcomers to absorb, or downright dangerous to
pull off. Maybe all three.
If shock is all you’ve got, even if you’re successful for a little while, you have to realize that sooner or later the
fire will fizzle out. A sizable portion of your audience will move onto the next new thing in search of a fresh
shock fix and you will be left alone.
It’s not the audience’s fault, though. Shock junkies come and go. It’s in their nature to chase the next big
thrill. It’s what drove them to Old Spice’s zany commercials in the first place, and what drove them to move
on when these got old.
Old Spice now knows this41. Their message needs to be able to stand on its own, and matter to the people
that it really needs to matter to. An entertaining advertising spot, however brilliant, will only delay the
inevitable if all you’ve got on offer is quirk.
When Things Go BOOM!
“... everything’s gonna be alright...” - Bob Marley
So, what was it that got you thinking about marketing? Was it a nagging suspicion? An obvious red flag? Truth
is, people don’t think about marketing when things are going great. It’s like the doctor. The best one is the
one which you do not think about often.
When things are going great, and all the numbers are pointing up and to the right, we usually figure that
whatever we are doing must be okay, and that’s why business is a-boomin’. So we pop corks and toast all
around until we can’t walk straight anymore.
40
Nope, not even some blindfolded guy returning tennis drives atop a whale wearing sunglasses.
41
At least, dear lord, I hope they do.
After all, why call the doctor when you’re feeling fine, right?
Well, let me tell you something.
You’re right.
Wait… what?
Yup. You’re absolutely right. It’s only natural. In any given situation, we tend to have precious little time
to spare to pay attention to non-critical issues, so fretting about something we don’t consider vital to our
project feels like a waste of time.
Of course, it’s only when the alarms start blaring that we panic and begin the frantic search for the busted
bolt in the submarine. But if you don’t have the alarms set up in the first place? If you’ve refused to
acknowledge the bolt’s importance? Well…
Have you ever considered that you could be doing better? That, although all your meters are running
green right now, pressure might be building somewhere else undetected? Could your audience be looking
elsewhere as we speak?
Are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure you need to force your customers to stop by your store to pick up
their weekend movies? Is vital to put them through the gauntlet of the late fee? Hey, what’s that tiny little blip
on the radar? It’s closing in pretty fast42.
We rarely stop to think about what exactly is it that we’re doing that makes our project tock after every
tick. This is a problem. A problem that, fortunately, can be solved with a little strategic forethought and by
keeping our senses wide open.
To begin our digital marketing strategy process, we need to be clear about what exactly marketing is. Don’t
worry. There are no 4P’s here. No SWOT diagrams. No complicated flowcharts. This is just figuring out what
marketing, at the base level, is really all about.
With a clear baseline idea of what marketing is, you’ll be able to understand exactly what kind of role it’s
played, is currently playing, and will play into the future. You’ll be able to trash dud initiatives right away and
double down on the good ones.
Marketing is, maybe not so surprisingly, just good ol’ fashioned common sense43. So when given a choice
between simple and clever, at least at first, always go for simple. Clever, if really clever, can always catch up if
it feels like it.
Ready? Let’s go!
Marketing Is Communication
The problem with quoting Wikipedia as an authoritative source is that, right now, Wikipedia isn’t an
authoritative source. At best, Wikipedia is encyclopedic knowledge compiled itself from a series of actual
authoritative sources.
The other problem, unbeknownst to most, is that editing wars are a thing and are constantly in progress44.
Thousands of active users clash everywhere, constantly, redacting again and again the most hotly debated
articles45.
42
Knock knock, it’s Netflix.
43
Although common sense, as you’ll soon find out, is a scarce resource.
44
This site generates music from real-time Wikipedia updates: http://listen.hatnote.com/
45
Good luck quoting Wikipedia on anything regarding World War II.
So what you’re quoting right now may not only be actually written by a complete amateur on the subject, it
may not even be there to be verified by someone else later this afternoon. When using Wikipedia, at the very
least always follow up on the source.
Why do I bring this up? When writing this chapter, I needed a quick quote on what marketing is about to take
it from there. So I used Wikipedia, because I figured that for such an inconsequential fragment, it couldn’t do
any real harm. Could it?
Well, first off, apparently marketing is a touchier subject than you or I might think. After what I’m sure were
some epic editing battles, the definition changed. And then it changed again. And again. And again. The
article just wouldn’t sit still.
It’s not that the edited definitions varied wildly. It’s just that I felt that a steadier, more authoritative and
verifiable piece of information was needed. So went to another place, the American Marketing Association’s
site. And their definition, at the time, read thusly:
“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and
exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.46”
That’s a mouthful. So, according to the Association, marketing has at its core a communicational component.
I agree with that. Every form of marketing that I know of is designed to communicate some aspect of the
project it represents.
What I don’t agree with is that marketing is solely about communicating the offerings and value of a
particular brand or project. If you take value to mean worth, like most do, I’d like to refer to Seth Godin and a
couple of things he’s written on the matter.
To begin with, the only things we like to spend our resources on are the things we believe to be worthwhile.
We gauge worth as a relation between what is being valued and what we’re willing to give up in exchange for
it. In other words, utility versus cost.
You’ll find that people everywhere value things differently. That’s probably why young people will readily
trade an excess of time and/or energy for cash, and once old will trade all the cash in the world for some
more time and/or energy.
We tend to fixate way too much on the definition of value, and while we could argue about it here till the
cows come home, neither I nor you have time for it. Instead, I want to draw your attention to an important
bit that is often overlooked. Belief47.
Belief is a variable that affects each person individually. It’s built out of a person’s past experiences. It affects
our emotions and colors every single message we hear. Belief is what powers our hopes and fears. It’s also
what drives our decision-making process.
You’ll find people all around the world who prefer travel over crossfit training. You’ll also find those who
prefer Whole Foods Heirloom organic tomatoes over Cartier Summer Love jewelry. You’ll also most certainly
find people who prefer the iPhone over Coke.
Strange comparisons, I know. If I’m talking about value, why am I talking about preference? More importantly,
why am I in all three cases comparing things in completely unrelated categories? Well, as to the first
question…
When given the same amount of two things, preference is the outcome of a process in which our personal
set of beliefs colors the objective value of the thing being assessed. It also sets our expectations into the
future of the result of our current decision.
46
(15 August 2013). “Definition of Marketing”. American Marketing Association. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
47
Reread the last few sentences if you’ve forgot about the reference.
We believe that spending our time and money travelling will have a more desirable outcome than spending
the same amount of time and money working on an intense crossfit routine. That’s preference and belief
acting on our decision-making process.
If we accept that belief plays a key role in our decision-making processes, and that it acts in a different
manner on each individual on account of their unique set of previous experiences, then we could reason
worth to be subjective to each individual as well.
Is it that surprising then that, when doting parents gift their toddler a very expensive toy to play with,
the baby more often than not fixates on the box and ends up having endless afternoons of fun with it,
completely disregarding the actual toy48?
Hmmm, but then, if worth is subjective to each person’s past experiences, then isn’t our best bet as
marketers to center our marketing exclusively around a product’s most objective facts? Aren’t those
universal and, as such, free from subjectivity?
Well... imagine you are Wrigley’s Chief Marketing Officer49. Would you really try to convince your audience
that a pack of Wrigley’s gum is worthwhile by going into the specifics of its verified nutritional value,
wrapping included, versus its cost?
Take a look at the stories being told on the street. Who’s going into the hard facts, the objective specifics?
Who are you, the consumer, choosing to believe? What are you choosing to believe? The tobacco industry has
a thing or two to say about storytelling.
What are you communicating?
Marketing Is Storytelling
A big part of marketing is communication. Communication intended to convince an audience of the value of
the story we’re telling. In the end, it actually has very little to do with the amount of transistors it’s got, it’s
cut, carats, or its average horsepower.
Quick quiz. In the AMA’s previous description of marketing, did you happen to catch even a passing reference
of the “market” the term “marketing” is supposed to refer to? No, no? And yet, doesn’t it feel “marketing”
should have something to do with a market?
Imagine once again that you work at, say, Mercedes Benz. A high profile automaker with nearly a century of
operation. Every car rolling off the assembly line has a lineage to live up to. Every experience is another block
that builds a dynasty. A proud lineage, indeed.
What Mercedes Benz’ story all about? “Awe”. “A class ahead”. “Inspiring”. “The Roger Federer of automobiles”.
I’m not making any of this up. These are the literal statements present in Mercedes Benz ads you might find
on the street.
And the aforementioned examples are just text. Very, very short text. You can probably just imagine the
accompanying pictures these grand statements have. A sleek silver machine with imposing headlights,
captured from an angle dominating the pavement.
Is a picture really worth a thousand words? Can you gauge what Mercedes Benz is trying to say? What
emotions are they trying to convey? The story behind it? The promise into the future? Think of the words.
Think of the imagery. The sounds.
Think of the leather’s touch on the skin, or the smell of the car as you open the driver’s door. Think of
gullwing doors swinging open. Mercedes Benz uses all resources available to tell a story, and make it a story
48
Parents reading this, you have my sympathy.
49
The chewing gum brand, not the UK-based solicitors.
worth talking about.
Their endless communication pieces all point towards a few core concepts. Core concepts that they try to
repeat across the board again and again, like a mantra. The method of delivery may vary, but the message
tends to remain the same.
What’s your story all about?
Marketing Is Promises
Walking down the street you come across a hunched stranger. He looks bedraggled, sick and twitchy. He’s
carrying a bundle and as you walk past, he whispers at you in a fevered tone that he’s got the greatest thing
ever and that you have to buy it right now.
How far back are you trying to jump after the first five to ten seconds of this? Why are you trying to
disengage out of this conversation? What has happened that has caused such an instantaneous knee-jerk
reaction in your person?
Needless to say, odds are that whatever marketing approach this stranger was attempting with you failed.
You are not interested, you don’t want to know what exactly is he carrying, and you’d rather be miles away at
almost any price50.
What if you later find out that what the stranger was carrying in his bundle was, in fact, the greatest thing
ever51? In retrospect, it doesn’t make an iota of difference. You didn’t know that at the time, and all you had
was a terrifying stranger’s word for it52.
When we fail at convincing others of our story, when we’re the scruffy stranger, we tend to rail against our
audience for not getting it. They’re too dumb, too apathetic, too unworthy. They’re wrong, and it was not
meant for them anyway.
Now, are you aware that you are in the promises business? That everything you do is a fragment, a piece of
a larger story? That, before the fact, all you can really do is offer your audience a promise and hope that they
take you up on it?
To get someone to interact with you or your project, for someone to commit, they’re going to have to believe
you first. To believe for the first time53, or believe in their past interactions with you54. Otherwise, your worth
equation won’t really work.
We make promises, and promises are made to us every day. Without the right insurance, we’ll almost
assuredly be dooming our loved ones to eternal suffering and toil, and only a specific brand of sugary water
will allow us to experience absolute joy.
How will she know that you truly love her, that you’re worthy of her affections, if you don’t spend
approximately three months worth of your salary to buy an “insanely overpriced and actually-not-so-scarce
rock” ring55?
As marketers, we dwell perhaps excessively on everything that happens after the fact, and that is because
we already live there. We already know we’re the best, so we tend to disregard the importance of the
50
To all kind-hearted readers: I’m just trying to make a point.
51
This is the plot of countless moral stories.
52
This is the obvious problem with most crudely executed moral stories.
53
Hard!
54
More or less hard, depending on the cache of goodwill and trust you might’ve built.
55
I urge you to read up on the diamond industry, it’s fascinating: “In the rough”
promise to our audience. If they would just listen...
And that’s where we’re wrong. It’s the audience that has to believe we’re the best. It’s the audience that has
to believe it wants needs us. An audience rarely lives in the world we marketers live in. An audience first
needs to believe the promise to get there.
If an audience doesn’t believe our promise, no amount of money will turn that ship around. If they don’t
trust us to deliver on what we say we can deliver, audiences don’t have a reason to pay us attention or invest
themselves in us and our project’s story.
The problem at the crux of the issue is, again, belief. An audience will believe in you and your promise only
if it trusts you. And trust is a hard-won currency. There are no shortcuts to trust, and any attempt to create
one invariably ends in disaster.
What are you promising?
Marketing Is Happiness
Well, sometimes. And in the interest of full disclosure: I haven’t watched more than a couple of Mad Men
episodes. I hear it’s great. So far, though, I’ve only skipped between short Youtube clips, most of them
labeled “Best of…”. That’ll have to do for this example.
In Mad Men’s very first episode, after an ill-advised approach at addressing the health concerns raised by
recent research into tobacco consumption by admitting that people might actually have a “death wish”, Lucky
Strike’s executives rise to leave in disgust.
Naturally, at the time, these executives saw themselves as “... in the tobacco business”, a far shot from
the selling of rifles a “death wish” type of messaging might imply. To them, the idea of a cigarette being as
dangerous as a gun was ludicrous.
However, before they leave, Jon Hamm’s character Don Draper has a flash of brilliance that will not only allow
Lucky Strike to escape the turning tide of public health opinion against cigarettes, but also rush ahead of
their competition in one fell swoop.
The main concern at the time was that, with public opinion turning against tobacco and the government
demanding a safer alternative to what had become an ingrained part of American life, Lucky Strike was in
dire straits as far as public image goes.
The company couldn’t out and out lie without risking federal prosecution, but they also couldn’t say anything
that would risk alienating their consumer base. However, exploring the specifics of how cigarettes are made,
Don strikes pure gold.
“But everybody else’s tobacco is toasted”, the executives argue. “No“, Don replies, calm as a cucumber,
“everybody else’s tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strike’s… it’s toasted”. Bam! There! The clouds part. Style, wit
and grace save the day yet again56.
Of course, Lucky Strikes were just as poisonous as any other cigarette. The difference was that Don had
found a way to talk about them without bringing up health issues. By focusing on a facet of production that
people would associate with wholesomeness57.
He then goes on to explain that advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And that happiness can be
the smell of a new car. It can be freedom from fear. It can be a billboard screaming with reassurance that,
whatever it is you’re doing, you’re okay.
56
To be honest, this is probably not at all how it really went down. But it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?
57
You can probably blame breakfast toast for that.
If you are going to start a relationship with your audience through a promise, you might want to start by
figuring out what exactly do they want to be promised. In this respect, you could do worse than promising
everything’s going to be okay… in your own way.
See, marketers pull at a lot of strings, and happiness is just one of them. The pursuit of happiness, while
generally regarded as an almost universal human interest, is a very simple way of going about this. Not bad
or unworthy by any means, just simple.
And that is nothing to say of the people you’ll find who’ll argue that we, as a species, don’t really want to be
happy. That we actually only like happiness as a goal to strive for and every now and then graze against.
Always within reach, never in the bag.
We are complex creatures. Our decision-making processes are driven by forces beyond instinct, far too
nuanced for anyone to presume to understand perfectly. What we can understand, however, is the different
facets of emotion and how to appeal to them.
I’ll gloss over the psychology of marketing and how it’s used to appeal to our human nature58. For now, I
think it’s enough to say that it pays to know your audience. It pays to know what they think they want. And it
pays even more to know what they really want.
What strings are you pulling at?
Word of Monkeys
“The oldest – and perhaps simplest and most natural form of marketing – is ‘word of mouth’ (WOM)
marketing, in which consumers convey their experiences of a product, service or brand in their day-to-day
communications with others.”
That’s a continuation of Wikipedia’s once-upon-a-time definition of marketing. You can’t find it there
anymore. Editing wars have already taken it away. The only reason you’ll know it ever existed is because I’m
telling you it did, and you’re taking my word for it59.
Intelligible speech certainly is old. Older than writing, to be sure, and definitely older than other more recent
forms of communication. Email, social media, paid advertising. They are all offshoots of a time when we just
howled and grunted at each other.
Ever since we came down from the trees, we’ve been all just constantly telling stories to each other. Stories
about our hopes, our fears, our needs and our desires. To illustrate, I’d like to refer to the work of the late
and always excellent Sir Terry Pratchett60.
In “Death and What Comes Next”, Death is locked in an argument with a particularly tenacious philosopher
about the absolute finality of his passing away. The Reaper, getting frustrated with the man, decides to get
right down to the bottom of it.
“... YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE
COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE
RIPE FRUIT WAS.”
Ouch. Nicely put, if a bit cruel, and straight to what I wanted to get at. Aren’t we, in the end, just all about
that? Monkeys talking to each other about the latest source of ripe fruit? The latest fresh source of delight,
just waiting to be discovered?
58
Go read a(nother) book. Dan Ariely’s “Predictably Irrational” is a good start.
59
Well, that or https://archive.org, or the edit logs of Wikiped- you get my point!
60
Pratchett, Terry. “A Blink of the Screen: Collected Short Fiction”. Corgi (2014).
Think like a monkey for a second61. You find yourself wandering around the jungle, and you come across a
banana tree. This amazing banana tree. The thing is incredible, just loaded with fruit ripe for the picking. You
go, dare I say, bananas over it62.
You gorge, munch and stuff your face with banana until you can eat no more. You tire, but there’s still so
much left. Too much, even for you to handle. So now you want to share. You swing back to the tribe and start
screaming:
“Hey, you’ve got to come check out this tree I just found. It has the fullest, ripest bananas in all the land! And
there’s just so many of them! You’ve got to come. Bring your friends, and all the cuties. They’ll want to come
too. And they’ll like you!”
I mean, who wouldn’t? Clearly, only the best monkeys have access to so many bananas. All you manage is a
howl and some rather impressive stomping, though, but that’s good enough marketing if you’re a monkey.
You’ve probably gotten the message across.
The point is, when you think about it, this sounds familiar. Word of mouth hasn’t changed that much
throughout history. Sure, we now dress in fancier loincloths and drive faster metal horses. It’s still the search
for the greatest banana tree.
Ook?
Seth Godin’s CASE
If you’re even entertaining the notion of marketing, chances are you are in the desire business. Yup, desire.
No, people don’t need what you have. People, at best, want what you have. And if you’re really, really lucky,
people may even desire what you have.
No, what people need is air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat. Some shelter, although not
indispensable, also really goes a long way to making things better for most people’s lives, so we’ll bundle it
up in there as well. Those are our real, actual needs.
If you’re in any of those industries, people will purchase your stuff regardless of marketing. People need
those things to live, so they don’t really have a choice. If you have either air, water, food or shelter, people will
come to you, no marketing required.
That being said, please note that neither M&Ms nor Whole Foods are “food”, that Evian is not “water”, and
that a five million dollar NYC brownstone exceeds the definition of shelter. These are wants, not needs, and
appeal to different impulses in our psyche.
With that important distinction squared away, it’s time to go into our first strategy draft: the CASE. The CASE
is a four-step tool should help you put your ideas in context and check for any major flaws in your digital
marketing strategy design process.
Venerable-wise-man-atop-a-mountain Seth Godin, the CASE’s original author, has been for some time on
a crusade to wreck the old “Mad Men” marketing mindset. We’ve had one too many easy passes peddling
advertising as a cure-all. Now it’s time to get dirty.
In his Action Theory of Marketing, Seth poses four key elements:
• Emotion: how do you want to affect your audience?
• Change: how will your audience’s life be changed once they listen to you?
61
Yup, “bananas” was also my first thought.
62
There’s no pun jail, I checked, so I cannot be prosecuted for that!
• Alert: how do you plan on accruing trust to be a part of their life?
• Share: how will your message spread from person to person?
According to him, these questions are essential to developing a grand marketing strategy. “Emotion” looks at
what your message will generate, “Change” looks at its expected impact, “Alert” observes its trust cache, and
“Share” is all about spreadability.
While I do believe that these are all vital components to take into account when developing a marketing
strategy, I’ve also taken the liberty of tweaking a few things to make the CASE’s implementation an easier fit.
Ladies and gents, without further ado…
The CASE.
Emotion
A good story generates an emotional response. The story both Lamborghini and Ferrari tell generate
different emotions. Nespresso and Folgers, likewise, tell completely different stories despite using coffee as a
common medium through which to tell it.
While the research of emotion and its relation to human nature is still a heavily contested field of study,
there’s some agreement on that there’s two broad categories in which emotions can be classified: positive
emotions, and negative emotions.
We define positive emotions as emotions we might find desirable. The promise of any of these fills us with
“hope”, a positive sense of expectation about future outcomes. In turn, the effective realization of these
future outcomes can generate “delight”.
According to Mr. Godin, delight is the most intense of all the positive and pleasurable emotions we might
experience. It’s the surpassing of hopeful expectations into the realm of awe, without going so overboard
that we tread, without meaning to, into fear63.
An example of a positive emotion can be the feeling of coming home after a long day to find an surprise
romantic evening planned by a beloved significant other. It can also be the “shuffle” functionality of your iPod
landing right on a favorite tune while jogging64.
The negative side of emotionality is comprised of everything that we, for lack of better terms, do not want or
in fact fear. These promises fill us with “dread”, a negative sense of expectation. The effective realization of
them would certainly generate “dismay”.
Examples of negative emotionality could be the feeling of coming home and finding a great big stack of
unpaid bills under the door. That very same “shuffle” functionality could land for the billionth time on that
crappy song you’ve been meaning to erase.
If I were to ask you, right now, to recommend me a brand of outdoor clothing for my upcoming
mountaineering trip, which would you choose? The North Face? Columbia? Patagonia? Mountain Hardwear?
Montbell? Arc’teryx? Really, rank them, right now.
Can you feel the pull of the known brands? The comfort? The safety? Most of us have no real reason to
choose them over the rest, except for the fact that at least we’ve heard of them, and not in a particularly bad
way. Comfort. Security. An emotional response.
Suppose I were to tell you that on Reddit’s mountaineering subreddit the highest-voted reply to this same
question states that Columbia shouldn’t even be on this list. Would that change your ranking? Would it affect
your recommendations in any way?
63
Everything’s a circle.
64
Hey, to each his own, right?
Now imagine I tell you that Patagonia has an ironclad guarantee policy. That if you are not 100% satisfied
with one of Patagonia’s products, you can return it to Patagonia for a repair, replacement or refund. How
would that color your recommendation?
If delight is the most intense of the positive emotions, then dismay is its polar opposite. It’s the surpassing
of dreadful expectations far into a territory beyond what we would be willing to tolerate. Denial sometimes
plays a last-ditch comforting role here.
Marketing is lousy with examples of appeals to both categories. Again, think of all the life insurance ads that
focus on the terrors that could fall unto your family or loved ones were you to choose poorly. Think of all the
depression medication commercials65.
The hope of having something. The fear of loss. The hope of belonging. The fear of being left out. The hope
of respect. The fear of ridicule. There’s always two sides to the emotional coin. And here’s the first big choice
you need to face in your CASE.
You need to figure out what kind of emotion you’ll be trying to convey through your marketing. And although
each action will convey its own emotion and be interpreted in as many ways as audience members you have,
it helps to have a guiding compass.
The Wheel of Emotions
Source: By Machine Elf 1735 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
This is Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions. At the very center there’s a human beings’ eight basic emotions:
65
Chronic depression is a serious illness. If affected by it, please seek adequate help.
ecstasy, admiration, terror, amazement, grief, loathing, rage and vigilance. Towards the outside, you get
varying degrees of intensity for said emotion.
This is a primer to kickstart the emotional aspect of your digital marketing strategy. You don’t have to use all
of the emotions above. In fact, it’s probably best if you don’t. I myself usually just go for one or two, mainly to
be used as general guides for tone.
Exercise 1.1
1. What emotion has your project’s story conveyed thus far?
a. What emotion has it inspired in your audience?
b. What emotion has it inspired in the people involved internally in your project?
c. What emotion has it inspired in you?
2. What emotion would you like for it to convey into the future?
a. To your audience?
b. To the people involved internally in your project?
c. To you?
3. Bonus: can you recognize emotion in your individual marketing tactics thus far?
Start with small, single sentences. They’ll help you get the ball rolling and overcome inertial fear. Don’t be afraid.
Over the course of this book, things will probably change for you. If they do, you can always come back and cross
something out.
The important thing is that you write it, print it, and tear it off for actual use!
Change
What would it take for you to switch from iOS to Android, or the other way around? How can I get you to
start flossing on a regular basis? What do I have to do to convince you to switch presidential candidates this
upcoming election66?
Next up is change67. Chances are you’re leading a project that’ll cause something to change. What will
change? How do you plan on instigating that change? Are we even aware of you for you to have a chance at
making that change happen?
I get asked a lot about change and what do I mean by it. When I refer to change, I’m talking about impact.
About outcomes. About results. About what happens now. To your audience. To your project. To you. After
the input. After the message.
What do you want to change? What do you want to happen after we hear your message? If your answer right
now is “I want you to buy my product”, think harder, and perhaps less selfishly. Transactions are usually the
result of other kinds of change.
Andy Puddicombe got me to try meditation where countless friends, hardcore zen enthusiasts and pastel
brochures failed. He created Headspace, a meditation app that entered my life unassuming, free and only
asking for ten minutes of my time a day68.
While a strategic approach to change acts as a valuable compass, it’s hard to articulate concrete actions from
it. You need to drill down and sketch out the actual tactics that’ll make the overarching statements effective
maneuvers.
Expecting high-level change with a tactic-level lens can prove to be as difficult as making low-level change
66
Wikipedia’s “Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster” article is really good.
67
Wikipedia’s “Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008” article is also really, really good.
68
https://www.headspace.com/
actionable using a strategic-level lens. The secret is that you need both, one to act as the guiding roadmap,
and the other one to track progress.
Sometimes, people tend to fault towards the megalomaniacal side of things when thinking about change.
Inevitably, they get frustrated when the bark speaks louder than the bite. The issue, of course, is not the
ambition. It’s the lens and the time frame.
A quick tip to anchor your expectations of change into something actionable: remember that you are just a
fraction of someone’s life. However important, your project has to fight for the time and attention of people
who are at all times extremely busy.
If you set both strategic and tactic expectations of change, it’s easier to know if you’re actually accomplishing
your goals. You’ll have a pretty obvious way to measure if you’re headed the right way and making an impact,
or if you’re just hollering into the wind.
We live in a very loud world. The trick with change is having the forethought to recognize that even your best
estimates for it will probably be wrong. You have to set an initial reasonable expectation and benchmark,
and be willing to update it as you learn.
I’ve found that real change happens over time, little by little, drop by drop. Sure, you can just nuke your
target audience with wall-to-wall advertising, and a fraction of them will probably respond. The change,
however, will be short-lived if that’s all you’ve got.
Exercise 1.2
1. What does change look like for your project?
2. What change do you expect from your tribe at both the strategic and tactical levels?
3. What’s the plan for instigating that change?
Again, start with small, single sentences. It’ll help you get the ball rolling. If they change, don’t worry, you can always
come back and cross anything you want out.
Remember to write it, print it and tear it off for later use as well!
Alert
It’s time for spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam! Just kidding. It’s not spam time. It’s never
spam time. Spam is the bane of digital culture across time. The mere mention of spam can make some
people I know have minor breakdowns.
Why talk about spam, then? Well, unsolicited messaging has certainly made most of us distrustful of anyone
asking for our email, regardless of reason or plea. And where trust is hard to come by, alerting an audience
of something will always be a challenge.
While today’s spam has become largely avoidable through force of habit and a bit of care, the threat of being
caught in its net again still haunts us. We’ve been burned by the sheer annoyance of it and the paranoia has
become ingrained.
The link between unwarranted harassment and the term “spam” originated from a 1970’s Monty Python
sketch69. In it, the namesake canned pork food was included in a diner’s every meal, often several times,
much to the dismay of a couple of diner goers.
“Egg & Spam”, “Egg, Bacon & Spam”, “Spam, Egg, Spam, Spam, Bacon & Spam”... you can see where this goes.
To add insult to injury, the diner’s Vikings70 would spontaneously spring into songs about the virtues of spam
69
If you ever, ever thought you’d read this book without enduring a Python reference, I pity you.
70
It’s Monty Python. I have no idea.
every time the food was mentioned71.
It wasn’t long before Monty Python nerds would use the concept of the annoyance of spam to flood or trash
chat rooms in the 80’s72. With bandwidth being what it was at the time, just spamming the word “spam” was
enough to send people into fits.
As much as I enjoy talking about Monty Python, however, there’s a reason I’m talking about spam and the
Internet’s ancient history. You see, understanding spam’s humble beginnings in the digital space helps to
make sense of it now.
Spam in modern times has inherited its well-deserved fame for annoyance. So much so that the first
adjectives you will usually find when looking for a definition of the word won’t be “canned, “precooked”, or
“tasty”, but “unsolicited”, “undesired” and “illegal”.
Yes, I know that unsolicited messaging has been around forever. In fact, the first recorded instance of
unsolicited mass commercial messaging was in May 1864, when British politicians received a spam blast via
telegram advertising a dentistry shop.
Nowadays, though, when I talk about “spam” I refer to all “unsolicited”, “undesired” and sometimes “illegal”
digital messaging. Email spam, blog spam, ad spam, you name it. If you can communicate bits through it,
odds are spam is probably already there.
On account of its sheer annoyance and potential for interference in our day-to-day lives, we have gone to
great lengths to block out spam. First, it was vicious email spam filters. Now advertisers are flipping a wig on
account of the rise of adblocking software.
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
Adblocking software, like uBlock Origin73, allows Internet users to block a website’s scripts. Scripts that,
for example, fire things like pop-up windows, banner ads, autoplay videos and other forms of potentially
“unsolicited” and “undesired” messaging74.
Lovely spam! Wonderful spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!
Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!
71
Yes, as a matter of fact, the Internet was around in the 80’s. And no, there weren’t any chat rooms per se. Only Bulletin
Board Systems and Multi User Dungeons. They were enough. And you could most certainly crash them by typing and sending
really fast.
72
73
Available for both Chrome and Firefox, and not to be confused with regular uBlock!
74
A happy side effect is that websites, not having to load all that junk, load faster and we as users are less exposed to
I’ll spare you the details of this ongoing feud between audiences, publishers and advertisers. Suffice it to say
that the Internet as we know it will probably be changed, forever, by this development in the relationship
between the aforementioned parties.
The reason I’ve addressed the issue of S.P.A.M. and adblocking is because, due to a shift towards audience
empowerment, asking for permission and earning the privilege to communicate is now at the core of any
viable modern digital marketing strategy.
With more options than ever before to tune out of irrelevant messaging, marketers now have to earn the
right to alert audiences of their message. Gone are the days in which interruption marketing tactics such as
paid advertising were a sustainable solution.
As I previously said, acquiring the privilege to be a part of someone’s life may be the hardest challenge you’ll
ever face. We are, at all times, extremely busy. Even our leisure time is carefully timed. Those piñas coladas
are not going to drink themselves, you see.
When dwelling on how to gain the privilege, I repeat, the privilege, not the right, to alert your audience of
your next message you need to think of a two-sided relationship. One in which, if you are not willing to
respect the tribe, you will be kicked to the curb.
I’m not saying a company who has a ridiculously high customer turnover rate cannot manage to scrounge up
a profit through sheer force75. I’m saying that, if that’s the case, odds are everyone else in the industry is just
as bad and I would still worry.
I would still worry because eventually a company that really cares about its audience, a company that shows
due respect and bothers to cultivate trust, will come along and tear everyone and everything else to pieces.
So how will you earn the trust required to alert your tribe of your next move? What will you do to be allowed
to alert them the next time you have something important to say? Always remember that every action draws
from a precious cache of trust.
Alert goes into both the general ethics of a project and the specifics of its marketing actions. Are you just
going to message them every time you need something? Are you going to give them something of value
before you ask for something in return?
Are you going to be top-rank when they Google for related terms to your project? Is timely, appropriate,
relevant email going to be a tactical cornerstone of your digital marketing strategy? Are you only going to rely
on interruptive paid advertising?
Exercise 1.3
1.
2.
3.
4.
What’s your plan for earning the privilege to alert the tribe next time around?
If the tribe is important, and it is, how will you show your respect for it?
What kinds of alert mechanisms will you use when communicating?
How will you prove to your tribe that you care, and that it’s okay to trust you?
As always: write it, print it, tear it, use it!
Share
“Viral” is probably the biggest buzzword of the last decade. If you are even tangentially connected to the
Internet, you have probably heard it enough times to have a hearty chuckle every time someone states their
thing is going to go “viral”.
potential security holes.
75
...put enough jet engines on a submarine and that sucker’ll fly.
While you read this, countless marketers still chase in the dark the next big hit, or obsess over the formula
that will help them claim that they are the ones who figured out how to reliably produce runaway content in
a consistent fashion.
No one seems to have cracked how to replicate the engine powering viral content just yet, maybe
thankfully. It’s still hard to predict what the next viral hit on the Internet will be and the knowledge of how to
manufacture one is still far off.
Of course, you could always go the Jimmy Kimmel route and crack virality through brute force. The man was
behind both the Sochi Olympics’ video of a wolf marauding the halls of an hotel and a girl crashing a table
and catching on fire while practicing twerking76.
Why do I consider that a brute force attempt? Well, for one, I’m pretty sure those weren’t the only two videos
he engineered in his attempt at virality. They were just the ones we know about because they caught on.
Yes, the videos were extremely well produced and Jimmy Kimmel is a very clever man. However, the
survivorship bias inherent in successful viral content can lead to a case of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy and
skew our perception of the real difficulty of it all77.
Stories reach their fullest potential through sharing. If relying on virality seems like a good idea, remember
that it’s kind of like catching lightning in a bottle. You have to give some thought to how you expect your
story to be shared without it.
The only things that are shared and spread ever-increasingly in our modern digital world are the things that
we consider worth sharing and spreading. Remember worth? Ordinary banana trees just don’t get enough
spotlight to maximize their potential.
The problem about this dynamic is, as you might have guessed, the subjective nature of our definitions of
worth. How exactly can you craft a story that can be widely considered worth talking about and shareable if
everyone has a different set of measuring scales?
Well, I think it’s nice that there’s a way around this. Much in the same way you can brute force your attempts
at viral success, you can always make something so remarkable that people, regardless of differences, just
can’t seem to stop talking about it.
It doesn’t have to appeal to the whole crowd. In fact, that may be the quickest way to creating a watered
down story that appeals to no one in particular. No, your story just has to garner enough attention to get
your core audience’s share train chuggin’.
Of course it really, really, really helps if you take the time to make shareability part of your story’s DNA. If
sharing is a concept intimately intertwined with your story, odds are its reach will never completely stall, at
least not until everyone has heard about it.
Exercise 1.4
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Have you already identified the critical few who will help the story spread?
How exactly do you expect your story to spread?
How do you expect that to happen?
How long do you expect it to last?
Will it be a slow burn thing, or a flash?
Write, print, tear, use!
We now have our marketing CASE squared away. We have created a rough outline of how we expect our
76
If you don’t know what this means, lucky you.
77
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-texas-sharpshooter
project’s digital marketing strategy to shake out by addressing its emotional payload, its impact for change,
its alert mechanisms and its sharing potential.
We mustn’t stop here though, because this is marketing only at the highest strategic level possible. While it’s
essential in guiding our efforts into the future, it does not yet have the tactic granularity we need it to have to
deliver real day-to-day impact.
Now we must develop an additional layer of specificity by answering 7 very important questions that should
have been prompted by your work in this section. Each one will help you think about a key aspect pertaining
to your Marketing CASE.
Once we’re done the larger questions of our digital marketing strategy will have been figured out or, more
likely, they will at least have been asked. Remember, things will almost certainly change down the road, and
it’s OK for them to do.
The 8 7 Essential Marketing Questions
Again, I have to give Seth Godin full credit for this. His eight essential questions to every marketing challenge
ever are incredible. They are incisive, can yield tremendous amounts of insight to the problem at hand, and
are good at getting down to brass tacks.
They were the original jump-off point in the development of the following prompts that aim to really nail the
basics of a good marketing strategy home. If you feel vague when answering them, I’m afraid I must insist on
specificity until they feel right to you.
Audience
So, first off... who are you trying to reach? Who’s your audience for this story? What do they look like? What
do they want? What are their problems? How can you help them? Why would you help them? Why would they
want your help? Why them at all?
Exercise 2.1
Answer all of the questions above for at least three persons who you think should hear the story. Keep the answers
short while concentrating on precision and relevant, distinguishable characteristics that bring these hypothetical
people to life.
Story
What’s your project’s story all about? Is it a relevant story for your intended audience? How does it stack up
against the competition? Does it inspire the people who choose to play a part in it? What do you think would
be their motivations to do it?
Exercise 2.2
Answer all the questions above in no more than three sentences. The point of keeping answers focused, precise and
relevant is to do away with the faff and force into view the real meat and potatoes of the matter. Remember that
stories have an emotional payload!
Worldview
Now, what does your audience believe in? What does it care about? Does the story resonate with their
worldviews and beliefs? Are they trying to change something? Are you? Is it the same thing? Why would they
want to do that? Why would you?
Exercise 2.4
Answer the questions above, listing at least three things your audience believes and cares about. Again, keep the
paragraphs short, using no more than one sentence to answer each question. If stuck, take a breather, stretch, then
go into it again. This one is tough.
Awareness
How will your audience become aware of your story, of what you have to offer? What mediums and tactics
at your disposal will you use? Where will you center your awareness efforts? Who else is using the same
mediums? Are they being effective?
Exercise 2.3
Answer the questions above, identifying at least three opportunities to generate awareness for your story. “Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you” can help peg the level of respect you should show to your audience
when considering your awareness tactics.
Fear
Where is the real fear that has prevented action so far? How do you plan on getting rid of the fear and
instilling a sense of trust in your audience so that your story kicks into high gear? Why are you the right one
to spearhead? How will you gain our trust?
Exercise 2.5
Answer the questions above, writing down the three main resistances preventing action in your audience.
Remember, fear is at the core of inaction. Most people, by default, fear change. To do, we need to hope. To hope, we
need to believe. To believe, we need to trust.
Expectations
Yours and your audience’s. What are your expectations about this story? Do you know what are theirs? Do
they line up? Do they line up at the same time? Are they in sync? What keeps people from saying “mmm,
maybe later”? Where is the urgency to act now?
Exercise 2.6
Answer the questions above, identifying at least two possible expectations for you and your audience. Think about
how our aversion to risk can put a halt to your story’s pitch. You need to know how to overcome our fear. We may
not be able to do it ourselves.
Reason
And finally, why? Why do it at all? Why is this story so important to you? Why should it matter to me
personally? What will I tell my friends? Is your story a good fit for me? Will we be branded heretics, misfits,
not one of “them”? Is that even a bad thing?
Exercise 2.7
Take one last moment to ponder over your reasons for embarking on this and caring enough to do something about
it. List all the reasons you can think of that would make this story important, to you and me. If it needs to happen,
at least have an idea as to why.
There. That should’ve gotten your juices flowing. Are you thinking about your project? Its past? Its present?
Its future? Are you thinking about your audience, your tribe? How your story fits with them? Does it feel more
personal now? Are you all fired up?
Good. That’s the purpose of these questions. To dig up dirt and make you think about what you’ve done,
what you’re doing, and what you’ll be doing in the future. Hopefully, you know have a clearer picture, and
know if you’re on the right track or not.
The CASE for Marketing
Why even bother to figure out what marketing is in the first place? Can’t we just dive into the work and
let it speak for itself? Yes, yes we can. In fact, everything we do, even if we don’t want it to, carries on a
conversation for us when we’re not around.
Charlatans78, people who’re all talk and no work, get their comeuppance sooner or later. There’s just not
enough smoke to keep the act going on forever. That’s why they’re known as charlatans. They’re all talk and,
eventually, they get exposed.
Conversely, there’s people who work hard to create amazing things. They work so hard that they’re known,
undoubtedly, as the hardest workers around. But the problem is that the hardest workers, the martyrs,
rarely get their due in their time.
Because martyrs don’t care to talk. Martyrs only care about the work at hand, about the immediacy of the
situation and the context. And while recognition and attention might be superfluous endeavors to a martyr,
it’s also the way people take notice.
If you’ve been trying the martyr approach, then you already know that life’s not fair. Sometimes, the work
goes unnoticed. This, unfortunately, also means that martyrs don’t get to do the greatest possible good. That
only happens, maybe, after they’re gone.
What is one to do, then, with the limited resources we are given? On the one hand we have the charlatans,
and on the other one we have the martyrs. Neither seem to be the optimal solution for maximizing our
project’s impact. So, which is it?
As you may have guessed, and as many have found after trying again and again, a successful project is a
lot like a balancing act. You need to put the work in, and you also need to be able to step away for like a hot
second to talk about it a bit.
An understanding of what marketing is really all about will enable you to make the most out of both your
work and your talk. With the CASE you can start the process of beating your own path, instead of blindly
copying what everyone else is doing.
You also have seven sets of questions designed to probe a few assumptions. About the audience, the story,
the worldview, the awareness, the fear, the expectations and the reason for it all. Deep, I know, but I think it’s
always best to be prepared.
The CASE for Digital Marketing
You may have noticed we still haven’t talked much about marketing of the digital kind. Where’s all the Google,
the email, the apps, the HTML, the CSS, the analytics? Are we just wasting our time here or what?
Well, first off, no, of course we’re not wasting our time here. We’re building the foundations of a digital
marketing strategy. Elements do overlap with regular, garden variety marketing. The differences between
both will emerge soon enough.
See, digital marketing developed in a world of our own design. A world written in code, and largely
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quantifiable. In an industry plagued with unaccountability, digital marketing’s capacity for measurement gave
the marketer a second chance.
Before digital marketing, the concept of accountability in marketing was hazy at best. We had only extremely
nebulous indicators of the impact of our communicational efforts had on a project’s overall health and
financial well-being.
To be fair, it’s not the traditional marketer’s fault. Measuring a roadside billboard’s impact on sales can be an
exercise in futility, unless you follow each person who viewed it around to see if they were ultimately driven
to make a purchase.
Even then you would’ve been hard-pressed to determine if the billboard was in fact responsible for that
purchase, to what degree, and half a million other variables hard to keep track of with the naked eye.
It’s perhaps then unsurprising that the traditional marketer tried to do without the numbers for so long. They
were hard to come by, usually unreliable, and had a reputation of getting in the way of the creative process. I
mean, who’d want that?
But the problem with a no-numbers mindset is that if it can’t be accurately traced, sure, you can’t be held
unequivocally responsible and thus accountable. But it also means you can’t reliably take the glory each time
you hit a homerun. Or really learn anything.
Nevermind the fact that you can actually be held responsible for being unaccountable. What made digital
marketing so interesting to the performance marketer was its ability to leave a clear trace from which to infer
what was working and what wasn’t.
This was incredible, a chance at adopting the performance marketer’s mindset like never before, and it has
given us some of the most original, most successful, most profitable marketing campaigns in history.
If you can get real-time data on which parts of your story are working and which aren’t, you can speed up
your decision-making cycles to as fast as you can make them go. You can run leaner than ever and update
your story as fast as you can write it.
That is nothing to say of the benefits of having integrated communication channels, massive audience data
from which to infer additional information about your tribe, granular user behavior tracking, and precise
performance results.
Channeling Uncle Ben
It’s a long way from the era of whisky drinking and writing cheques for the largest spread Vanity Fair has to
offer. Now a story’s ideation, creation and evaluation can do a full loop to feed back on itself and improve
faster than ever before.
Alas, with great power comes great responsibility. This virtuous loop of the modern age can also be abused
and turned to dubious causes. A story and its audience, in the wrong hands, can be little more than a petri
dish.
That’s why I insist on the importance of trust, respect and giving even your best intentions their due
consideration. On the Internet, these currencies are hard earned and easily lost. In this new frontier, it’s all
too easy to get drunk on power and stray.
You now have more power at your disposal than ever before. The power to tell an incredible story. The
power to delight. The power to inspire. The power to connect. You have a responsibility to your audience.
Considering that, it’s time we pay attention to it.
Chapter 3: Audience
Blockbuster vs. Netflix
Every now and then I wonder: did Blockbuster see Netflix looming on the horizon? Did they know what was
up? Were they too arrogant to take what would become one of the largest modern media companies today
seriously when it first appeared?
Just in case this is ancient history to you, Blockbuster was an international provider of movie and video game
rental services through rental shops. At its peak in 2004, it consisted of nearly 60,000 employees and over
9,000 stores worldwide.
On September 23, 2010, six years later, Blockbuster was filing for bankruptcy. Not too long after, American
direct-broadcast satellite service provider Dish Network would acquire it at auction79. By 2013, Dish had
closed 1,000 out of 1,700 stores remaining.
The brutality of the story would break my heart, if it not for the lesson I suspect is hidden in there
somewhere. And I only say “suspect” because the magnitude of this beast’s collapse is shocking enough to
give the story the benefit of doubt.
Netflix was founded in 199780, after Reed Hastings was allegedly forced to pay $40 in overdue fines after
returning Apollo 13 past its due date81. With the exception of using a website, Netflix’s pay-per-rental
business model initially worked a lot like Blockbuster’s.
Around 2000, while still deep in the red, Netflix did away with due dates, late fees, shipping and handling
fees, and per title rental fees. It began building a reputation and, not long after, Blockbuster would turn down
a chance to purchase it for $50 million82.
Today, Netflix is a modern media monster. It has cast off its earthly DVD-rental shackles and ascended into
entertainment-on-demand heaven. It keeps breaking subscription records, it licenses some of the hottest
shows, and even produces original content83.
The company itself has grown so large in the public eye that it is now known as the new gold standard
for entertainment access, the phrase “Netflix and chill” being its latest achievement as far as pop culture
dominance goes84.
Blockbuster, on the other hand, is dead. Its obituary was published the day South Park released an episode
parodying Randy Marsh’s decision to purchase an abandoned and haunted Blockbuster store, complete with
“The Shining” references85.
This modern David and Goliath story is an “epic fail” fan favorite amongst marketers. On one hand, Netflix:
the shining, hip, cool, new hero here to save the day. On the other, Blockbuster: the aged, brutish, nearsighted ogre. The story is so good it writes itself.
But Netflix wasn’t always the shining, hip, cool, new hero. And Blockbuster wasn’t always the aged, brutish,
near-sighted ogre. It only looks that way to us because of how the story played out, and because hindsight is
always 20/20.
79
Zax, David. (04 June 2011). “Dish Buys Blockbuster for $320 Million. Why?”. Fast Company. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
80
(21 July 2014). “A brief history of Netflix”. CNN. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
81
It’s highly unlikely that this is the real story, but it makes for great interview material and myth.
82
Chong, Celena. (17 July 2015). “Blockbuster’s CEO once passed up a chance to buy Netflix for only $50 million”. Business
Insider. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
83
As far as content goes, however, things are turning sour for Netflix as of July 2016.
84
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=netflix%20and%20chill
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“A Nightmare on Face Time”
No, there was a time when Netflix and Blockbuster were more alike than any of them would’ve cared to
admit. A fork in the road was what ultimately determined the victor, and it’s here where I think we’ve lost
track of the what might’ve been the real story.
See, Netflix was not always the media beast it is today. In fact, once upon a time, it was not so different from
the company business pundits have laughed at and ridiculed for the last couple of years.
When Netflix offered itself to Blockbuster for $50 million in 2000, it was on its way to report negative $58
million in net income for the year. It still depended on the distribution of physical DVDs, and had only
recently dropped its single-rental model.
It did not have the worldwide reach it has today. It did not have its signature video-on-demand service. It did
not produce exclusive original content. In short, technically speaking, it was not that much different from any
other rental store.
How did Reed Hastings turn an unpleasant experience with Blockbuster and its gruelling late fees into a
multibillion dollar company whose only untapped market in the whole world is across the Chinese border?
Well, what Hastings had and has tried to keep over the years, is a pulse on its audience.
Blindfolded
Did you know Netflix’s hit series “House of Cards” was engineered? And no, I’m not talking about
sound engineering, or wardrobe designs, or storyboard development. I’m talking about data-informed
engineering86.
Netflix’s “House of Cards” is an adaptation of the BBC mini-series of the same name, which itself is based on
the novel by Michael Dobbs. Produced by David Fincher, it stars Kevin Spacey as the ruthlessly pragmatic and
brutally effective Frank Underwood.
So far, nothing new here. David Fincher, having recently finished “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”,
was approached with the project. A bidding war between companies ensued, Netflix emerging victorious. All
standard entertainment industry fare.
Kevin Spacey was approached and set to star and act as executive producer, while Fincher was announced as
director for the first two episodes. Beau Willimon, former aide of Charles Schumer, Howard Dean and Hillary
Clinton, would pen the scripts.
Now how about we go a bit deeper down into the rabbit hole?
Did you know that David Fincher directed “Seven”, “Fight Club”, “The Social Network”, “The Game” and “The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”? If you’ve watched “House of Cards” on Netflix, how many times have you seen
those swim by while browsing?
Did you know that, in an extremely unusual move for the entertainment industry and long-form content in
general, Netflix ordered the first 26 episodes of the series to be produced right away instead of waiting to
test the waters with the usual pilot?
Did you know that, in another extremely unusual move for the entertainment industry, Netflix chose to air all
episodes in a season at the same time, essentially embracing the entertainment watching format consumers
know as “binging”?
That’s a lot of confidence in a project. About $100 million dollars worth of confidence, the estimated
production costs for the two 13 episode seasons, marketing expenses not included. Quite the gamble for one
Yes, data-informed. While I appreciate the alliteration in “data-driven” as much as the next guy, data should never, ever
be at the wheel. It’s just a shortcut to brainless decision-making, which is always a very dangerous thing. Call me a hipster, I’ve
seen what some “data-driven” companies get up to.
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of the company’s initial forays into original content.
Of course, neither David Fincher nor Kevin Spacey were chance picks. Fincher himself has gone on record to
say that everyone cast for the series was the intended choice. All specific picks based on tons of audience
viewing data Netflix had at hand.
If you’re starting to feel a bit paranoid, don’t worry. Netflix founded its empire by paying attention to its
audience. To you. That being said, Frank Underwood’s occasional break of the fourth wall is starting to feel a
little more tongue-in-cheek now, eh?
It Pays to Pay Attention
Take a look again at Netflix’s foundational myth. Reed Hastings and a $40 late fee. Even now, some people
can still remember the pain of a late fee. It was horrible, but if we wanted to rent a movie, it was a danger we
had no other choice but to accept.
It was painful, and it was universal. I myself am not the worst offender that I know of and I still remember
the trouble the dreaded late fee meant at my home87. In the same way 90’s kids can relate through the Game
Boy, they also relate through the late fee.
The fact is, a large portion of Blockbuster’s revenue came from late fees88. In 2000, Blockbuster had collected
approximately $800 million in late fees, representing almost 16 percent of its yearly revenue. By 2009, late
fees were down to $134 million89.
It was actually such a huge chunk of its business model that, even when facing imminent bankruptcy, they
decided to reinstate the business model as a last ditch attempt at profitability 90. You reap what you sow, I
guess.
Sadly, it was a decision that had nothing to do with the customer’s experience and everything to do with
quarterly earnings. If nothing else, by chapter’s end I hope to convince you that disregarding your tribe is the
quickest way to Chapter 1191.
In early 2000, still hemorrhaging cash, Netflix took a series of interesting decisions. It introduced the monthly
subscription concept and created a flat-fee unlimited rentals model without due dates, late fees, or shipping
and handling charges.
Netflix was losing money, and now it was doing away with one of the primary sources of revenue its biggest
competitor had. It’s all very well and good to pay attention to your tribe and do right by them, as long your
doors don’t close tomorrow for good, right?
At the time, conventional wisdom would have suggested this was akin to shooting oneself in the foot. Flat
fees? Unlimited rentals? No due dates? Not even shipping and handling costs? Was Netflix trying to go broke?
No. Netflix was starting to pay attention. It was starting to listen. It was understanding the pain and was
starting to relate to it. It was realizing that a business model should not be based upon anything that
generates unnecessary anxiety and dread.
While everything could be chucked to a leap of faith, or a million other reasons, Netflix’s gamble paid off and
87
Damn you, “Desert Strike”!
88
Mae Anderson and Michael Liedtke. (23 September 2010). “Hubris - and late fees - doomed Blockbuster”. NBC NEWS.
Retrieved 5 October 2016.
89
A measly 3% of Blockbuster’s revenue.
90
Chen, Jason. (03 February 2010). “Blockbuster Digs Itself a Deeper Grave, Brings Back Late Fees”. Gizmodo. Retrieved 5
October 2016.
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Chapter 11: you’re broke.
its doors remained wide open. In 2003, it reported its first profits, and since then has done nothing but break
its own records year after year.
However, I don’t think these kinds of decisions are ever taken as leap of faith exercises. Not when millions of
dollars and the livelihoods of several families are at stake. Netflix’s top executives must have had more than
hunches to take these shots.
When Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was pitched “House of Cards”, he looked at the data
Netflix had of its users’ streaming habits and concluded that there was an audience for David Fincher and
Kevin Spacey 92.
The statistical inference of this conclusion must have been strong, considering reviewing site Rotten
Tomatoes praised the show’s first season for its “...strong performances — especially from Kevin Spacey...”
and David Fincher’s “...surehanded direction…”.
I think that the ability to pay attention yields insights as strong as any algorithm. While I’m sure Netflix’s data
analysis teams can dig up some real gems, they might as well be worthless without the context provided by
knowing who you’re talking to93.
Mistakes Were Made
One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was launching into a project without first knowing who exactly I was
going to be talking to. I was so convinced that what I was doing was worthwhile, that I figured someone had
to care about it94.
Isn’t it crazy? I actually thought that the intelligent way of going about developing a project was first building
something, and only then figuring out who it was supposed to be for. Needless to say, a year later I had
succeeded spectacularly at getting nowhere.
I’m not going to mince it. This debacle ended up costing me and many others following me months of
frustratingly underperforming work and countless hours of needless faffing about95. But I learned something
from it: know your audience first.
You can’t count on the fact that luck or chance will be on your side. That somehow, your message shall get
to those anonymous tribesmen. This is a very noisy world we’re living in. If you want them to hear you, you
need to start by knowing who they are.
Story Time: Selling Potatoes
One day, I had the idea to sell, uh…potatoes96. I liked them, I saw that people ate them, so I set up a potato
stand with some potatoes that I liked and opened up shop97. I sat there for a year, opening up every day to
sell my potatoes to the public98.
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Martinson, Jane. (15 March 2015). “Netflix’s Ted Sarandos: ‘We like giving great storytellers big canvases’ ”. The Guardian.
Retrieved 5 October 2016.
Then again, Netflix recently released “The Ridiculous 6”, a western comedy film universally panned by critics, currently
holding a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A flop, or a diehard-Sandler-fan-targetted film?
93
94
Wrong.
95
Faffing: finding idle tasks to do while wasting time.
96
There are over 5,000 potato varieties worldwide, and over 100 in the United States alone.
97
The potato, from the perennial Solanum tuberosum, is the world’s fourth largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and
98
The Inca Indians in Peru were the first to cultivate potatoes around 8,000 BC to 5,000 B.C.
maize.
Woe unto me, a year had passed and my business was getting nowhere99. Regardless of how great I thought
my potatoes were, people didn’t seem interested. I even went around the block to let people know that my
stand was, in fact, open for business100.
And while everyone I talked to about my potato stand said “Hey, that’s great!”, the stand wasn’t drawing a
crowd. What was going on? These potatoes were really good. Why were people not trampling over each other
to buy them?
I mean, sure, there were other produce sellers in the neighborhood. And well, yeah, they also had a pretty
good stock of potatoes and other assorted vegetables and fruits. And... fine, yeah, OK, so maybe they also
were priced just as competitively as mine.
But this was my potato stand, and these were my potatoes, dammit! So I eventually worked up the courage
to go out and ask the same people who’d say “Hey, that’s great!” what I really wanted to know. Why wasn’t
anyone buying any potatoes from me?
Hot damn, I wasn’t ready for the answers. The truth was that nobody felt like they needed my potato
stand. And as to why they felt my potato stand was not needed, I had to please ask them to stop giving me
feedback to preserve what little pride I had left101.
They could just as well get their potatoes from somewhere else. From someone with an already established
reputation, or someone with a better price, or someone closer. I had nothing in particular going for me in the
savagely competitive potato market.
Hm, okay. So, apparently, just because I thought potatoes were great and other people ate potatoes, that
didn’t necessarily mean a potato stand would be a hit? Then what exactly would be a hit within the potato
market? I really wanted to sell potatoes.
Well, these people had given me rather valuable insight as to why my potato stand did not appeal to them.
Maybe probing them further could help me get additional information on the potato market and see if
there’s anything there?
So I closed my potato stand for a while. I got my pen, some paper, and went out to get to know these people
better. And it wasn’t long until I started to realize that the potato market wasn’t the “You give me money, I
give you potatoes” business I thought it was.
Who’s Got A Problem?
I went over to the nearest produce seller and positioned myself across the street, pen and paper in hand, to
watch. By noon, I’d seen people from every walk of life go into the store, almost everyone leaving with bags
full of vegetables and fruit. And potatoes.
I couldn’t believe it! So in the afternoon I approached a few buyers, asking why they’d purchased what they’d
purchased. It quickly became apparent that people bought potatoes for a whole slew of different reasons,
not only because they liked them.
Turns out, people who purchase potatoes purchase them not only because they like potatoes, but because
potatoes solve problems. Potatoes solve dietary problems. They solve budgetary problems. Hell, in a pinch,
potatoes can even solve military problems102.
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During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush, (1897-1898) potatoes were practically worth their weight in gold.
The more canny amongst you might’ve already figured out that, as far as this section goes, “potatoes” are actually just
placeholder text for almost any old thing you might sell.
100
101
It’s easy to confuse the expressions “work up the courage” and “work through the pride”.
102
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_cannon
In fact, some people stated that they didn’t even really like potatoes, but bought them because they needed
them anyway. It goes to show, huh? Apparently, people will buy potatoes because they solve problems, not
solely because they like ‘em103.
So I had a bunch of people who purchased potatoes, a bunch of people who didn’t, and the fact that they
liked them or not had little to do with it. This was starting to look less and less like the unified and orderly
potato market I had once imagined.
But I figured that, you know, whatever. At least now I knew that people didn’t only like potatoes. No,
apparently people had problems that they would try to solve with potatoes. And not only that, now I was
also keyed in as to what the problems were.
I’ve always had a distaste for the military-industrial complex104, and I suspected that not a lot of money was
to be made solving a budgetary problem105, so the dietary problem the potato-purchasing people were
having was the one that caught my eye106.
Again with the questions, I asked the crowd why they bought what they bought. Because, while a dietary
problem is a problem indeed, there are many kinds of dietary problems. And many kinds of solutions. And
many kinds of people.
I hadn’t done so well with my generic approach to the potato stand. So I reasoned that I might do better by
providing the right kind of (dietary-problem) people, having the right kind of (dietary-problem) problem, the
right kind of (dietary-problem) solution.
To do this, I needed more info on the specific kinds of dietary problems people were having. Some people
had families who loved stew. Some people liked to make french fries. Some people had babies and wanted to
feed them mashed potatoes107.
These, however, were all problems that could be perfectly solved by a generic produce store selling generic
produce108. If all that people wanted was to solve for stew, or fries, or mashed potatoes, they’d be fine going
to their nearest produce stand.
That certainly would explain why most people wouldn’t bother to also go to a specialty retailer for their
potatoes. Generic produce stands have limited shelf space, so they select their wares to try to cater to the
largest possible share of its audience.
However, while most people will be happy with regular, old white potatoes there’s a subgroup for whom that
won’t do. I knew that there were thousands of potato varieties being cultivated around the world, and not for
nothing.
I discovered them after my third day of observation. There were three of them: a disgruntled chef, a slightly
disappointed housewife and an unassuming teenager. Of them, only the chef had left the store without
purchasing anything.
The chef had gone in looking for petite red potatoes for his restaurant’s three-cheese fondue. The produce
seller had turned him away, telling him he didn’t carry that specific kind of potato. The chef had left the store
fuming.
103
In fact, dare I say, we like things because they solve problems for us.
104
Tarantola, Andrew. (04 September 2012). “America’s Navy Tests Its Missiles in the World’s Biggest Potato Gun”. Gizmodo.
Retrieved 5 October 2016.
105
Not true: http://www.fao.org/potato-2008/en/world/index.html
106
https://www.potatogoodness.com/
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera times a billion! Potatoes might have the largest culinary versatility of any food I know. I could
sure go for some curly fries right now...
107
108
My guess is that Russet potatoes are what would be considered the generic potato cultivar in the US.
The housewife had wanted Russet potatoes and a curly fry cutter to prepare a classic dish she and her
husband had enjoyed several times when they were younger. No curly fry cutter, of course, and only two
Russet potatoes. The rest had sold out.
The teenager had come in looking for yellow potatoes to grill. He’d heard that yellow potatoes were actually
healthier than white potatoes. He found no yellow potatoes, since the store doesn’t carry them, so he
purchased white ones.
Eureka!
As you can imagine, I questioned them at length about their experience. I didn’t suggest any solution, I stuck
to listening and jotting down on my notebook. And as I questioned them about their lives, interesting pieces
of information emerged.
The chef was annoyed because he actually worked far away, had little time to spare in between shifts, and
had heard that this store carried the petite red potatoes he needed for tonight. To make matters worse, the
produce store didn’t even do deliveries.
The housewife had left rather disappointed because this was the third store she had visited looking for
Russet potatoes and they had all been out of stock. Of course, she had no idea how she’d cut the fries into
their signature curly shape without the tool.
The teen, finally, hadn’t been too troubled by his experience. He could make do with the white potatoes he’d
purchased. Still, he’d rather have yellow ones if what they say about their healthier qualities is true. After all,
he really did love his grilled potatoes.
I finally asked them all if they knew about my stand. Two of them, the chef and the housewife, said that they
didn’t. The teen, however, admitted that he did know about it but had heard some bad things about it from
his regular store owner.
Wow. So, of the three people who could’ve been ideal candidates for my potato stand, two of them had
never even heard of it and another one had apparently heard bad things about it. There was probably some
room for improvement there.
So it wasn’t that my potato stand wasn’t needed. There was demand for it, for a specialty produce
retailer, and some people did want a better selection than what the generic produce stores littering the
neighborhood were offering.
However, there were some hurdles to clear first. Amongst them the fact that the demand was, geographically
speaking, smaller and rather spread apart. I hadn’t really bothered to communicate my stand beyond my
immediate vicinity.
There’s also the bad press I was getting from the already established stores. I’d have to do something about
that. Have a talk with these owners, spruce up my own place a little, clean up my stock. Move the more exotic
potato varieties to the front.
Say, if a chef came all the way out here for some petite red potatoes, maybe there’s a market in supplying
restaurants with a wider range of produce. I should get in touch with them. And maybe there’s also a market
in offering tools like the curly fry cutter.
I could also use the oodles of info I already know about potatoes to better advise people. Like the kid looking
for yellow potatoes. Yeah, they’re healthier, but they’re also good for other delicious stuff as well. Maybe,
next time around, he’d like to know that.
After I’d taken the time to figure out who my audience was, I was able to completely refocus my approach.
I knew who I needed to talk to, what they were actually interested in talking about and why they were
interested in talking about it.
I was able to cut the faff and start delivering on meaningful interactions. And the results showed. Traffic to
the potato stand saw a huge spike. Word of mouth and loyalty skyrocketed. I was paying attention to my
audience, and they were responding in kind.
Knowing your audience enables you to make a far better use of your resources. If you don’t know your
audience, chances are you don’t really know if what you’re doing is really solving anyone’s problems. And,
thus, if it has any kind of commercial value.
This is the basic approach to audience research. You observe who’s got a problem, you understand what the
problems are, you understand why they’re problems and from there you explore if there’s something you
can do to solve them. Time to level up!
The Persona Template
It’s extremely unlikely to be able to delight everyone all the time, so perhaps the best we can hope for is
to delight some people some of the time. To do that, it helps to know who are we talking to. A delighted
audience is always your best marketing outcome.
Is your audience a single homogeneous entity? Of course not, that’s ridiculous. Generation Y’s Jack Ronson
works at a skateboard shop, is studying graphic design, lives with his family in the expensive side of town,
skates, and is politically active.
Teresa Guthrie, on the other hand, is a 70-year old former marine biologist with a gardening hobby. Along
with her husband, Neil, she’s stepped away from political involvement and now spends most of her time
spreading climate change awareness.
Your audience has different needs and different desires, different hopes and different fears. Every single
person in your audience has a story to tell. A story that colors perceptions, conditions responses and
determines reactions to your message109.
These stories are vital, and you’re not going to get to know them by sitting behind the desk. You need to
know when to take five from the day’s work and get out there. Good marketers know how to talk. Great
marketers know how to listen110.
But what is one to do if there’s hundreds, thousands, millions of potential audience members? What can we
do when working for, say, Coca Cola? Surely we cannot be reasonably expected to walk the streets forever,
right?
Well, while it may be unfeasible to get to know every single person you might want to talk to, it’s not
unfeasible to get representative samples. You can make do sketching rough outlines of what groups of
people in your audience look like.
There’s a reason designers take on the field to interview real people, even when market research is
available111. Statistical averages can sometimes obfuscate real insight and hide game-changing information
only available to those with the personal touch.
Getting to know real people, real audience members, through personal, in-depth, qualitative research has
always been the antidote to this. Sadly, it’s a rarer and rarer thing nowadays. There’s just so much data, we’re
constantly tempted to do without.
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What? You thought you were the only one with something to say?
This is key. It’s amazing what you discover when you shut up and actually pay attention. If you listen long enough, your
own story tunes out and you start picking on what they’re really saying, to themselves. Listen.
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111
Never, ever, mix up qualitative research (walking the beat) with quantitative research (market reports).
But we should never yield. We must not yield. Real gems are waiting to be found by the canny and the caring.
Real gems that are worth as much, if not more, as those extracted from the big data mines.
Collecting feedback. Analyzing it. Going after a complete stranger’s candid opinion. Oh, yeah, it is a lot of
work. It’s downright exhausting, and sometimes honest feedback may require a strong constitution to
absorb.
Still, I’ve yet to meet the person who likes to feel like another brick in the wall. We all appreciate the ones who
go the extra mile when trying to make us feel special, the ones who remember our birthday. Those are the
tribes and connections we like to have.
So at this stage, it’s essential for you to identify and segment your audience. This will allow your messaging to
be more personal, more relevant, more effective. You need to understand what makes your tribesmen tick to
pull at the right strings.
To this end, I present to you the persona template. The construction of unequivocally recognizable yet
fictional figures that’ll group relevant and distinguishable traits from your audience to create cheat sheets
that’ll keep your messaging authentic.
In “The UX Book”, Rex Hartson and Pardha S. Pyla offer a user persona development template that is a
great fit for audience identification. Stories, user personas and use cases are the key components in making
avatars come to life.
How many? It depends, on how relevant you want or need your message to be. Audiences are almost never
defined by a single set of unified characteristics. Still, it could happen that you don’t need to have more than
two or three, at least at first.
Each persona is a hypothetical representation of a group of audience members with a set of common,
identifiable, distinguishable and relevant characteristics. Jack Ronson is not real. Teresa Guthrie is not real.
They do represent and embody real people, though.
When designing marketing actions, persona templates will help you stop and wonder how Jack, or Teresa, or
Alejandro, or Yun might react. That’s priceless definition that’ll help you keep your communication relevant.
All in exchange for caring a little bit.
Audience Personas
Every persona, at its core, is built using contextual data. Contextual data is what gives a persona its, you
guessed it, context. 40 is a meaningless number, unless you know if it refers to age, daily stipend or favorite
Pokemon by Pokedex number112.
Not all contextual data will be equally relevant to you though. A vegetable stand owner doesn’t have to give a
fig about its audience’s shoe size. It would, however, quite likely benefit from knowing who likes orange juice
and who’s into stir-fry noodles.
As you begin to identify groups of audience members with unique and relevant traits through contextual
data, the core to create personas emerges. In turn, as you develop more and more personas, you can begin
grouping them.
Of course, trying to cater to all personas at once may be a completely maddening exercise at best, and a
futile endeavor at worst. Hierarchies need to be established to make effective use of personas. The different
levels of detail are as follows.
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Wigglytuff: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Wigglytuff_(Pok%C3%A9mon)
The Persona Roster
The persona roster is the full set of personas that you’ve identified as relevant to your project. This is the
widest lens in which you contemplate your audience, and a fully developed roster of candidate personas
could very well be in the dozens.
The roster is usually in a constant state of flux, with new personas being brought in, current templates being
updated to better reflect distinguishable and relevant traits, and outdated personas being phased out.
Selected Personas
Selected personas are all the personas in your roster that shall be taken into account in the design of
your next action. These are usually a more focused subset of your candidate personas, having a relevant
characteristic that makes them worthy of note.
Selected personas tend to be intentionally targeted personas with relevant characteristics that, although
not as central to the action as the primary persona, have a recognizable stake in your next communicational
effort and its impact.
The Primary Persona
The primary persona is actually the first persona you want to pick when ideating your upcoming digital
marketing action. Consider its intentions and defining characteristics. Your next action will be designed
around this particular persona above everyone else.
Being precise and relevant about your primary persona is vital to developing a good marketing action. The
more precise and relevant you are, the more sharp your communicational design will be. This, in turn, will
increase its impact.
Persona Stories
Persona stories are scenarios that inform a persona’s behavior. They can range from tasks that the persona
wants to accomplish, to relevant social networking activities, to possible reactions to different messages.
These scenarios breathe life into your hypothetical constructs, allowing for a richer message design phase
through expected possible responses and reactions to it, completing and enriching a persona profile.
Initial Persona Development
Odds are your first personas will be people you’re familiar with. This is not a problem, as long as they’re
not be the only kinds of people used to build your roster. You need to get out there and make contact with
perfect strangers.
The reason behind this is that familiarity gets in the way of real information. When interviewing a person to
build a template, a pre-existing personal relationship can skew the investigation and give you information full
of false positives or negatives.
This is dangerous. Remember, it’s okay to get the ball rolling with known elements, and the closer they are to
being a really representative sample of your audience, the better. Do not stay there, though. You need candid
opinions from perfect strangers.
Challenge yourself to get information from unexpected sources and places. You never know what you might
dig up. The further away you are from your known quantities, the bigger the chances of learning something
new.
The following variables can all be vital elements of your persona template:
• A name
• Tip: try to keep it fictional. Try not to use their actual name113.
• Age
• Be specific. 15 and 18 year olds are into completely different things.
• A mockup picture of the person
• Avoid stock photography. It’s the death of verisimilitude.
• Occupation
• Know what persona’s do with the lion’s share of their waking hours.
• Education
• Important if a certain level of education is required to get you.
• Hobbies
• Vital. Remember, they choose to do this stuff.
• Likes/dislikes
• They’ll be drawn to some stuff. They’ll be turned off by other stuff.
• Stories
• Write some short textual narratives about any of these:
• Their needs
• Their desires
• Their hopes
• Their fears
• Their goals
• Their work
• Their tasks
• Their stories
• Their challenges
• Their environment
• Their social networking
• Think beyond Facebook and Twitter. Think offline.
• Etc.
Wow. That’s a lot of stuff. The checklist can be intimidating at first. However, you should modify it as you see
fit. Next up is a quick example of what a persona template may look like. It’s very short, yet still useful when
in need of a quick mental image.
•
•
•
•
•
Name: Jack Ronson
Age: 24
Occupation: Sales Associate at Grand Poobah’s Board Shop
Education: undergraduate degree, (graphic design, ongoing)
Hobbies:
• Skateboarding (longboard)
• Gaming (console)
• Cooking (pizza)
• Likes:
• Longboarding downhill with friends
• Bruce Lee’s martial arts movies
• Dislikes:
• People in corporate suits
• Bed Bath & Beyond
• Stories:
• Jack doesn’t own a car, so he takes the bus to work and school, using the available commute
time to read.
• His most prized possesion is his Loaded Dervish, a top-tier longboard that has seen its fair share
This is intended to preserve a real person’s privacy. Also, when I say fictional, I do not mean names like “Gandalf”, or
“John Smith”. There’s a happy medium between these two. And no, it’s not “John Gandalf”, OR “Gandalf Smith”!
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•
•
•
•
•
•
of use and abuse.
When cash is abundant, Jack skips over to Vail to enjoy a quick winter holiday with his friends
and/or family.
He’d like a job at a software design agency, yearning to climb the ladder and make a name for
himself as a top-tier artist.
On his off hours he’s also recently begun to take on a few small graphic design jobs as a
freelancer.
Through his experiences freelancing, he feels that marketing, especially digital marketing, would
be a good complement to his skills.
He also wants to bring more to the table than just salesmanship at his current job, so he feels
that a solid understanding of marketing could help him become a not only a better free agent in
the future, but a better employee at Grand Poobah’s right now.
He wishes he knew of a good reference site to learn digital marketing.
That’s Jack Ronson in a nutshell. This persona has specific information about a subset of my audience that
is critical to my story. I can use this to pinpoint my messaging and increase my odds of making a connection
with people sharing Jack’s traits.
Also note that, for all the points in the checklist, the whole thing can be written down on an A4 page, printed,
and stuck somewhere for easy access. This is by design, since I myself don’t trust the actionability behind a
persona template that’s too complicated114.
That is not to say that some personas don’t need to be extremely detailed. I just find that I get better results
when balancing actionable information with thoroughness. In my case, an A4 page filled with info usually
does the trick.
If doubtful of adding yet another layer of detail and complexity to your persona, remember that all the detail
in the world is useless if you can’t extract actionable information from it. A thick persona binder will gather
dust if it’s not useful.
So, to recap, to create a good persona template you need to:
• Identify the distinguishable, relevant and measurable traits of your personas.
• Examples: education, age bracket, gender, interests, location, etc.
• Tip: remember to concentrate on metrics relevant to your project.
• Create personas with all the traits relevant to a segment of your audience.
• Example: Annie Chang
• Age: 31
• Gender: female
• Occupation: junior assistant to film director
• Education: graduate degree in communication
• Nationality: american, of chinese heritage
• Interests:
• Apple iPhone
• Creative writing
• Online shopping
• Street hockey
• Tip: remember that each additional detail adds to the overall complexity of your persona
classification. KISS115.
While age and gender are two perfectly distinguishable, relevant and measurable traits in an audience, what
if your messaging is gender-agnostic? While it hardly ever is, what if yours is the case? Would you waste time
When was the last time you sat through a 99-page Powerpoint presentation and said “Wow! I’m sure glad I was here to
absorb the ineffable wisdom contained in these 38,942 gorgeously spaced bullet points!”
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115
Keep it simple, stupid.
on that? Something to think about.
A persona needs to be as rich, relevant, believable and specific as possible. Give it a life, and give it as many
artifacts as you can afford to. Employ any assets necessary and available. Scrap pieces of photography,
mugs, posters, cardboard cutouts.
Make them as real and as vivid as possible, short of dressing one of your employees up. Your personas need
to get a lot of visibility and cache within the organization for the project to be truly audience-centric.
And, I insist, It’s vital to keep personas detailed insofar as relevance goes. While Jack Ronson’s footwear
preference may be irrelevant to Apple, you can be sure it’s on Vans’, Nike’s and Adidas’ top defining traits list.
Exercise 3.1
Create at least three distinguishable personas for your project, listing their:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Name
Age
Gender
Occupation
Education
Hobbies
Likes
Dislikes
Relevant stories (3)
In a later chapter, you’ll learn to tie a persona’s relevant traits to your metrics and key performance
indicators. This kind of segmentation allows for a richer dimension of representation of each persona and its
relative importance to your complete audience.
To illustrate, Annie’s three basic traits below are paired with a corresponding percentual metric that can be
acquired and measured through most free digital analytics packages currently in the market.
• Name:
• Age: 24
• 25% of overall traffic
• Gender: female
• 67% of overall traffic
• Location: California
• 70% of overall traffic
Tying metrics and KPIs to personas is an excellent way of visualizing the strategic importance of each persona
template as it relates to your overall audience. This helps keep in perspective your investment in the different
tribes within your larger tribe.
Having said that, I’ll issue a warning right now. Always remember that, sometimes, it’s the few who count. Do
not marry your project to percentages and volume. The smallest drop in the right place can have the biggest
ripple effect.
Audience Mindsets
Hopefully now you know a little bit more about the people that your project can reach. Over time, some will
grow in importance and detail, while others will wilt and lose the center stage. The important thing is to have
reasonable sketch of them at all times.
In the process of tuning your message to be as relevant to your audience as possible, eventually you may
wonder if they are all of the same mindset. Have they all seen your message? Are all thinking about what you
said? If so, are they all ready to commit116?
Of course not. Only fractions of your audience are, at any time, of the same mindset. Some have only
recently seen your message. Some are only thinking about what you said. Some are only now ready to
commit, be it a purchase, a sign-up request, or a date.
Audiences come and go. Some show up early, some show up late. Some find it easy to believe what
you’re saying, some are hard to convince. Identifying intent mindsets is an excellent way to calibrate your
expectations of their reactions to your message.
Identifying Mindsets
The first thing you need to understand when determining your audience’s different mindsets is that even if
you’re Coca Cola, or Apple, or Google, there are people in the world who may have never even heard of you
or your project before today.
There are people who have yet to see your message. Others might already have, and may even be actively
thinking about it. And yet others may have already seen it, given it a lot of thought, and are ready and willing
to commit.
Of course, there’s also audiences that have already seen your message, thought about it, made the
commitment by fulfilling an objective that was of interest to you, and now you need to start thinking about
how to care for them if you’ll want them to stay.
Courtesy of Avinash Kaushik, See/Think/Do/Care are the four basics intent mindsets you can group your
audience into. Each one is defined by a specific state of mind, goal, behavior or task that distinctly separates
them from the others.
Always remember that loyalty is the gateway to fandom, and that fandom is a gateway to extraordinary
return on investment. It’s a rare treat, but one worth pursuing if you are to believe Apple’s mile-long queues
each time the new iPhone launches.
So how do we tell apart those who are ready to See from those who are ready to Think, from those who are
ready to Do, from those who we need to Care for? Ladies and gentlemen, here’s See/Think/Do/Care.
See
So first off, the See stage is comprised of people at the discovery stage of your message. This is the largest
possible relevant intent group for your audience. If you are Godiva, the chocolatier, your See group mindset
definition could be “people who eat chocolate”.
You may be not interested in people who don’t eat chocolate, so they might not belong here. Then again,
Godiva does make delicious chocolate covered strawberries, so another possible approach could be “people
who eat fruit” or “people who like sweets”.
The point is that the See stage group is comprised of all the strangers at the discovery phase of your
message. They may have never even heard about you, what you do, or what you stand for. They are not
thinking about the issues you address.
You, however, have come to the conclusion that they need to see your message. Identifying them as potential
candidates of your tribe, you have decided to invest resources in reaching out to them to let them know what
you stand for.
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to take.
Commit: make a purchase, sign up to the newsletter, subscribe to the podcast. Basically, take the action you’d want them
So the strategic questions here are:
•
•
•
•
Who are potential Seers?
What does a relevant message to them look like?
How can I best deliver it?
What’s the plan for overcoming their indifference and getting their attention117 ?
Exercise 3.2:
Identify the See audience for your project and determine:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Who are the personas that represent them?
What does a relevant message to them look like?
How can you best deliver it?
What’s the plan for getting their attention?
There are countless marketing campaigns that have made it into the history books, and all were
extraordinary attempts at getting someone’s attention in order to talk about something. You remember
“Gangnam Style”, K-pop’s biggest hit118, right?
What’s your plan for capturing the attention of a perfect stranger to your story? You are not going to straight
up try to sell them something, are you? Because you know, from personal experience, how cheap and
disrespectful that makes us feel.
The reason why telemarketing has a reputation for being an awful job is the same as the reason why we’re
not in the habit of marrying a person on sight. We do not like the cold call. We don’t like to commit to
anything important on our first date119.
No. Much in the same way you interact with real people that you care about, your See approach needs to be
a lighter, subtler move. You just want to first try to connect with them, to let them know that you’re around.
No pressure, no rush.
This kind of slow burn tactic feels scary. It feels scary because you’re not asking your audience for a
purchase right away. This feels scary because you fear they may forget about you, which would mean all that
expenditure was for nothing.
Suck it up. The people in your audience who are at the See stage, and are only now discovering your
message, just want to get to know you. Give them what they want, not what you want. Be someone they’ll be
glad they met and, soon, they’ll start to...
Think
... about you. About what you stand for. The Think stage is comprised of a subset of Seers who have moved
onto the consideration stage of your message. They have seen your See message, it connected with them,
they are now actively engaged.
Again, if you are Godiva, the Think definition for a group could be “people who eat chocolate, who are
thinking about giving themselves a winter treat”. And yes, there can be different thinking definitions. As many
as are relevant to your marketing strategy.
The Thinkers are your acquaintances. They are thinking about your See stage message and how it relates to
them. They are aware that you exist. Still not ready to act, but thinking about the issues you address. This is a
… please, please, please remember: Being on Facebook is not hard. In June 2016, there were 1.13 billion average daily
active users on Facebook. You’re just another feed competing to be heard. It’s not enough to post good content.
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118
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-pop
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Be it with a person or with a brand!
crucial stage of intent development.
You can start taking bolder steps in your relationship with this group because you have the evidence of
engagement from your previous Seer messaging. The Thinkers love to have something to obsess over. Give
them something to chew on.
So the strategic questions here are then:
•
•
•
•
Who are potential Thinkers?
What does a relevant message to them look like?
How can I best deliver it?
What’s the plan for turning first contact See attention into ongoing thought?
Exercise 3.3:
Identify the Think audience for your project and determine.
1. What does a relevant message to them look like?
2. How can I best deliver it?
3. What’s the plan for turning first contact See attention into ongoing thought?
NGO’s like Greenpeace are amongst the grand masters of Think stage marketing. Think of how different their
messaging is from your average TV advertisement. It’s so impactful that what they say usually takes over the
living room discussion120.
What’s your plan for turning a Seers’ momentary attention into ongoing thought? You’re still not going to try
the hard sell. There’s commercial intent smoking in there. Wait a bit longer, stoke the fire, and soon you could
have a roaring intent blaze in your hands.
A Think stage message has to have substance behind it. It’s here where you find if your story resonates with
your audience on a deeper level. Thinkers will remain Thinkers only if they are given something of interest to
mull over time.
You may notice that these are rather more complicated questions than the ones you need to ask yourself
for the See mindset. The transition from casual attention to conscious thought, though, usually is. Thinkers
demand interesting food for thought.
If you’d like an ideal example, look no further than your favorite Youtube subscriptions. Youtube is an
excellent communications platform for Think stage content. If you want specifics, find Marques Brownlee’s
“The Truth About Beats by Dre!” video121.
So what’s your plan for turning a Seer into a Thinker, and keeping said Thinker’s fire stoked? Valuable,
relevant information to them is never a bad way to go. Give them something to think about, something truly
remarkable, and soon they’ll be ready to...
Do
... something for you. How about a purchase? $$$. The Do stage is comprised of a subset of Thinkers who
have moved onto the actionable stage of your message. They have thought about your Think message, and...
you know what? Yeah, let’s do it!
If you are Godiva, the Do definition of a group could very well be “people who eat chocolate, who are thinking
about giving themselves a winter treat, and who are looking to buy some chocolate strawberries right now”.
Guilt, however, is not always the best Think trigger. As an emotion, it is definitely on the negative side of the spectrum. As
such, guilt generates dread. And, as a rule, we human beings try to avoid feeling dread.
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121
Interesting, no?
Here you can focus on your current or future offerings122. The Doers are your crowd. They have thought
about your Think stage message and are ready to act. This is where you get to cash in on the good will,
respect and trust you’ve been building.
You have given them a target to act on, right? This is where you get something in return for all your hard
work and generosity, don’t let the opportunity get away. There’s no point in getting them all riled up if you
haven’t been building up to something.
So the strategic questions here are:
•
•
•
•
Who are potential Doers?
What does a relevant message to them look like?
How can I best deliver it?
What’s the plan for turning thought into actions closely tied to my objectives?
Exercise 3.4:
Identify the Do audience for your project:
1. What does a relevant message to them look like?
2. How can I best deliver it?
3. What’s the plan for turning thought into actions closely tied to my objectives?
You know what the difference between a good sales pitch and a bad one is? The build-up. If you don’t believe
me, just ask Francis Woodward123. The man invented the mass market for Jell-o. How? By giving away Jell-O
cookbooks full of recipes for it.
So what’s your plan for transforming thought into action? If you haven’t got a relevant offer for a primed
audience, all that commercial intent will fizzle out. It has to be something so relevant, so connected, so
urgent it might as well sell itself.
This is the hardest question to answer. You’ll have to be crystal clear as to what your messaging was thus
far in order to offer something hyper relevant in return. A no-brainer decision is exactly that. A decision that
produces zero transactional anxiety.
What does a message to a Do audience look like? Easy. It’s any message that explicitly and directly asks
something of you. No dancing around. Just a straight Call to Action to get you to sign up, to purchase, to
enroll, etc.
Have everything, all your relevant products and services, ready for them to act upon. Make sure they’re topnotch and worth their while. This is where expensive transactions will occur, so this expectations will be at
their highest. Give them no reason to doubt.
It doesn’t end here, though. No, your relationship with an audience exists beyond the first purchase. A Doer
is not to be tossed away once convinced. That’s what bad brands do, and you’re not a bad brand. You’re a
good brand, and they trust you, so...
Care
... for them! Show them that you’re not like the rest of those scumbags. The Care stage is comprised of a
subset of Doers who have committed, maybe more than once, and now it’s time for you to go the extra mile.
Coddle them, and make them feel loved!
Hey, maybe you’re building up steam for a pre-order event. In that case, just make sure you have a “Pre-Order Now!”
button available.
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123
Actually, you can’t really ask him about it, he’s dead. You can read up on him, though.
If you’re Godiva, the Care definition of a group could very well be... you know what? You need to know these
people by name and heart. If there’s too many of them, put something in place to know when you’re talking
to one of your Cares124.
You need to really step up here. The Care stage is comprised of all the Doers you want to keep in the loop.
Let them know you are the kind of leader that cares, that always goes the extra mile. Let them know that you
were the right choice, as often as possible.
The ROI of Cares, of customers “in the loop”, is usually orders of magnitude higher than the ROI to be gained
from Doers acquired from scratch. For one, you don’t have to spend the resources required to get them all
the way from See to Do125.
There’s a couple of new strategic questions here, namely:
•
•
•
•
•
Who are potential Cares and current Cares?
How can I best show them my appreciation?
What does a relevant, valuable message to them look like?
How can I best deliver it?
What’s the plan for cultivating this ongoing relationship into the future?
Exercise 3.5:
Identify the Care audience for your project:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What does a relevant message to them look like?
How can you best show your appreciation for them?
What does a relevant and valuable message to them look like?
How can I best deliver it?
What’s the plan for cultivating this ongoing relationship into the future?
Have you ever wondered about the “newlywed effect”? Why is it that the best brands always try to go the
extra mile for the couple that has just arrived for its honeymoon? Think commercial flights, hotels, diners,
event tickets.
Isn’t it actually kind of crazy when you think about it? I mean, newlyweds aren’t flush with cash. Other
demographics certainly look downright plump by comparison. Why are newlyweds always a primary target
for preferential treatment?
Well, if you understand a newlyweds’ mindset, you’ll realize what an ideal Care opportunity a honeymoon is.
It’s a time of heightened emotional receptivity, and any delightful experiences are magnified tenfold. Special
attention is, naturally, noticed.
The best marketers know that anyone who serves a delightful experience to newlyweds on their honeymoon
will be remembered forever. The opportunity to make this kind of emotional connection is unique, and can
be the doorway to lifetime loyalty.
Thus, brands will bend over backwards to see if they can offer the couple anything that serves as
a recognizable token of extraordinary esteem and preferential treatment. An upgrade, free drinks,
complimentary wi-fi. Anything to make them feel special.
The dirty little secret, though? We all want to be treated like newlyweds, all the time. We like to feel special,
loved, cared for. We can’t get enough of it. And it’s not so much the actual value or cost of the special
attention received that counts. It’s the gesture126.
124
Surprise surprise, this is where the best loyalty programs should point to.
125
And they certainly won’t tiptoe around your offer now that they trust you, will they?
126
To paraphrase Jurassic Park’s John Hammond: spare no expense! And yes, the irony that Hammond and InGen actually
About Them
Is there any doubt left now that focusing all your marketing efforts solely on the Doers is a great way to
show disregard for the other 95% of your business? Sure, it’s tempting and easy to cater exclusively to the
obviously profitable. It’s also really, really dumb.
Be it a misplaced faith in the newest silver bullet, or good ol’ fashioned apathy, time and time again I see
projects sink money into massive ad campaigns that target everyone with the same message, only to then
wonder why didn’t it deliver127.
Their low-intent Seers, medium-intent Thinkers, high-intent Doers and maxed-out Cares, all blasted with
“BUY NOW! BUY NOW! BUY NOW!”, when the message is actually appropriate only to a tiny fraction of them.
And still they wonder.
Avinash said it best.128 If you measure fish, birds and monkeys by their ability to climb, there’ll be obvious
winners and obvious losers. Many projects do exactly this, then get frustrated when audiences do not act in
a way they themselves would never, ever act.
This is why it’s critical to understand the different personas and mindsets within your audience. You need
to listen. You need to be able to simulate actual conversations each time you want to deliver a message. It’s
easier to solve real pains than imagined ones.
The only risk here is the absence of real data. Without real data about your audience, your project may end
up helping no one at all. And while being honest to your audience is always a good thing, it’s imperative to
begin by being honest with yourself129.
Think of your Seers, your Thinkers, your Doers and your Cares. Now you know your audience is not just
an homogeneous, grey cash piñata. Imagine the messaging you will be able to generate, that you should
generate, that informs, entertains and delivers.
Imagine the impact and return on investment of having a richer understanding of all the audience-centric
and intent-driven opportunities available at hand! That’s the first thing I love about personas and the See/
Think/Do/Care mindsets.
There are very good reasons to getting to know your audience. You want to create an emotional connection.
You want to instigate change. You want to alert. You want your message to spread. Above everything else,
you want to help.
It rarely happens overnight, though, and it’s a long road ahead. Still, nothing truly worthwhile is easy anyway.
As Seth Godin says: each decision you make can be the one that raises the bar, or the one that lowers it. In
the end, it’s up to you.
Know the pain points of your audience. On a long enough timeline, all projects endure because they solve
a problem for someone. They solve health problems, they solve security problems, they solve emotional
problems, they solve spiritual problems130.
Once you know your audience’s problems, you know what you have to do to help them, which in turn
can help set the tone of your whole messaging. What makes them hopeful? What frightens them? What’s
did spare expense in the worst places is not lost on me.
127
The “spray and pray” approach. Yields about the same kinds of results, too...
128
Kaushik, Avinash. (22 July 2013). “See-Think-Do: A Content, Marketing, Measurement Business Framework”. Occam’s
Razor. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
129
Are you solving anyone’s problems, or just your own?
130
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
indifferent?
Always keep your communication channel wide open. Listen to your audience. Ask for feedback. Make it as
easy as possible for them to get back to you in as many ways as possible. Both exalted praise and scathing
criticism are crucial learning assets.
At the very least, by keeping an open comms channel, you’ll never fear that you’ve become out of touch with
your audience’s needs and desires. If you want, you’ll always be able to adjust your strategy to better help
them accomplish their goals.
A project that knows its audience has real information to work with. It can keep focused on the work,
grounded on real issues. If a project fails to deliver on its word, if it fails to deliver on its expectations, if it
fails to live up to its promise? Then it’s game over131.
Get to know your audience, your core support network. Your audience will always be your best strategic
partner. Its collective wisdom is only a benefit in and of themselves. Its also a brain trust that’ll have your
back for as long as you have theirs.
It’s All About Trust
Can you generate trust in your audience? Real, genuine trust? Can you generate the crucial, essential asset
for expectancy? I myself am particularly paranoid. To get me to trust something, someone somewhere
usually has to break a sweat.
And it’s not even a permanent thing. I can take away that trust any time I want, and usually do. Sometimes
I take it away on a whim, offering literally zero explanation132. Do you know how hard it is to remain
trustworthy over time?
And yet, we insist in treating our audiences like disposable goods. We lure them with the cheapest ploys
available, cash in, and forget about the whole thing as if it had never happened. Is it any wonder when they
treat us the same way?
I’ve still to meet Seth Godin in the flesh. Yet, as it is, he’s earned enough of my trust that I listen to his opinion
on marketing regularly. He’s earned this trust by respecting my inbox, delivering insane value each time he’s
asked permission to talk to me.
This, in turn, has come back to him an engaged tribesman to his cause. I’ve taken a couple of his courses on
Skillshare and Udemy, I’ve purchased a few of his books. I’m still a steady subscriber to his blog. I’m a Care,
through and through.
Will it last forever? Who knows. Every single time, however, I’ve been impressed beyond expectations. He’s
prompted the right questions, and proposed interesting avenues of exploration. He’s made me think about
things I care about in a new way.
It’s his game, and he’s pretty good at it. It’s also, however, a hard game to play. It’s in our nature to adapt, so
expectations will always go up. Seth’s game has to constantly improve just to keep pace. A provocateur, in
the end, is a lot like Sisyphus.
I’m pretty sure Seth knows this. Given his trajectory and track record, however, I’m also pretty sure that he
brings his A game every single time, regardless of outcome. That’s not to say he’s never let people down. I
bet he has, plenty of times.
131
Game over, man!
At best, I might click on a pregenerated reason on your unsubscription form. At worst, I walk out of your restaurant,
never to return.
132
It’s okay though. Eventually, your audience will be disappointed, even by your best work. Remember, we
adapt. It’s nothing to panic about. Your hard-won cache of trust will act as the safety net few organizations
have nowadays.
Trust is what makes or breaks leaders. Inspire trust, solve real problems. Offer real value and your audience
will not only grant you the permission to address it, it will expect it. Inspire trust, and never let your talk write
checks your actions can’t cash133.
133
We all know the NSFW version of this expression.
Chapter 4: Vision & Mission
SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI, Musk
Google “Elon Musk”, and you’ll be whisked away to the land of tomorrow. The human race is on its way to
colonizing its first new planets, cars run on clean electric power, and artificial intelligence is a reality. Sounds
like something out of an Isaac Asimov novel.
Now I need you to come back for a second, because none of those statements are actually true just yet,
although you couldn’t be faulted for thinking so. I mean, just look at the search results URLs. The word
“moonshot” comes to mind.
Of course, moonshots always look and sound like moonshots until the shots actually start landing on the
Moon. That’s when a lot of “crazy men” start getting called “visionaries”, and “moonshots” start getting called
“missions”.
A quick look at Google’s “People also search for” yields Elon Musk’s two wives, his family, Serbian inventor
Nikola Tesla, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Paypal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Richard
Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.
The Visionary Club’s attendance is at an all-time high134 135, and it’s tech members are making the headlines
left and right. It’s hard to even live on the Internet without coming into contact with one of their latest
projects in some way or another.
Anyway, back to Musk. South African, 44, married to an actress. Has graduate degrees in both physics and
economics from two of the top American schools. Not only he’s a billionaire to boot, he can also charm your
pants off during an interview.
He’s been called everything. The “modern Henry Ford”. “Real-life Tony Stark”. A “superhero”. And that’s to say
nothing of the wild rumors that surround him, like the one that he only sleeps 3 hours a day136. A superhero,
indeed.
That being said, if I had to highlight something that I find especially remarkable about Mr. Musk, it’d be his
ability to communicate visions. If that’s a superpower, then both he and the late Steve Jobs should be head
runners for the title of modern-day Superman.
But Musk’s SpaceX project isn’t the first private aerospace manufacturer! Tesla Motors wasn’t the earliest
bird in electric vehicle development and manufacture space! And SolarCity certainly didn’t invent the idea of
clean solar-powered energy!
Well, the iPhone also wasn’t the first smartphone, was it? By all accounts, it was actually a pretty late showup to the party, and it’s first iteration didn’t even have features its competing products had had for a while,
like 3G connectivity or instant messaging137.
That didn’t stop Time magazine from declaring it the Invention of the Year in 2007, though, did it138? The fact
that none of these projects were the very first pioneers in their field is not even really the point, though, is it?
On June 29, 2007, the first iPhone had people literally lining the blocks around Apple stores everywhere,
everyone waiting to be amongst the first to buy a product that was still, as far as anyone knew, just twice as
expensive as anything else on the market.
134
If that were a real thing...
135
...which it might be...
136
It actually may be more like 6.
137
Barrett, Brian. (29 June 2015). “The First iPhone Was and Wasn’t What You Think”. WIRED. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
138
Grossman, Lev. (01 November 2007). “Invention Of the Year: The iPhone”. TIME. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
On April 7, 2016, barely a month since announcing the product itself and barely a week after it had started
accepting reservations for it139, Tesla had gone on record to state that it had received 325,000 pre-orders for
its Model 3 electric car140.
Again, and just as with Apple’s first iPhone launch141, people literally lined the blocks around Tesla dealerships
everywhere, just for the privilege of being among the first to put their USD 1,000 downpayment reservation
fee on their Model 3142.
According to Tesla’s own release, that’s “... $14 billion in implied future [Model 3] sales...” all generated “...
completely organically”, for they claim that they didn’t advertise anywhere or pay anyone a single dime to
endorse their product143.
Instead, the project simply relied on its grassroots power, “... driven by the passion of the Tesla team that’s
worked so hard to get to this point and our current and future customers who believe so strongly in what we
are trying to achieve”.
Most importantly, though, they state that “...we are all taking a huge step towards a better future by
accelerating the transition to sustainable transportation”. A lofty goal. Certainly one neither Musk nor the
project’s spokesmen seem shy to talk about.
But what do SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI and Apple have in common? What sets them apart from the rest? Why do
they get to triumph where others stumble, falter and fall? If not the first, if not the best, why do they succeed
where others fail?
Takeoff!
SpaceX: “SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was
founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other
planets.”
Tesla: “Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable transport… Tesla is not just an
automaker, but also a technology and design company with a focus on energy innovation.”
OpenAI: “OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital
intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to
generate financial return.”
Visions. These are Elon Musk’s dreams, articulated through projects that act as conduits to get there. Ideas,
extremely simple ideas, have driven some of the greatest ventures the human race has ever embarked upon.
It’s all a matter of having the right scope.
139
“Model 3”. Tesla. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
140
The Tesla Team. (07 April 2016). “The Week that Electric Vehicles Went Mainstream”. Tesla. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
141
Golson, Jordan. (31 March 2016). “Huge lines are forming around the world to order a Tesla Model 3, sight unseen”. The
Verge. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
142
Yeah, they don’t do the whole third-party dealership middleman thing.
143
… and anyone with a calculator...
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
This is a screenshot of Google Trends’ worldwide search interest for SpaceX, Tesla Motors, OpenAI and Elon
Musk. These are not absolute values, they just gauge search interest across the queried topics relative to
overall searches. Hence, Trends144.
We see here that three out of the four topics queried appear to be growing in popularity over time. This
growing interest is pockmarked with outlying months where it peaks. And all three of these topics start to
trend sharply upwards around 2013.
What does this have to do with anything? Bear with me. First off, we have SpaceX and Tesla. Founded in 2002
and 2003 respectively, barely more than a year apart145, these two Musk projects have shared the spotlight
since the beginning.
SpaceX made the earliest significant dent in search popularity, with news of its first inaugural launch making
the headlines on February 2006146. Tesla Motors, however, has been the most popular topic every year since
then.
144
Quick sidebar: Google Trends’ topic information is still in beta at the time of writing.
145
OpenAI was founded much later, in December 2015.
146
Malik, Tariq. (10 February 2006). “SpaceX Scrubs Falcon 1 Launch Debut for Third Time”. Space.com. Retrieved 5 October
2016.
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
With one single exception. The month of May 2012. A quick Google Trends’ query centered on May 2012 and
its adjacent months paints a clearer picture. Interest for SpaceX went through the roof on May 19, 22 and 25,
with a final spike on May 31.
An old fashioned Google search focused on these outlier dates in the months graphed above delivers
interesting tidbits. Here’s the story, in headlines, straight from the top of Google’s search results for each day,
ranked in order of relevance:
•
•
•
•
•
•
April 17 - Wired News: “SpaceX Given Green Light for First Launch to Space Station “
April 30 - Wired News: “SpaceX Prepares for Launch With Test Firing of Rocket Today”
May 19 - Wired (blog): “SpaceX Launch Aborted As Engine Ignition Begins”
May 22 - Space.com: “SpaceX Launches Private Capsule on Historic Trip to Space Station”
May 25 - Wired News: “ISS Welcomes SpaceX Dragon — First Private Spacecraft at Station”
May 31 - Space.com: “SpaceX Dragon Capsule Splashes Down in Pacific, Ending Historic Test Flight”
It’s looks like something straight out of Hollywood. In fact, while researching this story, I often found myself
wondering if the whole event would’ve had the traction it had were it not for the first aborted launch.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the SpaceX crew cancelled the first launch intentionally. Rocket
launches aren’t cheap, and that’s countless dollars down the drain. I’m just saying that the aborted launch
gave the whole story a deliciously poignant twist.
If you take another look at the graph, you might be tempted to think that the launch’s coverage was a bust,
given that interest in SpaceX as a topic appears to go right back down after it. But not quite so. Remember,
these are relative, indexed values.
Media coverage is both a powerful and fickle thing, and while it’s true that interest didn’t remain as high as
during the launch, SpaceX cracked its regular single-digit ceiling and established a firm floor in the low tens.
By April 2014, it would be in the twenties.
A Driving Vision
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
How about another look at the comparison graph? Spanning from 2004 to 2013 and relative to overall Google
searches, all Musk projects queried were insignificant when compared to where they are now in 2016.
Interest over them has, undeniably, grown.
Their achievements and comprehensive media coverage have helped establish Elon Musk as a tech geek’s
household name. The exponential interest curve is coming along, and a case could be made for correlation
between the projects and the man147.
In August 2013, the South African business magnate announced yet another project. The Hyperloop. A
conceptual high-speed transportation system that looks like a train straight out of a futuristic sci-fi flick.
The announcement was massive, making enough waves to even drag Tesla Motors along. Tesla, however, had
been the one that had set the stage for Musk to be taken seriously, having announced on May the company’s
first profits in its ten year history148.
Trains aside149, what I really find fascinating is how different stories converge around a man’s vision. Elon
Musk’s dreams of tomorrow are being realized through his ventures and they have captured the imagination
of the tech generation.
His uncanny feel for this era’s technological hot topics is intriguing. Space exploration, clean energy,
transportation, the development of artificial intelligence. As far a tech geek’s main interests go Musk has a
perfect, almost uncanny, batting average.
This creates a rather perfect attention storm for him and everything he does within the tech community150.
The stories synergize well with each other and come together within the scope of interest of an audience that
is very passionate about them.
Every new SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI, SolarCity or Hyperloop chapter gets turbocharged inside the same core
I said that it could be made, not that it has been made. If you want to take a crack at that: https://www.google.com/
trends/correlate/
147
148
A juicy $15m on its 2013 Q1 earnings.
149
… and I do like trains...
150
More on this phenomenon, the hypestorm, later in the book.
group of people, heating up until it eventually and inevitably breaks through to mainstream media.
Genius, Billionaire, Playboy Philanthropist
There’s also a reason as to why Elon is at the center of pretty much every major announcement his ventures
make. He’s the common link. He really is real-life Iron Man. He’s larger than life. Or so the larger share of the
tech community would like to believe.
Belief. Remember belief? Remember how important belief is in our lives? If I were to ask you to close your
eyes and think about your idea of the archetypal “tech geek”, what would the first image that comes to mind
look like?
My first one certainly isn’t Elon Musk, however much I’d like it to be. No, even in this day and age, having
grown comfortable with being labeled a geek and all, the first image that comes to my mind is still a selfdepreciative and dated stereotype.
To be honest, I’d much rather wish it’d be the image of a “... genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist”. That’s
someone I’d rather identify with151. Sure, there may be only one of him and thousands of the other kind. But
that’s the point of an aspirational, isn’t it?
In case you’re interested, the above “genius” quote is actually Tony Stark, the Iron Man himself, referring what
he is beyond the high-tech suit of armor. You might be familiar with him, though, seeing as “The Avengers” is
one of the top-grossing films of all time152.
I find it fascinating that people keep referring to Elon Musk as real-life Tony Stark when, actually, it was Elon
Musk himself who served as Jon Favreau’s and Robert Downey Jr.’s inspiration for the armored superhero in
his modern movie incarnation.
That’s right. It’s actually the other way around. It was real-life Elon Musk who inspired modern, fictional Tony
Stark. So I think it’d be more accurate to say that Tony Stark is science fiction’s Elon Musk, plus a flying suit of
armor.
If Elon Musk inspired Tony Stark, and “Iron Man” revenue is any indicator, then boy oh boy does the man
test well. Musk’s fictional doppelganger has pretty much hogged the superhero spotlight since 2008, and
audiences can’t seem to get enough of him153.
We tech geeks, believe it or not, have been given everything. There’s an incredibly successful man pursuing
the causes that interest us the most, who appears to be as close to a real-life superhero as anyone would
dare to dream of.
And we can identify with him! “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and the
“Foundation” trilogy are amongst the classics Elon Musk has gone on record to say he liked to read as a kid,
either as refuge or inspiration. I mean, come on!
If you’re a true geek, those are pretty much required reading154. If the man were any more relatable,
inspirational or aspirational to its audience, he’d have to have a high-tech red and gold armor and go on
actual adventures with Thor and the Hulk.
In the meantime, SpaceX, Tesla Motors, OpenAI, SolarCity and the Hyperloop will just have to do. Through
their visions and missions, and guided by Musk’s sure hand, these projects are bringing the future closer to
151
A long stretch, I know. But a man can dream, can’t he?
152
Fifth, actually, at the time of writing.
Interestingly enough, if you’ve only ever watched the Marvel Cinematic Universe stuff, you would’ve never guessed that
Iron Man was actually a sort of Marvel superhero B-lister prior to his blockbusting movie franchise.
153
154
You can quote me on that.
us while gently nudging us forward to it.
Nancy Pfund, one of Musk’s early project’s investors, was quoted saying that … “he’s the Mount Everest of
innovative visionary minds… [He has] an ability to move the big ideas forward without getting cowed by
those that would settle for a smaller vision.”
Well, I agree. When it comes to getting his visions across, Elon Musk is playing on a whole new level. At this
point, it’s hard to separate the man from the myth. For better or worse, he’s become the embodiment of a
people’s ideal. Let’s just hope he delivers.
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
Brands
In order to simplify our lives and decision-making processes, human beings have come to rely on symbols
and shortcuts to tell a story. We do it all the time. Think of what McDonald’s “M” means to you. Nike’s
swoosh. Apple’s apple.
Symbols and shortcuts tell a story. While Mercedes Benz’s tries to imbue its silver star with certain
properties, we imbue it with some of our own. Sometimes these properties align, sometimes they don’t.
Everyone gets bothered when it’s the latter.
I began writing this book because I had an idea. I was tired of having to have the exact same conversation
with each client again and again. What is marketing really all about, how one goes about doing it, why should
they do it, who were they even doing it for.
Of course, some would say “Duh, isn’t that what your clients pay you to do?” and yeah, they’d be absolutely
right. My clients do pay me to solve problems related to communication. Maybe I had just not been having
the right kinds of meetings.
That’s beyond the point, though. I love my clients. I love listening to them, I love talking to them and I love
thinking with them. About marketing, about storytelling. About anything, really. I love that they trust me
enough to listen to me.
So wouldn’t a book defeat my purpose? My whole reason to be in the business of solving communication
problems? Why would clients pay me thousands of dollars if they could access a cached version of my brain
for free?
Well, these were all actually pretty good questions, so I pondered them for a while. Eventually, I realized
those initial conversations that bugged me were the gateway I went through to invite my clients into my
vision of what marketing is really all about.
It was a process we undertook collaboratively to get on the same page. I was talking to them about my vision,
they were talking to me about theirs. An alignment of worldviews and expectations to find a common ground
in which to believe and do excellent work.
This, in turn, got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could just write down my point of view on the whole
thing and use that as a proxy? Sure, sometimes it’s not as good as having a live conversation, but I can share
my vision with a lot more people.
Were my clients to really think that everything I have to offer can be put into a book, if that could even be
true, then why pretend otherwise? Isn’t it, in the end, far more honest than to inflate one’s position and
importance?
That’s why I decided to make this. And because I also enable my readers to give me feedback, I get to have
my cake and eat it. There are people out there whose trust I have not earned and would rather not spend
hundreds of dollars to hear if I’m worthwhile155.
I respect that. That seems fair, and although there are others who feel my vision is interesting enough to
warrant a more personal and in-depth chat, I don’t think it’s a clever move to close oneself only to those who
are already in agreement.
A couple of years ago, I read Naomi Klein’s “No Logo” for the first time156. It was an interesting book. However,
when I finished, I could help but ponder on the irony of what it must’ve been for Ms. Klein to have her book
become a bestseller with a cult following.
In the process of bringing light to the pitfalls of brand-oriented consumer culture, while denouncing the
practices of its main exponents, Ms. Klein and her book became the shining beacons of the counterculture
alter-globalization movement.
However, and as it’s always happened, this movement’s symbols were soon co-opted. Klein and her book
quickly became a part of the system they were trying to fight, and soon they were just another part of the
brand-oriented consumer culture machine.
While very sad, I decoded an important meta-message from this event. Brands, like Ms. Klein and “No Logo”,
are just symbols and shortcuts. They are placeholders we use to reference other things, and they acquire
meaning insofar as they represent something.
It’s important to know what your project stands for to give your messaging focus. At the very least, it’s
important to be able to say what your project most certainly doesn’t stand for. The rest, just like Ms. Klein
and “No Logo”, will be in the eye of the beholder157.
We’ll now tackle an exercise that will force you to dig deeper into the underlying reasons of your project.
Over time, we forget why we’re doing what we’re doing. So, at worst, a refresher is never out of line. At best,
it can yield life-saving insight.
155
We begin always in the exact same way: tell me a bit more about your story.
156
Yeah, I was late to that party.
And before you say anything, “Seinfeld” doesn’t count. “Seinfeld”, despite its tagline, was most definitely a show about
something.
157
The Five Whys
The first thing we can do to figure out what our project stands for is to figure out what pushes our buttons.
What makes us take things personally and act. The motivators that drive us to enact change are powerful
and should always be accounted for.
I came across the Five Whys framework while reading Eric Ries’ “Lean Startup”158. Through this framework,
we’ll dig up the reasons behind your project. Once we have them, we’ll have rooted out the fundamental
causes that power it.
The Five Whys are what’s actually and formally known as the “root cause analysis method”, a system to get
at the underlying causes of things. You ask “why” at an obvious problem, and write down all the possible
explanations.
There are two sides to the Five Whys. There’s a public side and there’s a private side. The public side
addresses a group’s reasons for embarking on a project. The private side addresses an individual’s own
reasons for doing it.
I feel it’s more useful to start with one’s own reasons for doing something. Although this may seem selfish,
Sun Tzu once made a compelling argument for it: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not
fear the result of a hundred battles”.
However, if able, I also urge people to tackle The Five Whys as a team. A team might be able to address the
blind spots a lone individual might have regarding the nature of the problem at hand, leading to potentially
surprising breakthroughs.
If alone, don’t worry. The team doesn’t have to be in your immediate circle. In fact, it’s better if you take into
account as many distinct points of view as possible. If you do, the Five Whys will yield better results. To this
end, consider including your audience.
Having said that, please take note that groups can and usually tend to fall prey to groupthink159. A reasonably
good vaccine against it is to have a member within the team acting as the staunch contrarian to the current
general consensus160.
When we start a Five Whys process, we pin the evident problem at the top of a board. Then, we start pinning
possible explanations for it below. The team doesn’t concern itself with an explanations’ likelihood until we
are done listing them.
Once all initial explanations are written down, we look at them for a while. Taking turns, team members go
around the table explaining any causes that may be fuzzy to other people contributing to the exploratory
phase of the project.
Then we ask why those explanations for the initial problem happened and the cycle begins anew. We don’t
judge, we don’t criticize, we just tack the answers below the explanations. We explain fuzzy causes, and so on
until we get five whys deep.
Sometimes, some explanations start to look rather unlikely, so we call for an unanimous vote to halt the
exploration of the target and continue down what appears to be a more likelier path when strapped for time
Ries, Eric. (2014). “The lean startup: how today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful
businesses”. Crown Publishing. p. 230.
158
To learn more about the effects of groupthink, read up on the Bay of Pigs Invasion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_
Pigs_Invasion
159
160
Hansen, Morten. (22 November 2013). “How John F. Kennedy Changed Decision Making for Us All”. Harvard Business
Review. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
or resources161.
Exercise 4.1
Write down five times why your project is doing what it’s doing, going deeper with every answer. In the end you
should have something resembling a tree’s roots, with several explanations and varying degrees of likelihood.
As you evaluate all possible explanations listed, cross out the unlikelier ones and leave the root cause most deeply
resonates with you and/or your team.
Be honest and remember that if you’re worried someone else might see your underlying motivations, you can
always crumple up the paper and set it on fire.
You, however, need to know. Your project’s motivations need to be clear for your communication to remain
tight, consistent and, ideally, honest. Never underestimate the power of honesty. Nowadays, people pick up
on a sham quickly.
If leading or working with a team, once you know your own Five Whys, attempt to tackle the exercise as a
group. It’s rough, but it’s vital, because it’ll determine how good of a fit you all are working together and if
there’s any potential for conflict hidden.
Vision & Mission
Now that we are equipped with a comprehensive understanding of the project’s reason to be, we need to
get clear as to what we expect to come out of it in order to design an effective digital marketing strategy that
communicates said goal.
I’m going to go old-school with this one. Vision and mission statements are tools used to establish what your
project is all about at an very high, conceptual level and can be very effective in guiding a project’s efforts if
used correctly.
I’ve had people groan, literally groan, at this. Vision and mission statements get a bad rap for being a waste
of time. I’ve found that this flows from a perceived difficulty in articulating anything meaningful from them.
To understand this better, I questioned a few professionals involved in projects with faulty vision and mission
statements on what they thought of them. The results were full of choice language. Bluntly put, bad vision
and mission statements are useless.
However, vision and mission statements aren’t meant to be your next email marketing tool. They can’t field
an ad campaign, nor do they generate content. They can’t pick up the phone when a customer calls. But
that’s not what they’re for.
Vision and mission statements are just that. Statements. They are a declaration of intent. We plan on getting
to Z, by doing Y. Anything that is not getting to Z does not concern us. And this, Y, is on what we’ll be focusing
to get to Z.
I get it. When you’re living the day to day on the frontlines, knee deep in tasks you urgently need to do to
keep your business afloat, it’s easy to consider vision and mission questions as cute, worthless philosophical
meanderings.
And yet, they’re the ones that can help guide those very same day to day efforts. We do things, day in and
day out, because we want something to change. And if we’re not clear as to where is it that we want to go,
and how, we’ll just get lost in the busywork.
This is a situation only considered when the need to balance efficiency with thoroughness arises. It does not mean the
unlikelier explanations go unaddressed. It just means that the more likelier ones get tested first.
161
Vision
Ah, visions. Through this project, what does an ideal future look like? That’s the question behind a vision
statement. Vision statements are at their best when they’re a clear, concise, challenging and inspiring
declaration of a project’s ultimate goal.
I’m picky about the visions that I like. I’ve seen countless projects mix the journey with the destination162, and
I’ve found that the visions that I like are grand enough to hold the promise of adventure, while staying real
enough to look like more than a fool’s dream.
Another way of thinking about it is that a vision is always at least a step beyond the mission’s reach. SpaceX
has “the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets”. That’s their vision. To help humanity
achieve extraterrestrial colonization.
They hope to enable that by “revolutioniz[ing] space technology” and “advancing the future”. Today,
SpaceX is “... advancing the boundaries of space technology through its Falcon launch vehicles and Dragon
spacecraft”163.
Is it a perfect vision statement? Maybe, maybe not. It does strike a note within me each time I read it. It
makes my engine rev and my blood boil. It’s simple, I believe in it, I believe it can be done, and I feel I want
contribute in some way to it164.
That’s how your vision should feel, to you and your tribe. A clear, concise, challenging, inspiring goal looming
in the future. It should keep you up at night. It should make your heart pound. It should embody a purpose
larger than the sum of its parts.
Exercise 4.2
Write down, in no more than three sentences, the vision statement that drives your project.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Is it clear, for you and everyone else?
Is it concise, crisp enough to be actionable?
Is it challenging, holding a destination that promises an adventure?
Is it inspiring, the stuff that can light a fire in the people who need it?
Mission
You must now ask yourself the following questions. What will we do to make this vision come true? How do
we intend to make this dream a reality? Who will we be doing it for? Why are we the right ones to do it in the
first place?
Mission statements highlight the roadmap that the project will follow in pursuit of its vision. To do this, it
takes into account what the project will be doing, how it will be doing it, for whom, and the unique value it
brings to the table.
SpaceX plans to achieve its vision of “...enabling people to live on other planets” by “revolutioniz[ing] space
technology” and “advancing the future”. Okay, that addresses the who, why and the what. We’re missing the
how.
SpaceX “...designs, manufactures, and launches the world’s most advanced rockets and spacecraft”. It is “...
162
The fact that the destination is often part of another journey is, of course, another matter.
163
SpaceX and NASA. “SpaceX CRS-7 Mission Press Kit”. SpaceX. Retrieved 5 October 2016. PDF.
164
And I don’t even work for SpaceX.
advancing the boundaries of space technology through its Falcon launch vehicles and Dragon spacecraft”165.
Bingo! That covers the how.
Missions should be the strategic approach to making a vision come true. They inform a high level action plan
that drives a project’s decisions, helping separate what truly furthers a project’s goals from what’s just a
drain on resources.
A mission lacking in specificity can be unrealistic at best and a waste of resources for everyone at worst.
Crafting good mission statements requires practice and patience. Be ready to draft several until you feel
you’ve gotten a good one166.
Exercise 4.3
Write down your mission statement to give goals to your project.
1.
2.
3.
4.
What will your project try do to make the vision a reality?
How will it go about doing it?
Who are you solving a problem for?
Why is your project the right one?
The fourth question is absolutely imperative, because it states the differential value that the project is
bringing to the table. The mission is what will lay out the road to follow towards your vision. And if you want
buy-in, you’ll need to back your claim.
Every bad mission statement I’ve ever seen has been the result of an exercise in self-aggrandizement and
unjustified pride. Without real humility, the insight and specificity needed to address the points listed above
just won’t be there.
The Importance of Prepwork
Chances are that, if you’ve finished your Five Whys and your vision and mission statements, you’re just
itching to get off your chair and start doing something right now to get your project further down the road.
This is the ideal state to be in.
It truly is the best thing ever, but I need you to stay cool for just a little bit longer. We’re not at the ideal level
of specificity to drive real action and impact yet. This is still way too abstract to make a dent on your digital
marketing performance.
Entrepreneurs hate this. I’m going against every instinct to just get out there and start doing. I myself still
have a hard time curbing my own enthusiasm each time I do it, until I realize it’s probably smarter to sit five
minutes now than gripe for hours later.
Both the Five Whys and your statements are not the purview of everyday activity. They can and probably will
go unmodified for months or years at a time. Still, they are the hard-won centerpieces of your strategy that
will drive your project day in and day out.
Having properly developed vision and mission statements is like charting a course for a ship. Sure, you
have to spend some time on dry land doing prep work, which is a drag, and it certainly feels like a waste of
valuable time.
However, when the storms hit167, you get to stand unfazed. You know where you want to go, what you have
165
“SpaceX CRS-7 Mission Press Kit”.
166
... for now. It’s in the nature of projects to evolve and adjust scope.
167
...and they will hit...
to do to make that happen, how you need to do it, who you are doing it for and why you’re the right one for
it.
Another usually overlooked perk of having explicit vision and mission statements is the strengthening
of a project’s culture through a clear, explicit, unified and shared sense of general purpose between all
participants involved.
Once everyone on deck is clear as to what the overarching vision is, decision-making is demonstrably
improved. Clarity about the big picture is essential to adequately prioritized, informed and efficient ground
operations.
Once everyone is on the same page as to the ship’s intended destination, cross-functional relationships are
also enhanced through a shared understanding of expectations and priorities as a group.
Be sure to keep an eye on your vision and mission statements. They’re the backbone of everything that was,
is, and will come. If life tries to distract you with busywork, check your statements. Easy as that. No one jerks
around anyone with a vision, on a mission.
Chapter 5: Objectives, Goals & KPIs
The PewDiePie Effect
Have you, by any chance, heard of Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg? He’s a twenty-six year old Swedish comedian,
entertainment producer and Youtube personality, perhaps better known by his online alias: PewDiePie.
Having dropped out of university in 2011 to focus on his YouTube channel, Felix initially worked at a hot dog
stand to fund his Let’s Play videos. With a rapidly increasing following, in 2012 his channel would surpass the
one million subscriber mark.
His current Youtube channel subscriber base holds at 43,035,317 and his videos have been seen over
11,575,895,459 times. On 24 September 2015, he released his very own and long-awaited video game:
“PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist”.
To date, Felix has raised over a million dollars directed at charitable initiatives and has contributed to the
success of several independent videogame releases just by featuring them on his show. Most notable,
perhaps, is the case of “Slender: The Eight Pages”.
Whoa whoa wait, what are we talking about again? PewDiewhatnow? What’s the hell’s a “brofist”? Okay, let’s
take it slow. It’s possible that what I’m talking about does not immediately ring a bell, so here’s the crash
course168.
In 2015, the videogaming industry was estimated to generate approximately 23 billion dollars in revenue in
the US alone169. No, it’s not a typo. That’s billion, with a B. Not exactly a nickels-and-dimes industry anymore,
and hasn’t been for quite a while.
Mr. Kjellberg, our digital celebrity going by the online alias of “PewDiePie” is a massive, impossible-tooverestimate force in the videogaming industry. At the time of writing, and in only five years, he’s become
the most subscribed channel in all of Youtube.
Yup. On Youtube, the massive online video sharing site I certainly hope you have heard of, PewDiePie’s “Bro
Army” eclipses Justin Bieber’s, Rihanna’s, Katy Perry’s and even Ellen Degeneres’ legions. His closest actual
competitor has just over half of Pewds’ reach170.
Kjellberg’s rise to fame came from uploading Let’s Play videos, a entertainment genre which consists of
watching people play videogames, often with commentary from the gamer. That’s right, PewDiePie built a
career of having people watch him play games171.
It gets weirder. At some point, someone figured out that the horror genre of gaming is tailor-made for the
Let’s Play experience. It may have something to do with its immersive qualities, or with the guilty pleasure of
seeing someone else’s terror.
Whatever the case, Let’s Play horror videos became great Youtube fodder. Audiences just couldn’t get
enough of their favorite stars cringing in fear and then screaming their heads off as horror games raked
them through the coals again and again.
The simplicity of the premise made the content easy to share. Not only watching someone else’s reaction to
horror had “viral” written all over it, the idea had already been proven to be a tried and tested formula for
years in other mediums.
168
John Green/Andre Meadows, if you’re reading this, can we get a Crash Course Games episode on the gaming industry?
169
Morris, Chris. (16 February 2016). “Level up! Video Game Industry Revenues Soar in 2015”. Fortune. Retrieved 5 October
170
German Garmendia, a Chilean Youtuber also known by his online alias HolaSoyGerman.
Thanks!
2016.
I refuse to talk about PewDiePie’s revenue. He doesn’t like to do it, and I can understand why. If you want to know the
insane yearly ballpark figure, look it up. Careful with that jaw.
171
It’s not all solely for the sake of art or a good laugh, though. As some of you may already know, Youtubers
can earn a handsome paycheck by getting a cut of the ad revenue Youtube generates each time an ad is
played on a video of theirs.
And when you’re talking about millions of views, the paycheck can get substantial. In Pewds’ league, the
number of views can stack well into the billions, the potential for monetization promising to cover most Let’s
Play Youtubers expenses and then some.
Once the news broke out, Let’s Play videos put horror in the content generation spotlight. Mr. Kjellberg cut
his teeth with Let’s Play horror videos172. With them he became, although certainly not the only Let’s Play
Youtuber, definitely the biggest one.
With everyone wanting to get in the game, so to speak, horror games began to get a huge exposure. Let’s
Play horror videos were suddenly it. It was only a matter of time before someone on the development end
would realize what a big deal this was.
Amnesia: The Ballad of Frictional Games
Two years earlier before of all this, on September 2010, a game called “Amnesia: The Dark Descent” was
being released173. It’s developer, Frictional Games, knew the game’s launch was an all-in leap of faith given
their dire financial situation174.
The problem, however, was that at launch time Frictional Games had no publisher willing to take on
“Amnesia”. It thus lacked the insider connections required to get the game to established gaming editorials, a
key process in marketing a game back then175.
The studio was essentially broke, with zero cash left to invest on conventional marketing tactics. To make
matters worse, within 24 hours, one of the review copies of the game they had sent was being used to
distribute a pirated version of the game.
Catastrophe seemed imminent, until an 8.5/10 rating on gaming media giant IGN and a wealth of player
customization tools made available by the developers made the game’s hidden propensity for viral hits its
saving grace, turning a nightmare into the future.
172
And Fancy Force’s “Happy Wheels”. I’ll get right on that, legions.
173
Grip, Thomas. (12 July 2011). “The Terrifying Tale of Amnesia”. The Escapist. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
174
Were it to tank, the studio would close and it would be, for lack of a better term, game over.
175
At that time, professional reviewers often held the keys to the kingdom.
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
Early on, the founders at Frictional had decided that if they couldn’t manage to sell 24,000 copies of the game
during its first two months, they would close down. On the first month? They sold 34,000. A year later, a little
over 390,000 units.
While it’s true most of those were sold at discount sales, “Amnesia” did well enough to turn around
Frictional’s imminent fate, give steady salaries to everyone working there at the time, and secure more than
enough funding to complete their next project.
Although at first glance we could be tempted to make sense of this twist of fate by noting in the graph above
the coincidence between the game’s peak in search interest and Kjellberg’s rise to fame, this would be
inaccurate.
The game had been a consistent topic of interest since launch. Thomas Grip, one of Amnesia’s programmers,
stated that a slew of memes and user reaction videos to the game revolving around the fear it generated
kept the project in the spotlight176.
The game’s undisputable peak in search interest, however, did come as a side effect of PewDiePie’s explosive
growth in popularity at the hand of his “Happy Wheels” videos. Riding that wave, by 2012 Frictional Games
would be having its best financial year yet.
Grip estimates that by that point, two years after its launch, “Amnesia” had sold somewhere between
920,000 and 1,400,000 units177. To put that figure in context, the team had expected to sell 24,000 units
during its first two months after launch.
Even if sales for that estimate had steadily held over the next two years, something that’s not really the norm
for this industry, “Amnesia” would’ve been expected to sell around 288,000 units, which is barely a quarter of
their actual whopping million.
Although the case could be made that whoever is in charge of forecasts at Frictional Games is just bad at it,
after reading Grip’s postmortems of the whole thing, I myself am more inclined to believe that the surprise
came from another quadrant.
Kl, Thomas. (09 September 2011). “Amnesia - One year later”. In The Games of Madness: Official Blog of Frictional Games.
Retrieved 5 October 2016.
176
177
Kl, Thomas. (10 September 2012). “Amnesia - Two Years Later”. In The Games of Madness: Official Blog of Frictional
Games. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
Slender
On June 26, 2012 Mark J. Hadley released “Slender: The Eight Pages”, a free and independent first-person
survival horror videogame largely based around the Slenderman, a now-classic Internet folklore figure.
While basic in design, the game’s effective use of atmosphere and pacing made it a terrifying game to play at
the time. Not only that, its unsophisticated look was perhaps one of the reasons it was such good Let’s Play
material.
On July 1, 2012, PewDiePie released his first “Slender” Let’s Play video178. Running at 10:08 minutes in length,
Kjellberg’s audience would follow his progress just as with “Amnesia”, jumping in terror and laughing at/with
him throughout.
Even though by that point the Let’s Play genre on Youtube was far from new and Pewds had done his fair
share in the horror genre, the “Slender” videos were a hit and search interest for both the Swedish Youtuber
and the game noticeably spiked.
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
The game quickly became a runaway hit, and a fascinating one at that. While Youtube search interest for
PewDiePie eclipsed interest for the “Slender” game, general web search interest on Google showed the
opposite picture.
Apparently, just because people might not like getting scared themselves does not mean they might not like
watching someone else get scared. Watching Let’s Play videos had turned into a voyeur’s dream and thrill.
After all, a significant share of the Let’s Play audience just wants to be entertained. To them, it’s not so much
about the game as it’s about the gamer and the show he or she can put on. This is why unentertaining Let’s
Play Youtubers tend to fare poorly.
Entertainment. That’s what PewDiePie and the rest have to offer to stay in business. No entertainment, no
views. No views, no ad revenue. No ad revenue, no food on the table. Kjellberg and the rest are absolutely
beholden to their audiences.
“Slender”, being barebones in its design, was an extremely effective jumpscare generator. Its simplicity and
ability to deliver on what the audience wanted, entertainment, was what made it the ultimate Let’s Play
horror experience.
178
Maria Lindholm and Viktor Flumé. “The most powerful Swede in the world”. ICON. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
It was around this time that the videogame industry realized that what had happened with “Amnesia” hadn’t,
in fact, been a fluke. The Let’s Play gaming audience was legitimate, and could be a powerful force in driving
a project’s awareness.
Eminent Let’s Play Youtubers held substantial influence over the gaming market’s target audiences and, just
by featuring a game on their videos, they could single-handedly point enough potential consumers to it to
make or break the launch.
There’s already a term for this effect. It’s sometimes called “The Oprah Effect” and refers to the effect that
an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, and/or an endorsement by Oprah herself, can have on a
business.
Because the show reaches millions of viewers each week, Oprah’s endorsement can have a significant and
often unexpected influence on a new or struggling business. Over the years, Kjellberg has become the
gaming industry’s Oprah.
An interesting symbiotic relationship also developed between parties. Audiences got their content, Youtube
and Let’s Play Youtubers started getting huge influxes of revenue, and featured videogame projects started
getting massive exposure.
“Amnesia” had produced proof that gaming editorials were no longer the sole gatekeepers to a game’s
success. “Slender” had turbocharged the experiment by creating a viral phenomenon that gave the horror
genre unprecedented appeal.
The game was in some ways like “Amnesia”, only with the ideal Let’s Play features cranked up to eleven. It’s
short playtime, terrifying unpredictability and the fact that it was completely free allowed every Youtuber
who wanted to cover it to be able to.
A swarm of subscribers previously unacquainted with the Let’s Play genre started to converge on Youtube,
hungry for similar content, launching the professional gaming commentary careers of several people along
the way179.
Even established and successful Youtubers previously unrelated to the Let’s Play genre were dragged by the
tide as they tried to get in on the action and seize the opportunity. The floodgates were standing wide open,
and the torrent seemed endless.
Zerg Rush
Yes, horror in videogames had made a comeback from the unlikeliest of places, and so a genre had been
revolutionized. The way audiences related to them had radically changed, and with this change the gaming
industry’s marketing strategy had shifted.
Whereas a non-existent marketing budget for a horror videogame might have meant empty plates at one
time, its “raise project awareness” marketing objective now had new avenues to explore beyond typical
advertising and editorial coverage.
Suddenly, “Slender” was announcing a sequel. The “Alien” franchise jumped on board with a triple A
project180. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” became a thing. Everyone developing horror games now wanted a piece
of the Let’s Play cake Frictional had found.
Almost so as to put the debate of the legitimacy of the Let’s Play phenomenon to rest once and for all,
in 2014 South Park released a two-episode season finale about it, drawing from the creator’s personal
Google’s “Think with Google” has published several case studies and infographics related to the rise of video gaming
content.
179
Triple A games are a term used for video game projects with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion
available to a studio and publisher.
180
experiences. Let’s Play was here to stay.
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
However, as massive audiences started to flock to Youtube to enjoy more Let’s Play videos, content
creators in the genre started to look out for the next new breakout hit in a keener fashion to keep up with
expectations in an increasingly crowded environment.
Hope, dread, laughter, tears. Good Let’s Play videogame material appeals to the same basic spectrum of
emotions we have already talked about. These are the main avenues of entertainment and appeal for Let’s
Play audiences and content.
As such, only games that could prove to be really compatible with the genre experience were now being able
to edge their way into a content creator’s attention. Far from sputtering out, new projects were starting to try
and cater more and more to them.
Given that there’s only so much compatibility a game can naturally have with the Let’s Play genre, what had
at first been part of a new style of organic marketing quickly became a structured and integral part of a
game’s development processes.
Whole products were designed with the intent to be featured by the hottest Let’s Play Youtubers. This
eventually got boiled down to either developing glitch-ridden videogames for laughs, or jumpscare
generators for scares, AKA PewDiePie bait181.
The “raise project awareness” marketing objective of games was now bleeding into product development and
warping it, changing internal development goals and the marketing tactics to be used when to promote the
finished work182.
However, as you can see in the Google Trends web search interest above, there’s a limit. “Slender: The
Arrival” languished in the shade of its predecessor, despite being developed by a full-blown studio with a
substantial production budget.
It’s comparatively lukewarm impact and reception bore an ominous vibe for everyone looking to cash in
on the Let’s Play horror craze. Apparently, it’s not as easy as rehashing a previous hit, especially if you are
181
StandardGamer. (19 October 2014). “A New Genre Of Games Is Emerging: Pewdiepie Bait”. IGN. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
The following is not a joke: “Goat Simulator”, a glitch-infested game literally about simulating being a goat while wrecking
stuff, received more than a million views on its first two days on Youtube, with the community requesting a full release of the
game.
182
unsure what made it a hit in the first place.
As far as horror goes, it takes a true master to deliver on the craft. It is a very obscure and subtle genre,
where the inexperienced can find themselves failing to deliver without knowing why. In going forward, it’s
important to trace this distinction.
“Amnesia” was built by a studio of very talented individuals, knowledgeable in the ways of the genre through
years of exploring and learning from the masters. It must be said: the difference between true horror and
cheap thrills is noticeable.
The game was an authentic simulation experience. It’s release had been unsullied from the industry’s
changing marketing environment and dynamics, on account of being one of the first viral horror videogame
hits.
Although it’s potential for fright was great Let’s Play fodder and contributed enormously to the project’s
financial success, it was by no means its only redeeming quality. What made “Amnesia” an enduring hit goes
beyond jumpscares.
Nevertheless, for the larger Youtube Let’s Play audience who just wants entertainment, the jumpscare is
one of the most satisfying payoffs to watch. The bigger the jump? The shriller the scream? The bigger the
reaction? The better.
But after a while, as we know, audiences adjust. In the same way that there’s a limit to how many times
“Slender” will scare you before you become jaded to it, there’s also a limit to how many times you can laugh
at someone screaming their heads off over it.
This dynamic led everyone involved down a specific road. Audiences pulled at content creators, wanting
bigger and bolder reactions. Content creators, in turn, started going for the less subtle projects in the genre
and straight to the jumpscare fests.
Videogame developers, finally, gave everyone what they wanted. A steady stream of PewDiePie bait
optimized to produce the desired Let’s Play content. Marketing objectives and goals had finally become one
with the development process.
... uh oh
On September 30, 2015, SEGA management was quoted saying that the 2.11 million units sold by “Alien:
Isolation” over its first six months had been internally considered a weak performance and that plans for a
sequel were uncertain.
Although accruing in just over six months nearly twice what “Amnesia” had in two whole years, SEGA had
considered that sales for the game, the ultimate launch key performance indicator, had been found wanting.
By all accounts, “Alien: Isolation” should’ve been a breakout hit. It had enjoyed the perks of being a triple A
title with top-notch production and marketing values, and had received generally positive reviews from both
journalists and players upon release.
Quite unlike the previous run-and-gun incarnations of the franchise, the game was more in line with the
original Alien movie. Heavy focus was put on survival horror to recreate the feeling of Ellen Ripley’s original
encounter with the xenomorph183.
183
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film)
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
Coverage from eminent Let’s Play Youtubers had also been there. PewDiePie’s first “Alien: Isolation” video
had literally been titled “Alien: Isolation - Gameplay - Part 1 - (Playthrough / Walkthrough ) - SO DAMN
EXCITED FOR THIS GAME!”184
To quote Kjellberg: “it’s not everyday we get a triple A horror game that is generally exciting anymore. It felt
like those days were over for a while, like they weren’t even paying attention to us anymore.”
Well, it seems publishers must have had good reasons for it. Despite generating levels of search interest
similar to “Slender” on Youtube, “Alien: Isolation” just couldn’t draw comparable levels as far as general
Google web search interest went.
Even with good user response and heavy, anticipated coverage by both PewDiePie and Markiplier185, the
game’s sales had managed to disappoint SEGA management and barely scrape 85% of what they were
expecting for the six month period186.
It’s been argued that SEGA had simply been too ambitious in setting targets for its sales key performance
indicator, and that “Alien: Isolation” had done fantastically well in terms of sales for a niche horror game.
There’s also another possible explanation for the company’s disappointment with the product. Calculated
from a top down perspective, sales had just not been enough to cover for a triple A game’s development
expenses.
Over its three years in development, Frictional Games had invested USD 360,000 in Amnesia’s development.
Two years after launch and with a million units sold, the game had recouped its initial investment tenfold.
“Alien: Isolation” was under development for a similar period of time, and sold twice as many copies in six
months as Amnesia did in two years. Despite this, the game had apparently barely managed to turn a profit.
To understand why 2.11 million units might be considered a weak performance, look no further than triple A
title development costs. Over time, and with an audience’s ever-increasing demand for quality, these costs
have skyrocketed.
“Alien: Isolation - Gameplay - Part 1 - (Playthrough / Walkthrough ) - SO DAMN EXCITED FOR THIS GAME!”. Youtube.
Retrieved 5 October 2016.
184
185
Another massive force in the Let’s Play community.
186
Handrahan, Matthew. (30 September 2015). ‘Sega Europe: “We’re definitely on the right track” ‘. Gamesindustry.biz.
Retrieved 5 October 2016.
If 2.11 million units barely managed to turn a profit for a USD 49.99 game, we can guesstimate that “Alien:
Isolation” must have had a production budget somewhere over USD 30,000,000187, at least 80 times what
Frictional spent on Amnesia.
It was probably a bold bet to place. Although the game was fairly well received by both critics and the
community at large, the larger public eye and its general interest was now fixed on the evolving Let’s Play
phenomenon.
It’s games like “FIve Nights at Freddy’s” that would go on to make the headlines. Bite-sized “horror”
experiences, heavy on the jumpscare, that leave story development in the background as a sidenote for the
hardcore enthusiasts.
With Let’s Play, each new cycle of evolution presents a newer, more pure, more perfect distillation of what
makes great watchable content. “Amnesia”, “Slender”, “Five Night’s”, “Sophie’s Curse”. Each one is more
effective and, dare I say, efficient than the last.
Each passing cycle forces games to become more and more focused on delivering the desired payoff to
stand a chance of being featured on the best Let’s Play channels. The irony here being that this is quite
probably detrimental to the desired end effect: sales.
These days, great Let’s Play content does not always lead to the deluge of sales many publishers are counting
on. Sometimes, the genre’s audience only wants to watch someone play the game. This is a far cry from
wanting to play it, let alone buy it188.
It’s easy to get blinded by the light of Let’s Play. It’s also easy to confuse the genre’s spectators with a
potential purchase crowd. The cycle may repeat itself until the schtick wears out and inevitably hits a reef.
Then again, there’s always a bigger fish.
Data source: Google Trends (www.google.com/trends).
A very rough estimate that assumes 25% of sales were made at full price and the remaining 75% were heavily
discounted.
187
188
Makuch, Eddie. (26 March 2016). “That Dragon, Cancer Dev Says Let’s Play Videos Hurt Sales”. Gamespot. Retrieved 5
October 2016.
There Is No Spoon
Here it is. The secret sauce of digital marketing. It’s all about objectives, goals, key performance indicators
and digital marketing’s ability to create a traceable link between strategies, operations and tactics.
Want to know if a piece of content of yours became a runaway hit? Got it! Want to know the demographic
profile of the people who viewed it? There you go! Want to know if it actually did drive purchases? Bam!
In this chapter we will look at setting objectives, figuring out goals, establishing proper key performance
indicators, assigning reasonable targets and choosing the best angle of segmentation for each tactic.
It’s here that the work comes together to transform our ability to communicate and generate real business
impact. This is the lowest level of our digital marketing strategy, and it stands only above our actual digital
marketing tactics.
To paraphrase Avinash Kaushik189, the root cause of failure in most digital marketing endeavors is not the
lack of extraordinary creativity in the banner ad, or the sexiness in the website’s design, or the breadth of the
ecommerce catalog.
No. The real cause of failure of most digital marketing endeavors is the lack of structured thinking about
what the real purpose of a project is, and a lack of objectives with which to identify success or failure to
measure our performance against.
Think about your mission. Your mission as the roadmap towards your vision. It’s the end-all of everything
you do until that dream is fulfilled. It can change. It probably will change. Still, at any given time, your mission
guides and informs everything you do.
If you take a look at it, you can probably see a couple of high-level objectives dangling in the shape of “how”
exactly are you planning on getting to where you want to go. These are usually major milestones in your
project’s development.
Each marketing action needs to, in some way, further its higher-level parent objective. In turn, this parent
objective needs to further its own higher-level parent objective in some way. The unbroken chain needs to
span your project’s whole strategic vertical.
That’s why no one should ever stop at vision and mission. It’s like a five-star general laying out the grand
strategy of a military operation only to say to the soldiers “Now go do it”. It’s a quick way to be out of a job
faster than you can say “Ten hut”!
We Need More Lumber!
Are you familiar with the Real Time Strategy genre in gaming? Age of Empires, Warcraft, Starcraft190? In these
games, the player takes on the role of an army leader, managing troops, resources and operations in real
time to claim victory over an opponent191.
There are two aspects to most Real Time Strategy games: macromanagement and micromanagement192.
Macro refers to the grand strategy and overall flow of the game, while micro concerns itself with the more
detailed, localized aspects of operations.
Mastery of both concepts is required for a player to achieve victory and, although both are considered
189
Kaushik, Avinash. “Digital Marketing and Measurement Model”. Occam’s Razor. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
190
If not, don’t worry, gaming references end here.
191
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_strategy
192
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Micro_and_Macro
essential to attain it, it is generally agreed upon that good macro-management will always outperform good
micro-management.
Why is macro the priority choice? Because better global awareness and control will always overpower
localized events. In digital marketing this is no exception. Macro awareness of your communicational project
trumps exceptional individual actions.
There’s a “Game of Thrones” phrase that explains the dynamics of macro-management and
micromanagement quite nicely. In a particular episode, young Robb Stark confides to his mother that
although he has won every battle, he’s still losing the war.
How can one person win every battle and lose a war? Well, a lack of global strategic awareness can
contribute to the dilution of impact of a project’s localized applications of power, also known as battles. Or
marketing actions.
Think about your beautiful display ads. Your amazing podcasts. The development time invested on that killer
app. All won battles. They can all be won battles into the future. Still, without a grander strategy, they’re just
the won battles of a lost war.
A strategic frame is essential when designing, implementing and analyzing your marketing actions. Now we
want to make sure your best tactics have the right priorities and adequate measurement required to reap
maximum profit.
Although we have constructed a digital marketing strategy, we haven’t begun building it from individual
actions strung together; the micro. No, we have begun developing it at the highest strategic level possible.
Vision and mission. The macro.
This gives us a bird’s-eye view of our current situation, enabling us to more accurately contextualize the past,
encompass a wider array of opportunities in the present, and be more mindful of possible paths into the
future.
With our audiences and vision mission statements squared away, what we need now are actual objectives.
Real things that have to happen for you to deliver on your mission and, in turn, inch closer to your vision.
Think of objectives as the operational layer.
The operational layer’s purpose is to coordinate the details of everyday marketing tactics with the
overarching goals of your strategy. It’s what links your emails, social media posts and ad purchases with your
vision and mission statements.
It’s critical to check for consistency across all levels. Having objectives that do not connect to your mission is
as bad as having actions that do not connect to your objectives. You will not be able to pull in any direction in
a coordinated manner.
To avoid that, we’ll use a modified version of Avinash Kaushik’s excellent Digital Marketing Measurement
Model to tie everything we do to an observable number. As far as digital marketing strategy goes, it doesn’t
get more actionable than this.
The Digital Marketing Measurement Model
As we said, it’s hard to reconcile a cogent strategy out of bits and pieces, so to make your digital marketing
efforts work, you first need to understand how your vision and mission statements tie together and inform
actual business objectives.
Think about how you would go about delivering on the promises made by your mission statement. What
do you need to do to be able to execute that mission, that promise, to the best of your ability? What are the
steps that need to be taken?
Occam Razor’s Avinash Kaushik has an amazing model to get all your digital marketing ducks in a row. It’s
called The Digital Marketing Measurement Model193, and it will help you separate the proverbial digital
marketing wheat from the chaff.
There are five steps to it that will take you from the strategic to the tactical level of digital marketing and,
once you are done with them, all your marketing decisions will be clear enough that you’ll be able to literally
check them off a list as you go on.
These five elements are objectives, goals, key performance indicators, targets and segments. Each element
takes us closer to the actual action until we are looking straight at the number that tells us if we ought to be
popping the cork or not.
Objectives are the priorities that we’re aiming for. An important objective could be to “raise awareness of our
next product’s launch”. We want our audience to be aware that we will be launching our next product in the
near future194.
Goals are the specific means of how we plan to go about fulfilling said objectives. To “raise awareness of our
next product’s launch”, we could pop off an email to our newsletter subscriber base to let them know the
launch is coming195.
KPIs, or key performance indicators, are the pieces of data we’ll look at to know if we are succeeding or failing
to fulfill our objective through our goal. In this case, email open rate is a good KPI to gauge if people were
interested in our announcement.
Targets are the threshold we establish beforehand to know if we succeeded or not. It’s important because it
gives our KPIs context. Is 10% open rate good or bad? Well, if we were expecting 70%, it’s abysmal. If we were
expecting 2%, time to celebrate.
And finally, segments. The final slicing and dicing of our aggregate data to really zero in on the real paydirt. If,
for example, age bracket distribution is important to our outcome analysis, age segmentation for this tactic is
a vital consideration.
As you can see, this follows the usual Who/What/How/Why method of design thinking, albeit in a different
order. The Whos are your target audiences, the Whats are your goals, the Hows are your KPIs and targets
and the Whys are the objectives196.
So, are we clear as to what we can expect from each element in the Digital Marketing Measurement
Model? Are we clear as to why each one is really, really, really important to get the most out of every digital
marketing action? You sure? Then let’s do this!
Warning: Objectives vs. Goals Drama
So first, a disclaimer. There’s an ongoing discussion as to what is a goal, what is an objective and which one
should be higher in the strategic chain197. I find that this discussion, although valid, is of a more semantic
rather than practical nature.
In my native language, for example, objectives take on the definition that other languages would use for
goals, and goals take on the definition that other languages would use for objectives.
193
Kaushik, Avinash. (2009). “Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity”. Sybex.
194
The more canny of you will notice that the obvious question here is “Why?”.
195
Why? The objective is your answer.
196
Who are we doing this for? What are we doing? How are we doing? Why are we doing it?
197
This, I suspect, probably will be an endless argument.
The truth is, beyond vision and mission and regardless of semantics, the cycle just repeats itself at different
levels in a recursive manner. There’s a vision of a future state and a mission informing what to do, how to do
it and who to do it for.
In our particular model, I’ll stick with Avinash Kaushik’s definitions. Objectives will be our “What do we need
to do to enable our mission?” questions. Should we be raising awareness? Growing a community? Generating
leads?
Goals, on the other hand, will be defined as the specific actions that can enable objectives to come to
fruition. They are definable, and have clear indicators that can be attached to them to unequivocally measure
performance.
What can we do to raise awareness? We can host an event. What can we do to foster a community? We
create a moderated forum for discussion. What can we do to capture leads? Contact forms and a phone
usually work pretty well.
What you want for a goal, and this is non-negotiable, is to have measurable data. You need hard data to
compare your expectations of the outcome of the tactic to its ultimate reality. Only that’s what’ll close a full
cycle of performance marketing.
Still not convinced? Google Analytics states that goals “...measure how well your site or app fulfills your target
objectives”, and that without them “...it’s almost impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of your online
business and marketing campaigns”. There198.
Objectives
So, objectives. Having identified your audiences and your vision and mission statements, you now need
to chart everything you need to do to deliver on your promise. These are your “Why are we doing this?”
questions at the strategic level.
All your past projects should have had a “Why did we do this?”. Your current endeavors should have a “Why
are we doing this?” as well. And it goes without saying that all your future projects should have a “Why will we
be doing that?”.
An objective is something that drives a project’s mission forward. A presidential candidate’s campaign could
have “raise awareness of policy stances”, “drive supporters to contribute” and “appeal to the undecided base”
as a couple of its core objectives.
The strategists at the presidential candidate’s communication team believe pursuing these objectives will
help increase the odds of fulfilling an even higher objective, which is to win the elections to get sworn into
office. So:
• Objective: raise awareness of policy stances
• Objective: drive supporters to contribute
• Objective: draw undecided base
The thing people find unsettling about objectives is that they’re hardly ever as concrete as they’d like.
Although uncomfortable, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Objectives are just what we have determined to
be the desirable outcomes of our goals.
A general tip I use in the development of actionable objectives is to be sure that, from them, I can articulate
a series of goals to reach them. “Be great”, to me, is not an attainable objective. It’s too subjective for almost
anyone to derive any action from it.
“Raise awareness of policy stances”, however, is actionable. Do we want to raise awareness? Yes! Are there
198
And if still not convinced, well, feel free to switch them around.
many ways to make that happen? Yes! Can I visualize a roadmap to it? Yes! Is it objective enough to be
attainable? Yes!
Keep in mind that, while not every digital marketing goal needs to serve all objectives at once, no
objective should step on another one’s toes. Conflicting objectives create a strain in your digital marketing
development, stalling your efforts across the board.
Exercise 5.1
It’s time to list the objectives that your digital marketing project will pursue.
Just like with the mission:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Are they clear?
Are they concise?
Are they challenging?
Are they inspiring?
Remember that, from them, immediate actionability must flow.
Goals
Now you need to identify actionable goals for each objective. These are your “What do we have to do to
further these objectives?” questions. Goals are always closely tied to concrete digital marketing tactics that
provide direct indicators of success or failure.
As such, goals are all actions closely tied to measurable quantities that can help us reach a specific objective.
One of the presidential candidate campaign’s immediate goals could be very well be to develop a website to
“raise awareness of policy stances”.
The reasoning behind this could be that a website, as an informational hub, is a good technological fit for the
candidate’s main supporter base. As such, it’s an interesting option when considering factors such as reach,
cost and measurability.
It also could be that the strategists visualize a scenario in which the website is valuable because it can also
help them further other objectives. A website can be an excellent tool to efficiently coordinate the active
supporter base or capture its donations.
At this level, goals should always strive to be DUMB:
•
•
•
•
Doable: they need to be within your power to execute.
Understandable: avoid unintelligible gibberish and meaningless buzzwords199.
Measurable: they need to be quantifiable in some way.
Beneficial: no point in shooting oneself in the foot, right?
Now here’s a fork in the road. The presidential candidate campaign’s website could be a static piece that
rarely, if ever, changes. Or it could also be a dynamic website powered by constantly evolving and adaptive
content.
On one hand, a static website is quick to develop and cheap in resources, at the risk that the final product
might not be as useful and relevant to the user over time as the campaign goes on and its content grows
stale.
On the other hand, although a dynamic website has a slower development time and higher resource cost,
the final product can be extremely versatile, useful and relevant to its user, possibly yielding a far greater
return on investment down the road.
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“We need to organically monetize our onboarding”... what?!
Although both alternatives have the potential to serve the candidate’s objectives in their own ways, it’s the
project’s vision and mission, its knowledge of its audiences and its defined objectives that will ultimately help
define the road to follow. So:
• Objective: raise awareness of policy stances
• Goal (See): invest in paid online display advertising
• Goal (Think): schedule Reddit AMA
• Goal (Do): capture voter email information
• Objective: drive supporters to contribute
• Goal (Think): develop informational video
• Goal (Do): capture donations through contributions form
• Objective: draw undecided base
• Goal (See): develop the comparative issues social infographic
• Goal (Think): deploy one-on-one offline volunteer encounters
• Goal (Do): develop the “join the campaign” newsletter form
You can see that goals have an audience mindset associated with them. As we have established, it’s
important to measure fish by their ability to swim, birds by their ability to fly, and monkeys by their ability to
climb.
Were the campaign’s digital team to measure the effectiveness of the “invest in paid online advertising” goal
in furthering the “raise awareness of policy stances” objective in terms of donations accrued or other hard
Do actions, they will always be let down.
If they want to solve for those kinds of outcomes, they have to develop digital marketing actions that address
the “drive supporters to contribute” objective, and that begins with acknowledging that a See message rarely
overlaps with a Do message.
A good idea is to understand the objective at hand and think of what See, Think and Do goals look like for it.
If you want to drive supporters to contribute, you are better off designing a goal that furthers that specific
objective.
Exercise 5.2
Now you get to jot down all the goals you think are relevant to your objectives.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Are they doable?
Are they understandable?
Are they measurable?
Are they beneficial?
Write all goals that come to mind. If previously required goals emerge while writing, find the appropriate objective
and write it down. If there’s no obvious objective in which to place it, maybe you need to generate a new objective.
Warning: Futureproofing
It’s interesting that, in the pursuit of their objectives, the digital team at the presidential candidate’s
campaign now faces a decision that may ultimately affect not only this goal’s immediate objective but several
others down the road as well.
Sometimes a goal can go on to serve multiple objectives, even if it can’t right now. It’s okay to take this into
consideration, as long as the case for the goal’s future impact on those other objectives can be reasonably
made at the time of decision.
Although more expensive, the case for a dynamic website over a static one can be made when considering
the importance of staying on top of the latest hot-button issues. In this matter, a platform built with content
management in mind is an excellent idea.
However, if the presidential candidate’s digital team cannot make the case for the long-term advantages of
investing in a dynamic website, even if they might not be needed now, the project will need to do without it
or reinvest heavily down the road.
Warning II: Bundling
As with objectives, there’s a classic pitfall in the scoping of goals: bundling. Bundling is failing to break down
objectives into specific goals adequately, resulting in the loss of focus associated with the combination of
many into one.
An example could be the desire of the presidential candidate’s digital team to execute an AdWords ad
campaign action and website development action all at once. Although related, each action needs to be
considered a separate digital marketing endeavor.
One reason is that an AdWords display campaign requires a URL to point the ads to (e.g. www.
bigkahunaforpresident.com). So if the domain is not purchased and the website is not developed ahead of
time, the AdWords campaign will have nowhere to point to.
Another, and quite possibly more important, reason to avoid bundling in this case is that an AdWords
campaign’s goals may serve objectives unrelated to the website. When unintentionally bundled, goal’s with
unrelated objectives cause strain in execution.
Wrongfully bundled goals can make determining the success and failure conditions of each action extremely
difficult. Their KPIs, if found at all, can end up being too removed to be effective indicators of any real
change.
We’ll dive into the specifics of each medium later. For now, start making good use of your knowledge of goals
to think about what do you know that could enable you in the pursuit of your objectives right away.
Key Performance Indicators
If there’s a “what”, there has to be a “how” to go along with it200. Actual relevant metrics, also known as KPIs
or key performance indicators, are the absolutely essential yardsticks used to measure performance at the
tactic level.
Key performance indicators in the digital space usually take on the form of dimensions or metrics. These
pieces of aggregate data play an integral role in what is commonly known as analytics, the discovery of
meaningful patterns in data.
The key distinction between a worthless vanity metric and a KPI is that, if it doesn’t move the bottomline
of your objective, it’s not a KPI. This is so important I’ll repeat it one more time. If it doesn’t move the
bottomline of your objective, it’s not a KPI.
If your objective is to draw an audience to your site through a series of Facebook posts, all the “likes” or
“comments” or “shares” in the world are worthless. Likes, although a fine metric, are irrelevant when
determining if a crowd is converging on a site.
Site sessions accrued with “facebook” as the source and “posts” as the medium, on the other hand, are a
much better key performance indicator of success if your objective is to draw your audience to your site
through your social media posts goal.
I insist: with KPIs, it’s all about being as relevant to your objective as possible. The closer you can get to what
really makes or breaks fulfilling an objective, the better. If it doesn’t move the bottom-line, it’s not a KPI!
200
In this case, it’s more of a “how are we doing?”.
Data source: Google Analytics.
In analytics, dimensions are descriptive attributes associated with your audience. The geographical location
they’re logging in from. The URL of the page in your site in which they landed. Their assigned origin of traffic
and specific medium for it.
Simply put, they are all the pieces of information that are accounted for with words, not numbers. Interests,
referring advertising campaign names, the device used to browse your site, specific campaign goals, etc.
In the Google Analytics image above, dimensions are highlighted by the bounding blue box. Source/medium
is the general dimension, with google / organic, (direct) / (none) and images.google.fr / referral being specific
subcategories.
Above the bounding blue box, you can see the possibility of using other dimensions to slice and dice your
data in different ways. Choosing the right dimension is a crucial step in extracting valuable information from
your aggregate data.
Data source: Google Analytics.
Metrics, on the other hand, are the numbers, not the words. The count of sessions logged by your analytics
tool. The percentage of new sessions over returning ones. Bounce rate. Conversion rate. Product revenue.
Unique purchases.
Metrics are the numerical side of analytics. They combine with dimensions to illustrate valuable insight into
an audience’s behavior. In the image above, the bounding blue box highlights the metrics present in the
table.
As with dimensions, some metrics are more important than others when analyzing digital marketing
performance. These are what we call KPIs, and they’re our go-to thermometers to gauge success or failure.
Having fuzzy KPIs can be as bad, or even worse, as having no KPIs whatsoever. Choosing and measuring truly
relevant metrics is an essential and uncompromising task that takes time and effort. So a good starting point
might be:
• Objective: raise awareness of policy stances
• Goal (See): invest in paid online display advertising
• KPI: % impression share
• Goal (Think): schedule Reddit AMA
• KPI: # sessions from source: reddit & campaign: ama
• Goal (Do): capture voter email information
• KPI: # voter forms received
• Objective: drive supporters to contribute
• Goal (Think): develop informational video
• KPI: % average view duration
• Goal (Do): capture donations through contributions form
• KPI: # average donation value
• Objective: draw undecided base
• Goal (See): develop the comparative issues social infographic
• KPI: % amplification rate
• Goal (Think): deploy one-on-one offline volunteer encounters
• KPI: # referrals from source: offline & medium: volunteer referral
• Goal (Do): develop the “join the campaign” newsletter form
• KPI: # newsletter sign-ups
There we go. We have our objectives, our goals and our KPIs primed. This, however, can look rather
intimidating at first, so let me go through the first three KPIs under the “raise awareness of policy stances”
objective.
The first KPI measures the percentage of impressions the ads in the campaign accrued in relation to all
eligible impression opportunities for your keywords. If we’re falling short due to quality or budget, we can
tweak our campaign to maximize our reach.
The second KPI measures how many sessions our site received from Reddit as a traffic source after our
“Ask Me Anything” campaign. With a properly UTM tagged link, we can know if our AMA made a splash with
Reddit’s audience or if it bombed.
The third KPI measures the number of voter information forms received from our site’s sign-up form. Now
we know if people are finding our campaign important enough to allow us to continue the conversation
straight through their inbox.
Exercise 5.3
Take some time to figure out which KPIs are relevant to your objectives and assign them.
1. If you put the work in, are the KPIs assigned a measurable quantity?
2. If they go up, are you directly closer to fulfilling your objective?
3. If they go down, can you consider the goal a bust?
Got it? Can you get a feel as to how the KPIs empower someone chasing the project’s objectives? Can you see
their unique relevance? With every layer, the digital marketing strategy is supposed to look more and more
like a tactics backlog.
That’s the point. A quick reference chart to look and know if things are going favorably or not. KPIs go a long
way in making this possible. However, before we go on to targets, there’s an additional recommendation I
would like to make here.
Two-KPI System
I want to thank both Avinash Kaushik and a former boss of mine for this insight. KPIs, however relevant and
accurate, can also be misinterpreted. There’s an inherent ambiguity in their simplicity, and too many analysts
have fallen prey to it.
Once upon a time, a company I worked at had recently gone through a total site overhaul. Design,
functionality, the works. Averaging at 1,000,000 sessions a month, this was a big deal. A lot of money had
been spent, and senior eyes were watching.
We had Google Analytics installed201, so we had plenty of user behavior data readily available, before and
after the site conversion. Flat-screen TVs had been mounted on office walls to make critical dashboards
available to everyone.
Almost as soon as the new site went up, our traffic doubled. After a couple of days, it tripled. Hats were
flying through the sky. Everyone, myself included, assumed that the new site was a raging success, and that
imminent boni were incoming.
Not the case. My boss wasn’t celebrating. She actually looked if not worried, then downright skeptical.
According to her, something didn’t add up, so she asked me to conduct an in-depth analysis of this
miraculous spike.
I’ll admit I was more than a bit miffed202. We’d all worked very hard to pull this launch off. I couldn’t
understand her attitude. To strike gold in such a way was a career-making opportunity. Why was she being
such a curmudgeon about it?
I cracked open my analysis toolkit and got to work. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until, of course, odd
things began to pop up. A quintuplication of visits to a section that had mostly remained unchanged. Referral
traffic coming from within. Uh oh.
On a hunch, and after a quick series of diagnostics and phone calls, I sought out the Google Analytics
implementation team for this project and asked about the analytics implementation protocol for the
redesigned site.
Turns out, the team in charge of it only had partial authority over the site’s code, so they had to improvise
a workaround to implement the tracking software on time. Tying two and two together, I slowly went and
picked up my hat. This was about to get bad.
The site’s redesign hadn’t been a hit. Not much had actually changed. Certainly not enough to celebrate as
we had. The workaround solution had created duplicate tracking scenarios and tracking holes within the site.
My boss’ hypothesis was, sadly, sound.
I relayed this information. Surprisingly, she took it in stride. She asked for suggestions as to how could we
spot this faster in the future. Amidst the chaos, I took a page out of Avinash’s book. From now on, all KPIs
should be paired with an auxiliary KPI.
An auxiliary KPI is a secondary metric that, when checked, lets an analyst know if a primary KPIs upwards or
downwards trend is backed up by related data. If sessions spike but bounce rate also skyrockets, maybe hold
off on that celebratory party.
With an auxiliary KPI in place, if the primary KPI changes all you have to do is quickly check the secondary
metric to be sure that nothing is obviously funky. That way, if something is amiss, the odds of it slipping by
are substantially lowered.
A single KPI, while undeniably effective, is a dangerous proposition when evaluating the success or failure
of a goal. A single KPI paired with an auxiliary KPI, on the other hand, can be powerful performance
measurement and control tools.
Targets
The next piece of the puzzle is setting targets for your KPIs. Targets are absolutely essential to your
201
… and Optimizely, and CrazyEgg, and Kissmetrics, and blah blah blah...
202
Skepticism is something you learn to appreciate and trust over time.
marketing projects because, without them, there is no way to know if you are achieving your goals and
meeting success or failure.
Consider this. The candidate’s campaign launches a Youtube video campaign. Views trickle in and a few
comments pop up here and there. Would you say the campaign is a hit? Would you say it tanked? Who
knows! There’s just not enough information!
Targets give our KPIs context. So how do we go about setting them? Well, accurate targeting requires a good
deal of knowledge about what you’re about to embark upon, which in turn requires historical data and
reliance on experts in the field.
Without the historical data or the experts required to crunch up a reasonable forecast for your action, your
best bet is to take a look at the closest neighbor and draw up a reasonable expectation. This is what’s known
as competitive benchmarking.
Benchmarking
Ah, benchmarking. A time-honored management tradition if there ever was one. If you have no past
performance records of your own to use as targets, competitive benchmarking is usually what’s considered
the next best thing available.
As once defined203, benchmarking is “...the process of comparing one’s business processes and performance
metrics to industry bests or best practices from other companies”. In plain terms, it’s basically taking a look
at what others are doing.
In 1994, the first Internet banner ad had a 44% click-through rate204. That’s right, 44%. Back then,
approximately one out of two people who saw the ad clicked on it. Do you even know how many banner ads
you’ve already seen today, and didn’t click?
Here’s a hint. In 2015, the average Google display ad click-through rate is somewhere between 0.09% and
0.30%205. Again, no, I didn’t mistype. In twenty years, banner ad performance has dropped right through the
floor.
While you could benchmark a target out of your current competitor’s performance, slap it onto your action
and call it a day, you should also be aware that, as Bob Dylan says, the times they’re a-changin’. In digital
marketing, double-time.
0.15% click-through rate could be a perfectly good benchmark target for your next display campaign, or not.
Ad blocking software is still on the rise, which could mean that digital advertising’s effectiveness is about to
take another serious hit.
Inherently, there’s no problem with setting the bar too high or too low on your first high jump. At best, you’ll
sail over it and will have to raise it to compete for first place. At worst, you’ll hit the bar and hopefully land on
the mattress.
The problem is when we don’t get another chance to jump, or the bar is actually barbwire fence. In
these extreme cases, we leave ourselves little wiggle room for uncertainty and lack of information. This,
unsurprisingly, generates paralyzing fear.
While I’m certainly not advocating for decision-making in an information vacuum, I feel that our fear of
setting targets is ingrained deep in the consequences of being wrong, and what that could spell for both us
and our project.
203
Damn you, Wikipedia!
204
McCambley, Joe. (12 December 2013). “The first ever banner ad: why did it work so well?”. The Guardian. Retrieved 5
October 2016.
205
Google. “Rich Media Gallery”. Richmediagallery.com. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
The actual fear in forecasting is usually the same, regardless of discipline: results. Aim too high and you
might waste resources without achieving your goal. Aim too low and you still might waste resources due to
how inefficient you were.
The trick, I think, is taking a leaf out of the high jumper’s book and setting initial targets that allow us to test
our abilities without incurring in critical damage. Start small, eyeball it. Just make sure that, regardless of
outcome, you get to try again.
I know it’s not as exciting as going all out right out of the gate. Still, if you miss, you get to keep your teeth.
As David McRaney puts it, “...success boils down to serially avoiding catastrophic failure while routinely
absorbing manageable damage”. So:
• Objective: raise awareness of policy stances
• Goal (See): invest in paid online display advertising
• KPI: % impression share
• Target: >90%
• Goal (Think): schedule Reddit AMA
• KPI: # sessions from source: reddit and campaign: ama
• Target: >50,000
• Goal (Do): capture voter email information
• KPI: # voter forms received
• Target: >25,000
• Objective: drive supporters to contribute
• Goal (Think): develop informational video
• KPI: % average view duration
• Target: >30%
• Goal (Do): capture donations through contributions form
• KPI: average donation value
• Target: >$35
• Objective: draw undecided base
• Goal (See): develop the comparative issues social infographic
• KPI: % amplification rate
• Target: >2%
• Goal (Think): deploy one-on-one offline volunteer encounters
• KPI: # referrals from source: offline & medium: volunteer referral
• Target: >10% of overall referral traffic
• Goal (Do): develop the “join the campaign” newsletter form
• KPI: # newsletter sign-ups
• Target: >5,000
Of course, some of these targets are still lacking a timeframe. While “ideally before the story is over” can be
a valid timeframe for a small percentage of the goals to be achieved, the vast majority usually needs to be
called a success or a failure earlier.
Take into account the expected duration of your action when determining what an acceptable target for
a goal might look like. KPIs rarely hold steady indefinitely, and can even fluctuate pretty wildly within the
confines of an action’s intended timeframe.
As you can see, I’ve prepended a greater-than sign to some of the campaign’s targets. I did this to make a
point and that is to remember that, regardless of your available information, chances are you’ll miss the
mark. At least by a few pennies.
We use numbers because they are compact indicators. It’s more often the case that we have a fuzzy
predictive range in our mind, and numbers are the average or best compromise available to convey our
expectations.
So we need an objective, goals to reach it, KPIs to measure our performance and targets to give said
performance context. Without targets, we can’t really know how much better or worse we’re doing in
relation to our context.
As you can imagine, few at the time could’ve foreseen how Columbus’ journey would play out206. Still, you
better believe timetables and expected venture profits were on the royal table way before he ever sailed off.
So:
Exercise 5.4
Assign targets to your KPIs.
1. Did you do your due research?
2. Are they realistic targets for your intended goal?
Segments
And finally, segments. The element which will turn your grey blob digital marketing action into a laserfocused, insight-yielding, profit-making machine. Your audience, unsurprisingly, is a vital component even
here.
The presidential candidate’s digital team, when designing the campaign’s next action, realizes advertising has
little use outside the country. Considering this, they decide to concentrate the display campaign within the
country’s geographical limits.
On the other hand, when analyzing, the team is curious as to the audience’s interest in the candidate’s
different policy stances across the different age brackets. They segment according to this criteria and gauge
which stance is most popular with each bracket.
Segmentation is essential to zero in on the important. It’s a delicate task, as careless segmentation criteria
may leave out important information, skew the data and yield false insight. However, I’m assuming the
campaign’s team knows this, so:
• Objective: raise awareness of policy stances
• Goal (See): invest in paid online display advertising
• KPI: % impression share
• Target: >90%
• Segment: age bracket
• Goal (Think): schedule Reddit AMA
• KPI: # sessions from source: reddit and campaign: ama
• Target: >50,000
• Segment: geography (city)
• Goal (Do): capture voter email information
• KPI: # voter forms received
• Target: >25,000
• Segment: referring page
• Objective: drive supporters to contribute
• Goal (Think): develop informational video
• KPI: % average view duration
• Target: >30%
• Segment: sharing device
• Goal (Do): capture donations through contributions form
• KPI: average donation value
• Target: >$35
206
Except for the Vikings. And the Chinese. And a whole lot of other people.
• Segment: top conversion paths
• Objective: draw undecided base
• Goal (See): develop the comparative issues social infographic
• KPI: % amplification rate
• Target: >2%
• Segment: social channel
• Goal (Think): deploy one-on-one offline volunteer encounters
• KPI: # referrals from source: offline & medium: volunteer referral
• Target: >10% of overall referral traffic
• Segment: geography (metro)
• Goal (Do): develop the “join the campaign” newsletter form
• KPI: # newsletter sign-ups
• Target: >5,000
• Segment: source/medium
Crazy, right? With audience segmentation, your planning and later analysis take on a whole new level of
relevance. “Aha!” moments will now be closer than ever and, more importantly, you’ll be able to keep things
even more focused on what matters most.
Each segment listed above is valuable due to the fact that it sheds a little more light onto each goal’s
performance. A age-bracket segmentation of our display campaigns, for example, helps us better
understand our message’s digital reach across generations.
That being said, please be judicious when segmenting. It makes no sense to measure “% non-bounce
sessions” of your display campaigns if your segment is just “non-bounce sessions”. Of course it will always be
over 70%. In fact, it will never be less than 100%!
A good indicator of proper segmentation is the feeling that you’re zooming in on the action to get a closer
look without leaving out anything important. Always keep in mind that sloppy segmentation can yield false
positives and send you on a wild goose chase!
Exercise 5.5
Choose the right segments to further slice and dice your actions.
1. Do they shed additional light on your goal’s future performance?
2. Can you picture the “Aha!” moment?
3. You’re not leaving anything important out, right?
Segmentation is that additional layer of audience-centric zoom that separates the precious insight from the
worthless data goop. It is a very powerful technique that requires a little forethought in order to position the
lens just right.
With segmentation squared away, you now have the power to traverse your entire digital marketing strategy
from your topmost objectives, all the way down through your goals to your specific marketing actions and
actual results.
The Checklist
And that’s it. That’s all there is to it. You now have your Whos, your Whats, your Hows and your Whys.
Everything is set into place and, because you hopefully got it all printed and pinned in sight, things will pop
out like never before.
If the requirements listed are met, all your past digital marketing projects can be dissected and analyzed as
case studies for future reference to drive even more insight, action and profit. It’s also a good way to give a
little context to your current situation.
There is, however, a danger in using these concepts retroactively. You may be tempted to fill in the gaps.
Remember that without a previous and explicitly stated objective, it’s always a temptation to skew the data
to bathe a project in favorable light. Don’t do this.
If you have ongoing digital marketing projects you fear might be missing a critical piece in their design,
there’s no better way check for this than by asking yourself the Who/What/How/Why questions.
•
•
•
•
Who are we doing it for?
What are we doing?
How are we doing it?
Why are we doing it?
Vertical Alignment
You now know how to set objectives that will guide every digital marketing effort you’ll ever make towards
your vision and mission. You also know how to tie those objectives to actual goals that can make your actions
turn a profit.
It gets better! You now know how to pair expectations with actual hypotheses and can set relevant key
performance indicators to take out large chunks of guesswork as to the actual effectiveness of your digital
marketing actions.
You also now know how to set targets and timeframes, so you can have the context required to make
accurate assessments as to whether the efforts you’re investing into your digital marketing actions are
yielding the expected results or not.
And finally, you now know how to choose a specific segment of your audience to drive relevance through the
roof. Using whichever relevant segmentation lens you choose, you can now take a closer look at the data to
mine those hidden gems we all covet.
With all these variables set, you now have the diamond-hard backbone your digital marketing strategy
needs. You’ll be able to distinguish which projects are useless duds on the basis that they will either further
your objectives, or they won’t.
Now that useless vanity metrics are out of the way, you’ll be certain that each project has the potential to
have a real impact on your revenue. Remember, though: measuring a fish by its ability to climb is always a
mistake, so choose mindset-appropriate KPIs.
It’s been hard work, so sincerely congratulate you on your efforts. Some people are happier not owning up
to what they do because, if you’re not clear on how you’re making an impact, you can’t be held accountable if
you fail207.
All that remains now is to talk about your options. Is it going to be social media marketing? Is it going to be
email? Are you going to rely on referrals and affiliates? Are you going to dab on paid advertising? Let’s take a
look!
207
Not true.
Chapter 6: Digital Media
Seth’s Blog: A Pair of Yellow Glasses
If I were to ask you to google the term “seth”, odds are Seth Godin’s blog would be your top ranked result208.
I’m not a psychic, though, and it ain’t magic. For most people, googling “seth” has yielded Seth’s blog as the
top result for who knows how long now.
Why would you google “seth”, though? I mean, unless you’re a religious scholar or are on first name terms
with the creator of “Family Guy”, there’s little reason to search the term without a bit more specificity to yield
a more relevant result.
That being said, having your blog as Google’s top search result for a one-word term is not a bad icebreaker
if you’re a marketing genius. He gets to say his blog outranks anything Rogen, MacFarlane, Rollins, Green or
Meyers might’ve got going on209.
Seth’s blog crossed the 6,000 post mark last year on September 2015. A little bit of math tells us that,
assuming he’s written a post every single day since he started, he’s been writing for over 16 years. In case
you missed it, that’s 6,000 blog posts210.
Source: Google.
I receive Seth’s daily blog posts straight in my inbox. Nothing fancy, just an email with a plain text
transcription of the day’s update, with not so much as an image to go along with it. In 2015, I received over
300 emails from him.
Over 300 email in 2015 alone. Take a moment to let that sink in. That’s more chances for him to screw up and
me to hit the unsubscribe button than any digital marketer in their right mind would ever advise a client to
take, ever. Ever.
Think of how you’d feel if someone were to pester you with email at least once a day, every day, for a whole
year, like clockwork. By the third month you’d be mashing the report S.P.A.M. button so hard your mouse
would probably snap in half.
Now the twist. In the last year or so, not only did I read every single one of Seth’s 300+ emails, but I also
purchased three of his books211, took two or three of his online courses, and have been following his latest
project, the altMBA, closely.
208
… ads notwithstanding.
209
Best of all, he doesn’t even have to say it. It’s implied, and you usually pick up on this.
210
He’s actually been writing since 1989, but we’ll only take into account his Typepad blog.
211
“What to Do When It’s Your Turn”, “Tribes” and “All Marketers Are Liars”. Yes, I’ve read all of them.
Commercially speaking, most projects would consider this transactional track record a good year212. Not only
in the amount of cash forked over for three books and two online courses, but also in the amount of times
that I as a customer said “Yes!”.
How does a project manage to make very personal contact with its audience over 300 times in a single year?
More importantly, why has this approach managed not only not to destroy the relationship, but to actually
develop it? Read on.
Man Is a Creature of Habit
Here’s a dirty little secret of my own. The first time I subscribed to Seth’s blog? I hated it. Shhhh! It’s true,
though. I detested the experience. After receiving the blog’s first two updates in my inbox, I unsubscribed.
After only two days, I already wanted out.
No, he hadn’t tried to sell me anything. No, the posts hadn’t been overly long213. I just wasn’t used to it. I
had grown accustomed to managing a particular dynamic within my inbox. Seth’s frequency and brand of
rhetoric was just too alien for me at the time.
I guess you could say it’s not really fair to cross something out just because you’re not used to it. You’re
absolutely right, and I agree. But then again, this is our inbox we’re talking about. Years of battle against
“unsolicited email” has hardened my heart.
Another twist. I had unsubscribed from Seth’s blog after taking an online course of his. That’s right. Two tiny,
little, non-commercial emails of his had undone all of the goodwill he had built up with his course over the
couple of days it had taken me to finish it.
Source: sethgodin.com
And trust me, he had built a solid stockpile of goodwill with that course. It was interesting, it was fresh, it hit
all the right spots214. After finishing the course and wanting more of his work, logically, I went to his blog and
subscribed right away.
212
A very, very, very good year.
213
In fact, Seth keeps them quite short by today’s standards, which I think may be part of a secret sauce of his.
214
It was also one of my very first structured eLearning experiences.
In only a couple of days I was already regretting it. What was he even rambling about? What was this
philosophical babble trickling into my inbox? Where was the entertainment, the education, the insight?
I felt embarrassed. Had I been tricked? Was all the excitement I had built up with this course of his nothing
more than the enthusiasm of an amateur listening to a swindler? Oh no... had I really given a cheat access to
my inbox? What would everyone else think?
I’m dead serious. This is exactly how it went down and I have the email logs to prove it. The shock was strong
enough that it put me off from tackling another course I had already purchased from this other guy for
almost three months215.
Still, as the days passed and the months wore on, Seth’s ideas stuck. Sure, his emails had been a
disappointment, but that didn’t make his course any less valuable. It wasn’t long before I found myself
coming back to it to refresh on some of its wisdom.
The course was good. It was, in fact, so good that after a while I found myself thinking “This guy is really,
really clever. Maybe he deserves another shot?”. So after a couple of months, I resubscribed. This time
around, though, I was suddenly “getting it”216.
Since then, I’ve allowed Seth to contact me over 400 times through email alone. I’ve purchased three of his
books and took another one of his courses. They’ve all been very interesting experiences and I’m glad I gave
him another chance.
There’s, of course, a perfectly reasonable explanation as to how Seth managed to crank out over 400 email
updates and turn disappointment into enthusiasm. We’ve already talked about this several times, and we’ll
talk about it again.
Value. Each one of Seth’s blog posts is a reflection on something he’s noticed that he thinks his audience
might find worthwhile. Sometimes, it’s a piece of marketing advice. Sometimes, it’s the reframing of an old
idea. Sometimes, it’s a provocation.
If you find someone’s interactions with you entertaining, interesting or valuable, if you expect them to be
so and you find the idea of having them desirable and worth your time, then you will start anticipating said
interactions. You’ll want more.
In 2015, I gave Seth Godin permission to contact me everyday with a blog post update of his. In 2016, I start
each day by reading the latest one available with my morning coffee. From an unsubscription to a daily
routine, Seth’s advice has become a habit217.
Consistent delivery of delightful interactions have managed to turn an unwelcome situation into a daily ritual
I look forward to. Say what you will, it’s more than what many multibillion dollar companies get to say of their
relationships with their audiences.
Opening the Door for Everyone Else
Nowadays218, I receive regular updates from Seth Godin’s “Seth’s Blog”, Steven Pressfield’s “Writing
Wednesday’s”, and Avinash Kaushik’s “The Marketing <> Analytics Intersect”. I enjoy them all, and am
supremely happy to have allowed them through.
And yes, in case you’re wondering, I’ve transacted with all of them. In most cases, more than once. What’s
funny, though, is that none of the people behind these newsletters were the ones who cultivated my
215
Gary Vaynerchuk. You might’ve heard of him.
216
Don’t ask me how or why, something eventually just clicks.
217
Never, ever, underestimate the power of habit. Read Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit”.
218
September 07, 2016.
predisposition towards content email marketing.
No, the ones who actually managed to do it were Steve Kamb and David Kadavy, of Nerd Fitness and Design
for Hackers fame. These two guys, wielding totally unrelated subjects, convinced me of the value of letting
someone through to my inbox.
Steve Kamb is the man behind Nerd Fitness, a company devoted to helping “...desk jockeys, nerds, and
average Joes level up their lives”219. If you’re a nerd and have a hard time staying in shape and/or eating
healthy, Steve’s the bee’s knees.
Mr. Kadavy is the mastermind behind Design for Hackers. He’s an absolute nut for understanding the
intricacies of a problem and boiling it down to basics using a designer’s mindset220. If you have a “Why?”,
David’s got the “Because”.
So one’s a fitness trainer, and the other one’s a web designer? What’s so special about that? Ah, my friend,
but as we know, it’s not the “what” that defines us, is it? It’s the “how”, the “why” and, perhaps most
important of all, the “who”.
See, Steve knows his fair share about fitness and dieting, like most fitness trainers. However, unlike most
fitness trainers, he uses a rather different approach to it. He’s got different reasons for doing it. And it all
hinges on understanding who he’s talking to221.
And David’s just like Steve. Yes, design is his principal area of expertise. His toolkit, if you will. However, he
uses these tools in a unique way. He has different reasons for doing what he does. And again, it all started by
understanding who he was talking to222.
What Steve and David also have in common is that they got me hooked on their advice by giving me a hand
before asking for a fiver223. They knew that I had a problem, one that they could help me solve with what they
knew.
So they helped me. For free. They gave me access to content and knowledge other people in their line of
work would’ve charged me a fortune for. No tricks. No shenanigans. Just a blog where they wrote and I read.
And you know what? The problems got solved. I read, and learnt, and interiorized Steve and David’s
knowledge. I applied what they had taught me, and the problems got solved. They hadn’t asked for anything,
but you can bet I felt grateful.
I kept coming back to Nerd Fitness and Design for Hackers, again and again. The more Steve and David’s
advice worked, the more I trusted them. The more I trusted them, the more I payed attention. The more I
payed attention, the more I expected them.
So when the time came and they said “Hey, I developed this new course for you, 100% free of charge, I just
need an email address to send it to”, you can bet I didn’t tiptoe around it. I pressed the “Submit” button as
fast as I could.
And now, hey, look at that! Not only were those free courses they emailed great, now they’re sending me
their amazing blog updates and even more free useful content straight to my inbox. I don’t even have to visit
their site anymore. Convenient!
219
“Welcome Home”. Nerd Fitness. Retrieved October 5 2016.
220
“The Man Behind Kadavy.net”. Kadavy.net. Retrieved October 5 2016.
221
Nerd Fitness. Fitness for Nerds, by Nerds.
222
Design for Hackers.
223
Fiver. Favor. Call it whatever you want. They gave before they asked.
It’s Spelled DOOM. D-O-O-M.
You can probably see where I’m going with this. To both Steve and David224, the game is all about scoring
enough wins with their free content before asking their audiences if they’re interested in springing for the
paid thing. You know, if they really want to.
Neither of them rush you, nor come across as pushy. They help you, free of charge, with resources and
knowledge they already have. And so you begin your journey across their product flow225, each time
voluntarily inching closer to that paid gateway.
Which, of course, must hide on the other side the largest treasure trove of knowledge mankind has ever
seen! I mean, think about it. If this guy is giving all of this away for free, what’s he got in there that he’s willing
to charge for it?
In the digital space, the marginal cost of serving content to one more person is next to nothing. To you
and me, however, the right kind of content can help us get out of a pickle in a way that couldn’t have been
possible before without shelling cash.
Not only that, but if the content works, then both Steve and David get props without breaking a sweat. If it
doesn’t, hey, at least you didn’t pay for it, right? Hardly the kind of stuff to get worked up about, especially if
it didn’t take up too much of your time.
Not exactly groundbreaking, too, when you think it over. Seth was already doing it in the 1980’s. Before him,
Jell-O was inventing the gelatin market by giving away free Jell-O cookbooks to American housewives in the
early 1900’s226.
It’s funny, though. I think I never ended up paying either Steve or David a single nickel for the slew of useful
information they gave me over the years. I did end up transacting with many who came after them and
stood on their shoulders, but never with them.
Why am I bringing this up just now? Because it just goes to show that free content, however amazing, is just
that. Free content. If it’s not relevant, if it’s not valuable, if there’s no strategy to capitalize on it down the
road? You’ll starve.
It doesn’t seem like Steve and David are starving, though. Far from it. Their product flow for my specific
persona may need some additional tweaking but, as far as I can tell, they’re still going strong. In fact, they
now seem to be doing better than ever.
I hope they don’t resent me. I did end up recommending them to several friends of mine. That’s probably
valuable in and of itself. To this day, I still resubscribe to Nerd Fitness’ newsletter every now and then. Maybe
next time it’ll stick.
Keyword: Tactical!
I still get more than my fair share of rolled eyes each time I suggest an email marketing approach. I mean,
email? Ewww. That’s so 90’s! Most people just don’t think spam can cut it and deliver on results227. And
they’re right. Spam can’t cut it and deliver on results228.
224
… and Seth, and Steven, and Avinash, and Buffer, and Hubspot, and Google, and X, and Y, and Z...
225
Yes, not a funnel, a flow. We come and go, like Paula Abdul says, taking two steps forward and one step back.
226
“THE HISTORY OF JELL-O”. Jell-o Gallery. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
227
Oh no…
228
That’s why we have a spam folder that’s emptied every 30 days.
In the same way mindless advertising can’t cut it and deliver on results. In the same way pop-up ads can’t
cut it and deliver on results. In the same way no medium ever delivers on its promise if what is fed into it is
mindless drivel.
As with all other forms of unsolicited communication, there’s a kneejerk reaction in most of us when it comes
to email. Specifically, commercial email. Spam. Oh dear, how I hate it. Oh how I really, truly hate it. The mere
thought of it makes my blood boil229.
Now, do I hate it because there’s something inherently wrong with it? Or do I hate it because I’ve been
scalded one too many times by unsolicited communication and aggressive sales pitches coming from
projects that abuse my inbox?
See, it’s not the medium of communication that’s the real problem here. It’s not the source. It’s not the
platform. It’s not the design. It’s the message. And if it screams “I don’t care about you, just fork over your
wallet!”, we pick up on it. Quick.
It’s really all about common sense, and recognizing your audience for the human beings that they are. The
medium or platform you ultimately choose to communicate through is far more open to interpretation than
vendors would like you to believe.
Is it going to be Google AdWords display advertising? Is it going to be Youtube videos? Is it going to be
Facebook posts? Is it going to be a Twitter feed? Is it going to be on-site content marketing? Is it going to be
offline-to-online actions?
There’s so many options to choose from in our current digital landscape. Instagram, Vine, Reddit, LinkedIn,
Pinterest, Snapchat. They’re all perfectly good digital communication venues. And these are just the most
popular platforms right now.
There’s a reason I don’t go into detail over each specific digital marketing tactic in this book. There’s too many
of them, with more popping up and fading out everyday than I care to count for. To go into detail with them
here would be an exercise in futility230.
That being said, I can’t plan on leaving you hanging, can I? No. In fact, I plan on doing the opposite. I’ll
empower you to do something not many people do, not even digital marketers themselves. I’ll teach you how
to look right through the platforms’ buzz.
Google, Reddit, Facebook, Mailchimp, Youtube, Wired, Wordpress. These are all perfectly valid digital
marketing communication platforms. And like them, there are thousands of others, each with their own
specific strengths and weaknesses.
Instead of going crazy over all of them and later crying hysterically because half of them are gone and the
other half changed their terms of service once again, I’ll teach you the pros and cons of developing your story
on earned, owned and paid media spaces.
Earned, Owned & Paid Media
Earned, owned and paid media are the three general categories in which most digital marketing platforms
fall. Many, in fact, combine all three. Google, for example, is known for mixing earned organic search engine
results with paid ad placements.
These categories, like the platforms they represent, each have their own advantages and disadvantages.
Nowadays, a digital marketing strategy might make use of all three. The secret is knowing why each type of
229
Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spammity spaaa- *BLAM!*
230
… and, after a while, obsolescence.
media is important to your story and project.
Each one of the three general types of media has a different set of rules as far as communicational presence
and property goes. Knowing the the rules of the game for each one is essential to a successful digital
marketing strategy in the long run.
Over time, odds are your story will flirt with all of them, even if some may at times gain relevance over
others. It’s only understanding the virtues and pitfalls of each that a well-rounded digital marketing strategy
can be planned and executed.
Earned Media
Earned media refers to all the places where your content can show up that you neither own nor have paid
for. A classic example of it is a project’s presence across most social media platforms. Case in point, Brandon
Stanton’s HONY Facebook Page.
Yeah. Sorry. The truth of the matter is that you don’t own Facebook. Or Google. Or Twitter. Unless, of course,
you do. In which case, you know, congratulations. No. Facebook owns Facebook, Google owns Google, and
Twitter owns Twitter.
I know this may seem dumb to point out. Of course Facebook owns Facebook! Duh! But many individuals,
stories and projects on these platforms behave in a way that would make you think they actually own their
presence, or Page or whatever, there.
I mean, how many times have you seen a variation of the classic “By publishing this, Facebook has no legal
right to…” post? Some people actually think they get to call the shots on someone else’s turf, despite there
being such a thing as an EULA 231.
That’s really beside the point, though. The lowdown is that the owners of the platform tend to be the owners
of the rules. It’s their playground and we’re just using it, so those disclaimer-type posts have about the same
legal validity as a wet paper towel232.
This, however, is major. If you don’t own the platform, and you don’t get to make the rules for it, that means
that your project’s presence on Facebook? Its hard-won audience? Its awesome Page? They’re all in the hands
of the platform owners233.
They can change everything on a whim. That’s why Facebook does not consult you when the general layout
and functionality of its Pages’ product changes. The owners merely allow you use their platform to post your
content, build your audience and connect.
The name of the game for them, however, is called revenue. Most social media companies have stockholders
to answer to and bills to pay, so the decisions they make regarding the platform are usually beheld to
profitability.
When talking about earned media, it’s important to realize that you stand on borrowed ground. Were
Facebook to close, or undergo a change of policy regarding its organic content sharing algorithm234, your
communicational reach could drop like a rock235.
End User License Agreement: the long block of legal text that you scroll through without reading when you create your
Facebook/Uber/Airbnb/Spotify account.
231
232
It’s literally one of the first items in Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, one of the things you agree to
when you click “Create an account”.
233
In this case, Facebook.
234
This has already happened.
235
This has also already happened.
What’s the plan then? How do you re-establish a communication channel with your audience? Where do they
go to hear more from you now? You’ve been cut off from your audience and currently are, though through
no fault of your own, in dire straits.
This is the biggest problem with an exclusively earned media presence. You have earned it, yes, and it’s
been tough, yes. Still, the platform is not yours. It’s someone else’s. And because it’s someone else’s, what
someone else says goes.
Now you know why SEO experts panic when Google announces a change to its ranking algorithm. Getting
first place in Google’s search is usually a monumental task. Having it go away due to changes outside our
control is maddening236.
These are just scary examples, though, and I bring them up only to warn you of the dangers of an exclusively
earned media approach. Although not without their risks, some earned media spots are ridiculously valuable
and definitely worth pursuing.
Take, for example, a Reddit post about your project being picked up by the community and getting to the
site’s front page. The raw storm of traffic generated by getting to Reddit’s front page has been known to
crash even the hardiest of web servers237.
This is a beautiful case of the positive aspects of earned media. No, you still don’t own it. No, the platform’s
not yours. Still, your project was deemed interesting enough to get to Reddit’s front page and benefit from
the massively increased exposure and attention.
Take another example. An endorsement from a thought leader related to your project. If you’re a
candymaker, imagine getting linked by Willy Wonka’s blog. If you’re an aspiring comic book artist, imagine
getting mentioned on Stan Lee’s Twitter238.
These, again, are presences in places you don’t own and haven’t paid for. However, this doesn’t mean that
you cannot enter into a formal arrangement with a strategic partner to cross-reference one another and take
advantage of each other’s garnered attention.
It’s just good to keep in mind that you don’t own earned media in any way. It may certainly feel like you do.
The content uploaded or referenced may have been produced by you. But you abide by someone else’s
rules. You need to be comfortable with that.
Social media platforms, Google’s organic search rankings and thought leader blogs, however, are far from
being the only places where your media can earn its presence. Being the focus of a news story, for example,
is also earned presence.
So without further ado, the following are the main subcategories of digital earned media spaces. Although
not by a long shot a comprehensive catalog, the bulk of your typical earned digital marketing interactions do
occur within these four formats.
Organic Search
Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex239, Baidu240. You can claim top spot on every one of them by investing in search
engine optimization and relevant content generation. It’s important to remember, however, that their
priorities and algorithms can and usually do change.
236
Then again, many SEO experts stay in business because of this.
237
The loved/hated, famous/infamous “Reddit Hug of Death”.
Please, please, please don’t go off to annoy Stan Lee over this. The man has enough on his plate as it is. Besides, I said
earned, not pestered.
238
239
Russian search engine, at this time cornering about 60% of the Russian search engine market.
240
Same as Yandex, except Chinese and estimated to corner about 70% of China’s market.
If you do decide to go down the organic search route to be there when your audience looks for keywords
associated with your project, remember that most current search business models usually mix organic
results with paid placements.
Referrals
Reddit, WIRED, blogs, news sites. The digital equivalent of organic word of mouth, you can make the most
out of referrals when key strategic allies, relevant thought leaders and interested communities find your
project worth talking about and link to it.
Remember, though, that this sort of traffic often first requires you to earn the trust from the referral in
question. If you have done absolutely nothing to earn it and you just cold call asking for a link, odds are you’ll
be rebuked. Hard.
Social
Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vine. If nothing else, remember that people flock to social networks
to socialize, not endure trite corporate messaging. If you want to connect, be authentic, be participative and
know the rules of each social space.
More importantly, always keep in mind Craig Ferguson’s three rules before opening your social media yap.
Does this need to be said? If so, does this need to be said by me? And if so, does this need to be said by me
NOW? Do not annoy!
Email
I love this one. The most jealously guarded earned digital frontier. Work to earn the trust of your audience
and they may just grant you access to their inbox and allow you to notify them directly the next time you
have something to say.
And please. Please, please, for the love of everything that is good and holy. Invest in solid email marketing
software, pay attention to your open and unsubscription rates, and give at least three for every one that you
ask, or you’re going into the bin.
Exercise 6.1
Choose an earned media category for your project:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Why, out of all of them, is the chosen media category the best fit for your audience?
What objective does it contribute to?
How exactly will it further said objective?
Do you have what it takes to consistently deploy your presence there?
Can you sketch out a detailed six-month outline of what that would look like?
Paid Media
Paid media refers to all the places where your content can show up that you neither own nor have earned.
A classic example of it is a project’s presence across most online advertising platforms. Case in point, Coca
Cola’s Youtube TrueView in-stream ads.
Wait a second. if I pay, haven’t I earned or don’t I own the right for said content’s presence at the very least?
Well, you have certainly entered into an agreement in which your content will be featured somewhere in
exchange for money.
However, as far as our particular definition of earned media goes? No, you haven’t earned anything. Same
goes for owning. When you pay, you enter into a transactional agreement. This does not mean you either
own or have earned your presence.
Just as with earned media, you don’t own your ad spots on AdWords, nor do you own your paid spots on
news sites. Google and the publishers own them. Those banner ads of yours won’t have room to drop dead
the second you stop paying for their exposure.
So AdWords ad placements belong to Google and a news sites’ own ad placement opportunities belong to
whichever news site or ad serving platform you’re partnering with. With paid media, money is the name of
the game. No money, no exposure.
In general, paid media takes on the form of interruption or outbound marketing (e.g. advertising). You pay for
the privilege to show up in front of an audience, even if they’re not looking for you or are actually looking for
something else.
The appeal is obvious, though. It’s easier to write a check for Google’s top spot and fiddle around a bit with
AdWords than it is to earn the place through organic relevance, especially if you haven’t sunk in the time
required to do the latter.
Sure it’s not exactly the same. And although people may sometimes actively avoid clicking on ads, if paid
media wasn’t powerful enough to drive actual results, it wouldn’t be the multibillion dollar industry it is. It
does get results. Sometimes really fast.
This form of marketing, however, can sometimes be a heady cocktail. One that can easily be abused,
especially when money is abundant. As long as the return is greater than the investment, one would think
that paid media is the obvious way to go.
Temptation also compounds on itself when companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter start blurring
the lines between organic and paid reach, and staying out of the paid media game can mean losing to a
competitor willing to pay.
An example of a paid media presence can be found in the content to be expected when browsing a news
site. Unless you have ad-blocking software on, almost any news site will be running ads on their front page.
You, as a reader, are the product.
The news site, as a publisher, sells you, the reader, to a willing advertiser. The advertiser, in turn, provides
the content of the ads to capture your attention and pays for the privilege of showing up in the publisher’s
designated ad spots.
Ads usually need to be smack dab in the middle of the content actually being sought out by an audience in
order to catch the eye, mostly due to it them not being what the audience in question is actually looking for
in the first place.241
This, unsurprisingly, often annoys and tends to erode at an audience’s goodwill towards both the publisher
and the advertiser. Although the results are quick, yes, heavy advertising is usually not consequence-free for
the interrupting parties.
Given their nature, people tend to find typical paid media formats annoying. Over time, however, it seems
audiences have even developed a form of inattentional blindness to it. This has contributed to sending online
advertising’s performance through the floor242.
To bet your livelihood on forced interactions is, now more than ever, a dangerous game. In the end, although
effective, that’s what paid media is. Paying for the privilege of presence where you have neither earned the
right to nor do you own it.
241
We’re all intimately familiar with Youtube’s “Skip Ad” button, right?
The latest attempt at getting around it, native advertising, has already been the target of scathing criticism: “John Oliver:
Native Advertising”
242
In a content-rich digital universe, audiences get to be picky as to what they want to consume. If they can
avoid consuming what they consider to be irrelevant, they will. The rise of ad blocking is just the latest
skirmish in this ongoing proxy war.
I highlight these facts because, again and again, I see digital marketers mix up the concept of a compelling
digital marketing strategy with chucking spades of money at ad-serving platforms. It’s not the same thing.
Although advertising can play a part in your digital marketing strategy, it’s by no means everything there’s to
it, and certainly not a recommended approach at long-term survival. If you decide to rely on paid media, be
ready to endure its pros and cons.
The following are the main subcategories of digital paid media. Although by no means a definitive or even
comprehensive list, these are the four main paid media marketing formats currently dominating the larger
share of the market.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, you name it. Most platforms use a blend of organic content
and paid hits in their search results pages to incentivize relevant keyword and ad spot purchasing.
A good way to get out there quick if you are willing to shell out the cash, SEM is an ever-evolving landscape
in constant tension with its audience. Good at producing quick results, I nevertheless always recommend
pairing SEM with hardier tactics.
Display Advertising
Rich media. Banners, animations, interstitials videos and in some cases even podcast audio spots. Display
advertising is often considered the closest digital relative to traditional advertising and a grab bag term for
non-SEM digital paid media.
The format shines due to its potential to reach audiences across a wide swath of the Web. Keep in mind,
however, that display content should always be See/Think/Do/Care-sensitive to avoid unintentionally offense.
Other Advertising
Another catch-all term that is often used to group paid communication that escapes a 100% digital scope,
other advertising refers to paid offline opportunities and certain types of interactive media that drive online
conversions.
Street advertising, magazines, TV and radio are your typical other advertising opportunities that, if properly
tracked, can be reasonably measured as far as online performance and impact go.
Buyouts (deprecated)
Email lists, bulk Facebook like offers, paid Amazon reviews, etc. Avoid. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Once more, in case
it’s not clear: avoid. There are only very specific and unethical businesses that profit in the long run from
buyout schemes.
The Web’s accountability hammer is merciless. Once you get shut down, you usually get shut down for good.
So don’t waste money on things that’ll get you nowhere anyway. Email lists aren’t sales. Facebook like’s aren’t
sales. Paid review aren’t sales. Avoid.
Exercise 6.2
Choose an paid media category for your project (no buyouts!):
1. Why, out of all of them, is the chosen media category the best fit for your audience?
2.
3.
4.
5.
What objective does it contribute to?
How exactly will it further said objective?
Do you have what it takes to consistently deploy your presence there?
Can you sketch out a detailed six-month outline of what that would look like?
Owned Media
Owned media refers to all the places where your content can show up that you neither earned nor paid for.
A classic example of it is a project’s presence on its own self-hosted and developed website or app. Case in
point, Headspace’s website and app.
A website? Really? Couldn’t I have come up with a less 90’s example? Well, believe it or not, a website is still
one of the mainstays of a long-term digital marketing strategy. It’s also increasingly difficult to tell apart a
website from an app in both form and function.
It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that whether it’s a site, an app or whatever, owned media is where
you call the shots. You own the domain, you develop the space, you host its features. It’s yours. If you want
the text to be upside down, so be it.
You are free to choose your style, your tone, your voice, what gets said and what doesn’t. Your audience will
always know where to find you and you will always have a parlor to talk to them in your own terms. As long
as it’s not illegal, go for it243.
The nice thing about owned media is that you don’t need to concern yourself with anyone’s rules except your
own. True, it’s usually not as turnkey as most earned or paid solutions, like a Facebook Page. But owning your
platform can be priceless.
My impression is that if you really and authentically feel like your project’s worth anything, you’re better off
owning up to at least a part of it than just trying to rely exclusively on earned and paid media to connect with
your audience.
An owned media space is also a cornerstone element of permission or inbound marketing244. Inbound
marketing refers to all activities you will undergo that will help attract an audience to your project, as
opposed to outbound or interruption marketing.
Be it a blog, a podcast, video, eBooks, newsletters or the product itself, inbound marketing is all about
creating value that captures an audience’s attention and draws it ever closer to your project. It’s all about
making them want to come to you.
A top notch example of inbound or permission marketing is Steve Kamb’s Nerd Fitness project. You can
choose to opt in at his site by submitting your email address, and in exchange you get his ebook “15 Mistakes
Newbies Make When Trying to Get Healthy”.
Now, you may be thinking this is a classic bait and switch scenario. You submit your email in exchange for
what turns out to be a crappy pamphlet, only to then get pestered nonstop with product offers in your inbox
until the end times.
Couldn’t be more wrong. Not only does Steve already provide a staggering amount of useful and valuable
fitness and health content completely for free at his site, he only asks for your email to deliver straight to
your inbox even more totally amazing stuff.
Where’s the angle? Of course, Steve has heavier fare once you feel like you’re ready for it. The Nerd Fitness
Academy, for example, is a paid program for Rebellion members looking to really sink their teeth into Nerf
243
Even if it is, you can still try to go for it. The Silk Road had a good run while it lasted, I’m told.
Seth Godin originally coined the first term. Hubspot’s Brian Halligan coined the second one. Both are largely considered
to be synonymous.
244
Fitness’ training program245.
He doesn’t push it on you, though. No. The Academy, his “Level Up Your Life” book, the Nerd Fitness yoga
program, these are all products aimed at audiences who’ve snacked on NF’s incredible free content and are
curious as to what’s behind the paid curtain.
I, despite my inconsistencies, recently resubscribed to NF’s newsletter. Steve delivers such an impressive,
frequent and consistent amount of value each time that I always find myself coming back. He’s gained more
than enough permission to talk to me.
The owned media side of this particular equation is that Steve’s website, his Paleo Central app, even his
mailing list. They’re all his property. They’re his. His own. He isn’t borrowing them. He isn’t paying for his
presence on them.
Through hard work, Steve’s earned every single one of his subscribers. He can thus choose to do whatever
he pleases with his communication across his owned platforms. There’s no third-party binding EULA. There’s
no one to answer to save himself.
What’s most impressive, however, is what Steve has chosen to do with the media that he owns. Far from
turning his website, app and mailing list into project pimping machines, owned Nerd Fitness platforms have
turned into hardcore audience havens.
Through his owned spaces, Steve cares for his tribe. He inspires it. He grooms it. He leads it. He pays
attention, and recognizes his tribe as the incredibly valuable asset that it is. Across its owned media
platforms, Nerd Fitness goes the extra mile to care.
Not a bad thing to do, too. To be expected, to have direct access to an inbox, to be given permission to talk
one more time. How many projects would kill for that? Every time Steve has something new to say, we’re
right there, no advertising expenditure required.
Be it a new, valuable, free piece of health and fitness advice. A notification pointing us to the latest yoga
training course. An updated paleo guide. We’re there. The Rebellion’s there. Nerd Fitness spends no money
at all to get our attention. They already have it.
As you can see, it’s important to have a safe haven to call your own when pursuing a digital marketing
strategy. Remember, Facebook audiences can come and go at a whim. AdWords’ placements will disappear
the second you stop paying for them.
Owned media, however, will be there for as long as you’re there. It’ll always have the potential to be the
truest reflection of your project, and it’ll always have the potential to be the faithful campfire for your
audience to sit around.
Every single one of the chapter examples I have mentioned in this book thus far has had, and probably still
has, an owned media presence. Do not underestimate the importance of having a digital place you can call
home.
If you’re still not sold on the importance of owned media, of a strategically established hub under your
control, go ahead and google the first three brands that pop into your mind. I can guarantee that at least two
of them have a heavily trafficked website.
Create the campfire in which you can tell the story on your own terms. Have your audience know there’s
a place where they’ll always be able to find your newest how-to blog post, thought-provoking podcast or
specialized video tutorial.
Have your audience know that there’s a place, a place beyond borrowed territory and superfluous likes,
where like-minded people gather and identify as part of your project. As part of the tribe. Here’s a couple
245
The Rebellion: what Steve calls the Nerd Fitness community movement, and a pretty obvious “Star Wars” wink.
examples.
Website
Again, believe it or not, the good ol’ website is still a mainstay of any good digital marketing strategy. Despite
what vendors might try to say to convince you otherwise, a place where your rules are the ones that go is no
small thing.
Even if used solely to communicate, a website is always a great launching platform to develop your
project further. Now more than ever, heavily interactive websites blur the lines between a traditional
communications channel and a core project experience.
Apps
As far as mobile devices go, apps are sometimes on par with email for intimacy with your audience. Earn a
spot with your app on their smartphone, treat them with the utmost respect, and you’ll have conquered the
latest digital frontier246.
Apps, however, come in many flavors. Websites are, now more than ever, blurring the lines between a
communications channel and an interactive experience. Just ask Treehouse, one of the most successful
online technology schools today.
Published Media
Online or offline, published media can act as a satellite with your project’s stamp on it. Academic white
papers, in-depth case studies, books, guides, infographics, cheatsheets. Published media can travel the
length of the Web and still be yours.
That being said, your audience’s acceptance and sharing of it? That’s earned, so your work will have to be
of utmost quality to pass the test when someone asks “Is this something that I would share with somebody
else?”
Bonus! Offline Stores
Hey, that’s cheating! This is about online marketing strategy, not offline. What gives? Well, to be fair,
traditional and digital marketing will eventually and inevitably become one and the same. So we might as
well address that right here and be done with it.
Always remember that offline marketing experiences can drive online business. They’re just harder to
accurately trace and measure, but that doesn’t mean brochures and owned retail stores aren’t valid
examples of owned media.
Exercise 6.3
Choose an owned media category for your project.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
246
Why, out of all of them, is the chosen media category the best fit for your audience?
What objective does it contribute to?
How exactly will it further said objective?
Do you have what it takes to consistently deploy your presence there?
Can you sketch out a detailed six-month outline of what that would look like?
… that is, of course, until VR or AR becomes a thing.
The Cash-In
Is it email marketing? Is it AdWords? Is it an app? I personally think it ultimately does not matter that much. If
you aren’t clear as to how you expect your strategy to return your investment on any of these, chances are
you will never see a dime.
There’s a very important difference between saying “Ah, I’m sure it’ll get back to me somehow.” and “I’m
expecting this to come back to me in X, Y and Z way”, where X and Y or Z may be sales, leads, or contacts.
While it may or may not pan out as expected, in the second case you are at least putting in place an expected
outcome on your efforts. If the whole thing tanks, at least you can analyze the effort and figuring out what
went wrong.
If it succeeds? You still analyze the effort and figure out why it exceeded your expectations. You always do
the full cycle. Have the idea. Carry it out. Evaluate the outcome. Without a full loop, there’s little chance you
are taking this seriously.
In Seth’s case, do you know what he uses social media for? To rebroadcast his blog updates to the audiences
that gather around those platforms. That’s it. Seth’s Facebook just lets you know another blog post is up. So
does his Google+ and Twitter feed.
One of the great modern marketing minds barely makes use of the main social media platforms today.
Instead, he relies on good ol’ email, quite possibly the hardest game in town right now. And he pulls it off
spectacularly.
You can be damn sure that he’s not arrived to the conclusion that an email a day is what works for him by
chance. Or that short-form writing makes his emails more likely to be read Or that every sentence has to
have a very real purpose for the whole thing to work.
No. At one point, Seth was blasting out five updates per day. He realized that that wasn’t working and
adjusted his blog and newsletter tactics accordingly. However, the question he asked himself to pivot and
adjust was not “How?”, it was “Why?”.
“Why?” is the most important question to ask yourself in going forward. It helps you analyze and tinker
and avoid sleepwalking, from the highest level of your digital marketing strategy to the lowest tactical
considerations247.
So don’t get hung up on the minutia of platforms. Just understand that there’s presences you’ll need to
own, presences you’ll want to earn, and presences where you’ll do just fine by shelling out a little cash. The
important thing is to have asked “Why?”.
Who’s my audience? What do they need? How can I help? Images? Video? Podcasts? How long should my paragraphs be?
Why is this type of communication a good fit with them? Bingo!
247
Chapter 7: Into the Future
A Game of Hype
Around March 2015, I was on the bus coming back from work. I was looking out the window when I saw a
massive winged dragon looming over a small dwarf standing on the prow of a ship. My heart, instinctively,
went out for the little guy.
No, I wasn’t hallucinating. It was just a massive billboard advertising the upcoming and then-imminent
fifth season of HBO’s hit series, “Game of Thrones”. And there stood the dwarf. A lonely figure facing this
gargantuan monster emerging from the sea mist.
It did not leave the viewer wanting. Tyrion Lannister, one of the show’s most beloved characters, stood on
the ship’s prow while a fire-breathing winged lizard bore down upon him. All of it in the context of a show
famous for its unforgiving nature.
Already an amazing head turner in its own right, this was the sort of promotional teaser seemingly designed
to fire up the excitement in an audience248. The surprising thing is, however, that I had been expecting the
billboard for months now.
I had seen one like it last year, and had grown expectant for a while as to what 2015’s display would look like.
The show had been picking up steam since launch, and its promotional marketing pieces were becoming
bolder with each passing year.
Considering its choice location, I could only speculate as to how much that particular ad had set HBO back.
Thousands upon thousands of people stream by that particular avenue every day, everyone can be a frontrow spectator to the sign.
As I was watching this piece advertise the world’s descent into madness over a show’s fifth season, I was
struck by the thought of the “hypestorm”. A phenomenon describing a level of enthusiasm outside anyone’s
possibility to control or direct.
As far as I can tell, a hypestorm is born when excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation over an upcoming
project reaches critical levels, usually with the help of audiences, covering journalism, the project’s
leadership, or a combination of the aforementioned.
Although critical hype levels can be completely subjective indicators, a hypestorm can usually be sensed
when the excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation over something starts lifting the trees of reason off the
ground, dragging fanboys along for the ride249.
Salted with traditional marketing, a hypestorm’s excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation about a project can
be raised again and again, until the chain reaction becomes a self-perpetuating process.
It is a tremendous force that can absolutely dominate a communicational space for a long time. However, it’s
also an almost impossible thing to control once it reaches a certain level. It’s always a very dangerous thing
when let loose.
Since taking the world by storm in 2011250, “Game of Thrones” has taken a life of its own. The show’s
popularity and its rabid fanbase have only kept on growing over time. By the show’s fifth year, the hypestorm
around it had become self-sustaining.
248
Pun not intended.
See the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Official)” trailer on Youtube for a prime example. I must’ve watched it 10 or 15
times, at least.
249
^ Yeah right, more like 10,000 or 15,000 times, you big fat liar.
250
Again, I swear, pun not intended.
Hear Me Roar
“Game of Thrones” is… well, I don’t know what you want from me. it’s “Game of Thrones”. If you haven’t ever
even heard of it, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s beyond “Lost”. It’s beyond “Breaking Bad”. It’s a good show.
It’s a very, very good show.
The TL,DR is that it’s a gripping epic fantasy story full of clever political intrigue, surprising plot twists,
gruesome murders and terrifying dragons. It’s production value is unlike anything ever seen before, and it’s
modern entertainment’s current darling.
It’s also the centerpiece of it’s own cat-5 hypestorm. Excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation over each of
the show’s new seasons has steadily grown since it launched. Right now, new releases and developments are
received with bouts of mass hysteria251.
While undoubtedly fantastic on its own right, doubly so considering its source material, the series’ marketing
department has also done its job. And while ads like the billboard I mentioned are commonplace, digital
media is where GOT’s got... game252.
#RoastJoffrey, #TakeTheThrone, Youtube production footage, organic reaction videos253. These are just
samples of what “Game of Thrones” has got going on online. There’s fare for everyone, from the show’s most
casual audience to its most hardcore fan base.
To begin with, the show itself has been thus far executed in an impeccable manner. Both David Benioff
and D.B. Weiss have expertly distilled George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series into a heady and
addictive audiovisual blend.
Audiences, in turn, just can’t seem to get enough of Westeros. The ample character roster, the compelling
storylines, the looming threats. There’s something there for everyone, certainly more than enough to keep
everyone talking, even after seasons end.
With this kind of project in its hands, HBO just lets digital word of mouth do its job, only occasionally
stopping to stoke the fire in a few key places. The hypestorm does the rest, excited conversations and
speculation taking center stage.
This is brilliant. Instead of trying to force the situation, HBO chooses to act as the amplifier of natural
excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation. Focusing its efforts on interacting with the tribe. Connecting it
across the Web and sharing its content.
And, my oh my, do some tribesmen know how to do shareable content. Just watch “MEDIEVAL LAND FUNTIME WORLD”254, a hilarious bad lip reading of a few GOT scenes recut to make them look like the trailer of a
movie about a medieval theme park255.
HBO, in turn, hired graphic artist Robert M. Ball to produce a series of beautiful posters depicting every
major character death since season 1256. Hosted at beautifuldeath.com, the pieces originally acted as a
Hibberd, James. (23 October 2014). “ ‘Game of Thrones’ mania hits Spain as 86,000 apply for roles”. Entertainment
Weekly. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
251
252
I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going on, I can help myself!
253
Beer, Jeff. (18 April 2014). “Winter Is Always Coming: How HBO Wins The Game Of Social Media”. Fastcocreate.com.
Retrieved 5 October 2016.
‘ “MEDIEVAL LAND FUN-TIME WORLD” EXTENDED TRAILER — A Bad Lip Reading of Game of Thrones’. Youtube. Retrieved
5 October 2016.
254
255
“Adventureland” fans rejoice.
256
http://www.robertmball.com/
countdown towards season 4’s launch257.
The posters are gorgeous, and cryptic enough to spare anyone the distress of an unexpected spoiler. That
in itself might’ve been enough for your garden variety marketing action, but HBO went a step further and
upped the interactive ante.
The Beautiful Death site and GOT’s social media extensions invited users to submit their own “Game of
Thrones” thematic artwork, with a chance for the best to stand alongside Ball’s official pieces. The action,
unsurprisingly, blew up all around the Web.
Of course, HBO didn’t have to turn its marketing action into a community experience. The pieces were
probably interesting enough to be shared on their own right anyway. However, the fact that they did
encourage the community to participate says a lot.
It says that HBO is willing to listen. It says that HBO wants the audience to be a part of the conversation. It
says that HBO acknowledges that true leadership and storytelling is collaborative. It says “We know you’re
out there and we’re fans too! Let’s talk!”
This is massive. The gesture alone sets GOT’s marketing strategy miles beyond anything anyone else might
be doing right now. Audiences have responded in kind, making the show an unexpected runaway hit. Toast
and cheer across the kingdom?
Winter Is Coming
The Starks, however, have their grim motto for a reason. No matter how long the summer is, how ripe the
yearly harvest is, how endless the warmth of the sun appears to be? The cold days come.
They come, as sure as the sun rises and the seasons change. They come, unmoved by reason, entreatment
or plea. The cold days are a part of nature’s cycle, and we are beheld to them regardless of how huge we
might’ve grown while they were away.
“Game of Thrones” is beheld to its audience, just like both PewDiePie and Markiplier are beheld to theirs.
And just like the two Let’s Play Youtubers, GOT has to keep upping the ante to stay one step ahead of its
audience’s ever-increasing expectations.
This is a terrifying situation to be in. To keep us awed, hooked, to keep the fire roaring? The series needs
to keep putting up a better and better show with each new season. After a while, the burden to keep that
bonfire lit cracks even the hardiest of spines.
On March 2015, GOT’s social chatter eclipsed Apple’s Watch product announcement258. Take a minute to
let that sink in. The digital world’s interest over a TV show about dragons obliterated a groundbreaking
company’s new product unveiling.
Sure, the Watch did outshine GOT for the couple of days the announcement was hot stuff, but eventually the
topic slunk back to the shadows. A company that had once had scores of people lining the blocks had been
laid low.
Is Apple, finally, over the hill? Is “Game of Thrones” destined to share a similar fate? I don’t know. Nobody
knows. What I do know is that these are the wrong kinds of questions to ask. It’s not a matter of if, or even
when. It’s a matter of how.
What goes up, must come down. In time, Apple will fall. So will Red Bull, and Humans of New York. Old
Spice. Blockbuster, and Netflix. SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI, and Elon Musk. PewDiePie. Seth Godin. And “Game of
257
http://beautifuldeath.com/
Lafferty, Justin. (17 March 2015). “INFOGRAPHIC: Media Social Chatter Around Apple Watch Slayed Game of Thrones on
Day of Announcement”. ADWEEK. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
258
Thrones”. No king rules forever259.
Ours Is the Fury
That being said, we all have a choice. We can choose to fall like a sack of potatoes. Or, like Buzz Lightyear
has taught us, we can choose to fall with style. Both inevitably lead to the same place, but the second one
certainly looks more enjoyable and... well, stylish.
“Game of Thrones” has a choice. It can either try to ride the hypestorm long enough to go out on its own
terms, like “Seinfeld”, “Gravity Falls” and “Mad Men” have. Or it can let it run wild and crash, like “Happy
Days”, “Scrubs” and “How I Met Your Mother”.
Of course, there’s a catch. Although GOT is based on an already acclaimed body of work, as of season 5 the
series has finally caught up to George R. R. Martin’s original and still unfinished source material, the “A Song
of Ice and Fire” book series.
This means that, as of season 6, the training wheels are off. Both David Benioff and Dan Weiss have only
rough outlines and a still unfinished sixth book to go on, so the show has had to meet the audience’s
expectations on its own like never before.
Well, so what? They do have the outlines, right? How bad could the show get? There’s only three more books
left to publish and one is almost finished. Also, Benioff and Weiss have stated that the show will only run for
two more seasons and that’s it.
It isn’t as easy as all that. First off, “Game of Thrones” has so far only been as good as the original source
material has allowed it to be, barring the showrunners’ extraordinary editorial ability to adapt the saga into
it’s wildly successful audiovisual format260.
And even then general consensus amongst book readers seems to be that the books rather taper off after
“A Storm of Swords”, the third one261. So the series has been fighting an uphill battle against the source
material’s previous history since then.
Yes, GOT has faced criticism even before season 6. The show’s fifth season currently holds the dubious
honors of being the worst rated season of them all, and of having the lowest rated episode of the series and
season finale to boot thus far262.
Fire and Blood
To put skeptics to rest, however, Benioff and Weiss released a sixth season that broke all sorts of records: the
most viewed season to date, the most viewed season finale, the highest rated episode of the series so far
and the highest rated season finale.
I’ll stay well away from any possible spoilers but, for a show that’s been spending north of $10,000,000 per
episode for its sixth season, these record-breaking numbers have more than likely helped put several people
over at HBO in a more relaxed state.
Yes, GOT’s sixth season broke all sorts of records and is unprecedented as far as production values go. It’s
pockmarked with beautiful, memorable moments, and went a long way in assuaging any doubts we might’ve
had as to the series’ immediate future.
259
Good line, Blizzard.
260
Fleming, Mike. (27 June 2016). “ ‘Game Of Thrones’ David Benioff & D.B. Weiss On Shocking Season 6 Finale”. Deadline.
Retrieved 5 October 2016.
261
“A Game of Thrones”. Goodreads. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
262
I’m looking at you, Dorne.
The hypestorm, however, is merciless. It’s a force unbound, well beyond a showrunner or a marketing
deparment’s power to control. It has a will of its own, and a cavalier attitude against it has sealed a project’s
fate more than once.
It’s a dangerous game, the one “Game of Thrones” is playing. In it, you win or you die. There’s little room
for error and, sometimes, the people involved in the project flirt danger close to the storm by playing their
digital hand a bit too loose and too fast.
I’m not going to talk about a certain “vermillion reptile and its associated large rocky landform”. But, if you
follow Maisie Williams’ Twitter, you know what I’m saying. That girl certainly isn’t afraid of getting right up in
the face of the hypestorm at its worst.
Williams, the actress that plays Arya Stark, is a fan favorite and one of the show’s media darlings. Her digital
presence and social activity are both massive, especially on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Her updates do
the rounds across the Web.
With 3.68M users following her account on Instagram, 1.99M users following her on Facebook and 1.47M
users following her on Twitter263, you can be sure that whatever Ms. Williams says, a substantial portion of
the GOT audience hears264.
So it is a big deal when, two months after season 6 has ended, she tweets that she’s “just finished reading
season 7”265 and that “shit gets REAL”266. It is a very, very big deal when she follows up with “I’d start
preparing yourselves now”.
And it is an insanely huge deal when she caps off the communique with “scratch that, nothing will prepare
you for this” and “holy BALLS”. It is, in fact, exactly the sort of deal that seems tailor-made to send the GOT
hypestorm into rampage mode.
Sure, at first, these may seem like the innocuous posts of an enthusiastic young actress fawning over her
work267. However, these five tweets ended up generating 107,691 Retweets and 142,776 Likes by the end of
the month.
On average, that’s a whopping 7.32% amplification rate268, and a jaw-dropping 9.71% applause rate269. Need
context? Coca Cola’s social media department, for all its budget and rich media, would lie on burning coals
for half of those numbers. To a crisp.
It’s not all fun and games, though. Williams’ social presence is a double-edged sword. Whether HBO wants it
or not, she’s become both a sort of spokesperson for “Game of Thrones” and a uniquely strong tribal leader
with a far-reaching voice.
Each time she posts something on Instagram, or Facebook, or Twitter, that content reaches millions. And
because she’s created a genuine connection with her audience, those posts are in turn boosted to reach each
audience member’s own audience270.
And since she’s become this sort of spokesperson for the show, those updates generate an expectation
beyond herself. If she says that next season shit’ll get “REAL” and that nothing will prepare us for it, then the
263
Figure last updated on August 31, 2016.
264
My guesstimate is that, on Twitter alone, Williams is followed by approximately 15% of GOT’s audience.
265
Williams, Maisie. (22 August 2016). “just finished reading season 7”. Twitter. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
266
Williams, Maisie. (22 August 2016). “shit gets REAL”. Twitter. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
267
And who knows, maybe they are just that.
268
Number of Retweets/Shares/Whatever divided by the total number of followers.
269
Number of Likes/+1s/Whatever divided by the total number of followers.
270
Hence, millions who in turn reach millions.
show better deliver.
Nevermind the fact that the tweets got picked up by every news site in existence271, boosting Maisie’s
voice into the stratosphere. What’s important is that they fed the hypestorm another heaping helping of
excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation.
To reach new performance heights each season272, the hypestorm must be tended to during the show’s
downtime. If it receives no input, it runs the risk of winding down. And if it winds down, all the good things it
brings wind down too.
Maisie’s tweets, however, apparently hit that sweet spot between too much and not enough. Speculation
flares up. Excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation go wild for a little while. And then things get back to
normal, albeit with a slightly higher pitched hum.
Good Things...
In the end, though, danger is always present when the hypestorm roars and a steady hand will usually be a
project’s best friend when dealing with it. A volatile, dangerous force, always remember that the hypestorm
has a will of its own.
Only the most seasoned marketers have the experience required to draw from the hypestorm the maximum
amount of excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation without getting giddy, overpromising and then inevitably
underdelivering273.
Of course, there’ll always be situations that’ll put a project in the hypestorm’s danger zone unexpectedly. In
GOT’s case it was Ian McShane who cut it pretty thin when he spoiled a major character’s return, and his own
character’s death, mid season 6.
I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say that, with the amount of speculation and theorycrafting going on
during season 6, the hypestorm didn’t take the spoiler lightly. It felt cheated from a payoff and went up in an
uproar, demanding explanations.
A lesser man might’ve cowered. McShane, however, is an actor with a well-deserved reputation for giving,
pardon my french, little to no fucks. True to form, he dismissed the hypestorm’s fury with a cutting “... get a
fucking life. It’s only tits and dragons.274”
That’s the steady hand I’m talking about. It doesn’t need to be polite. It doesn’t need to be soft. It just needs
to be steady. Commanding. No amount of carefully crafted PR releases by HBO could’ve done what Mcshane
did in only nine words.
The actor’s swift rebuttal put the hypestorm in check pretty quick. Not too long after, the slight had been
forgotten. Every superfan was back discussing what the hint might point at, and a menacing front had been
masterfully reshaped into favorable winds.
Was the reveal planned? Who knows. Maybe the marketing department sensed the hypestorm was winding
down and needed some stoking. Maybe McShane just really didn’t care. Maybe they picked him up exactly
because of that kind of attitude.
The hypestorm, doesn’t care. It got furious, energyzed, and then got calmed down and revitalized. It’ll be
interesting to see how Jason Momoa’s pictures of him with Benioff and Weiss in Ireland, GOT’s season 7 pre271
Hyperbole, but not as far from the truth as you’d think.
272
And they have to, considering GOT’s rising production costs.
273
I’m looking at you, “No Man’s Sky”.
Farndale, Nigel. (6 June 2016). “Ian McShane: ‘Game of Thrones is just tits and dragons’ ”. The Telegraph. Retrieved 5
October 2016.
274
production locale, shake out.
Nevermind that Khal Drogo, Momoa’s beloved character, got burnt to a crisp in season 2. The hypestorm, as
we’ve stated, has a mind of its own. Sometimes, it’s not the keenest one. Insight, reason and logic are usually
what’s in short supply within it275.
Yes, “Game of Thrones” is slowly coming to an end. And with the series’ finale inching ever closer, the
hypestorm is both getting more powerful and preparing to shut down at the same time. How the show goes
out, in a blaze or in disgrace, only time will tell.
One thing’s for certain. As Maisie Williams said, less than a week after her famous tweets, “Good things must
come to an end or they’re not good anymore. It doesn’t last forever and we’ve done what we came to do, it’s
time to wrap this up…”276.
Hello, Goodbye
And so it’s over. Here’s where we part277. By now, you’ve hopefully developed a reasonably solid digital
marketing strategy upon which to scaffold your future endeavors. Now all that’s left is for you to go out into
this brave new world.
This is probably the point in the book where I should speculate on the future of digital marketing. A couple of
pithy quotes that encompass my own view of what I do and where I see it going. You know, the really good,
deep stuff.
I, uh, won’t. I haven’t got the gray hair to try such a thing and, thankfully, I already know that speculation
is a dangerous thing in this day and age. In any case, guesses are certainly not what I would want to leave
readers of this book with.
This isn’t the end of your digital marketing education. Not by a long shot. This book concerns itself only with
the strategic side of the equation, and it’s baby steps compared to the vastness that a complete education in
the digital world entails.
It’s imperative to get to know the different modern mediums in which we get to tell a story. It’s imperative
to cultivate both the scientific mindset required for grounded analysis and the creative flair to design truly
memorable moments.
New tools to design, implement and analyze a digital marketing story are invented every day. They’re far too
numerous to count, far too many to index and they update far too often for this document to be a reliable
point of reference at any given time.
Trying not to make a complete ass of myself, I’ll tell you where I’m at right now and where I’ll be heading in
the near future. Maybe some things will spark an interest and encourage you to keep on learning. If so, this
book is already an extraordinary success.
I think it’s obvious I consider the role of the whisky-drinking 50’s marketer to be dead. It probably has been
for some time, but as long as the public keeps thinking marketing is all about scammy advertising and a quick
buck, the stereotype will never truly die278.
What drew me into digital marketing long ago was its inherent potential for accountability. When the system
275
That being said, fingers crossed!
Prudom, Laura. (26 August 2016). “ ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Maisie Williams on Shorter Season 7: ‘Good Things Must Come
to an End’ ”. Variety. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
276
277
… for now.
278
Was it ever really real, though?
in which we operate is written in code, there’s really not a lot of room for fuzziness if we don’t want it there
to be.
There’s also digital marketing’s potential for a scientific approach to communication. Now more than ever
you you can have an idea, test as many controlled versions of it as you want, and analyze the results to draw
conclusions and improve.
Yes, there’s still some friction between online and offline marketing. When audiences cross between worlds,
it can get hard to keep tabs on what’s going on. Fortunately, it’s getting easier and easier every day279.
When people ask me what can I do for them within the digital marketing realm, I sometimes find it hard
to say “everything”. Of course I cannot do everything, but there’s a reason I took the time to learn what’s
necessary to run a digital marketing outfit.
When I sit down at a table with the real experts to discuss potential solutions to a client’s problem, I like
having a decent grasp on the subjects that go into creating the solution that will address said problem.
I like to understand a designer’s concerns. I like to understand what the usability expert is thinking about. I
like to understand what an analyst might fuss over. Not an expert’s knowledge. Just enough to piece together
a solution from all the different perspectives.
I think this is the responsible approach for the modern marketer, especially the digital one. To know enough
about the elements that go into the telling of a story to be able to converse with the technical experts and
deliver on the craft as a unified whole.
Every day, I try to shore up my knowledge of these areas a bit more. It’s hard work, and I think I’ll never ever
have the depth of knowledge a designer, a usability expert or an analyst will have. That doesn’t mean I don’t
need to do it. Maybe it’s sisyphean.
At this point, either you believe all marketers are storytellers or you don’t. If you don’t, feel free to call me. I’d
like to get to know your point of view over a cup of coffee. Zero judgement. My treat. I’m still trying to figure
this out too.
If, on the other hand, I did manage to convince you? Then you already know that ad buying isn’t going to cut
it anymore. That cheap tricks will only yield cheap rewards. That our job has become harder, and at the same
time easier, than ever before.
Storytelling is weaved into our very lives. Everything we do echoes a story. It’s become irresponsible to use
horse blinders and say “I’m just a marketer; that’s not my problem, that’s not my department”. You damn
well better be sure that it is our problem.
Everything we do tells a story. To our audience, to our partners, to our employees. We don’t get to say that
something is outside our scope anymore. We never should have been able to in the first place.
So as long as you’re a storyteller, a digital marketer, your life will be one constant iterative process of
improvement. Ideate, design, create, implement, evaluate, analyze. Fall short and you’ll still be a storyteller.
Just not a very good one.
If you’re lost, don’t be, you’ll feel much better. If you still find yourself adrift, go over the exercises and see if
the roadmap emerges. That’s strategy in a nutshell, after all. And if that still doesn’t work, call me and we’ll
try to figure out together where’s north.
See you next time!
279
However, the next person to say “omnichannel” to my face is getting decked.
Acknowledgements
Seth Godin, for inspiring me into believing that marketing can be a force for good.
Avinash Kaushik, for putting me on the path.
Nathan Barry, for the right kind of courage at the right moment in time.
Don Norman, for introducing me to the philosophy of problem solving.
Rex Hartson and Pardha Pila, for giving UX a sorely needed human touch.
Ellen Lupton, for teaching me that the devil is in the details.
Dee Brown, for there’s always a story to tell, even if the original storytellers aren’t around anymore.
Eric Ries, for being controversial, though not really wrong.
POA, for being the first persona I ever developed this for.
Demian Brener, proofreading, tough questions.
Manuel Araoz, no tilde, just ship it,
The hypestorm, for being the unbound force that it is.
The Internet, for allowing this to happen.
Clari, my rock, my moon and stars.
You, for trusting me enough to read through this.
Authors
Terry Pratchett - “The Light Fantastic”
Seth Godin - “All Marketers Are Liars”
Avinash Kaushik - “Web Analytics 2.0”
Don Norman - “The Design of Everyday Things”
Rex Hartson and Pardha S. Pyla - “The UX Book”
Dan Ariely - “Predictably Irrational”
Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson - “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)”
Eric Ries - “The Lean Startup”
Steve Krug - “Don’t Make Me Think”
Naomi Klein - “No Logo”
Notes