Fresh content sold here

This week on LinkedIn, someone posted a picture of a sign for a store urging customers to place holiday orders now. The poster said she would cut out some of the words. That reminded me of an old joke. How old is it? I looked it up and discovered that it was printed as early as 1890. Here's how it goes:

A man opened a fish store and put up sign, “Fresh Fish Sold Here.” A friend told him there is no need to say here. The owner took out that word, leaving “Fresh Fish Sold.” Another friend said there's no need to say “fresh”—no one expects to be sold old fish. The owner took out that word, making the new sign, “Fish Sold.” Another friend said there's no need to say “sold”—no one expects him to give it away. That left just “Fish.” But another friend said it was not necessary to say that because it could be seen and smelled. The owner took out that word and the new sign was blank.

The punchline of the original story was that the business failed due to lack of advertising. But I would suggest two key takeaways.

One is that whenever you seek to satisfy everyone, you end up satisfying no one. Those of us who have had to satisfy committees with copy know all-too-well how true that is. One wants a more playful tone, while the other insists on something that's all business. One wants simple language, while another mistakes jargon for proof of expertise. Satisfying them all renders the final copy bland and forgettable.

The other is that while cutting out unnecessary words is the essence of editing, you have to really know what you're doing. Otherwise, you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater -- or should we say fish with the saltwater in this case?

To illustrate this post, I found that life truly does imitate life and that you can purchase a sign inspired by this story on Amazon for as little as $9.99.

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While it's possible to eliminate a word or two from your statements, knowing which ones to keep in order to capture the attention of your target audience is the key. That's what people who take the time to learn about your business and who buys from you have to know.  

That level of tailored insight instead of a forced one-size-fits-all mold is what I deliver for my customers and clients. It's why they find the content I produce for them continues to draw people in -- even a decade after it was produced.

The here for me is not a physical store but digital contact. Check out my site: WriteWayPro.weebly.com

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Getting rich: the secret is to sell others on the secret

By Ariella Brown

Everyone is doing it!

I'm on an email list from one of the hundreds maybe even thousands of people currently positioning themselves as experts who offer "masterclasses" on improving one's earnings as an independent marketing professional.

Today's email offers the tantalizing lure of drawing in clients that pay $60K a year. The possibility of getting just two of those pushes one into that highly coveted six-figure income slot.

Definitely worth paying $1500 to learn how to earn nearly 10x that amount this year, right?

Then rational skepticism kicks in, and you think this: "If he really has no problem getting all these clients that put him in what he says is the top 1% of earners for this category, why would he take any time away from that highly lucrative work to produce these classes?

He's not retired, so he's not just passing on what he's learned to the next generation. He'd be passing it on to his competition. Altruism is certainly not the motivation here because the cost of the classes are substantial, particularly for something that wholly virtual and not accredited.

How did we come to this?

Perhaps what happened is that when the economy was in a much better state, some of these consultants did very well. The self-proclaimed masters have, indeed, experienced high earnings.

They had already acquired some key connections when the pandemic hit and create a new surge of demand for digital marketing content. With everyone working remotely anyway, it was a lot easier to be accepted as a consultant who delivered without having to be present in a NYC or LA office while still demanding the rates associated with those high-cost cities.

What a difference a year or two makes!

However, times have changed. Now these people have found that they're not nearly as in-demand at present as they likely were when brands were investing heavily in content marketing, particularly during the pandemic.

Finding that their income has dropped, they are now trying to supplement it with courses and some with other materials you can purchase.

In fact, some are even starting to boast about how much they've made from such sales.

Those who are trying to appeal to the value of exclusivity will like not publicize exactly how much they've made. For example, the "master" behind the course I described earlier claimed he will "restrict" attendance to 60 for his course to allow for "individual attention."

At $1500 a pop that amounts to $90K over mere weeks. But that will only happen if he gets the 60, which I seriously doubt. I'm sure he'll get a handful of people, but I believe he priced something with no guarantees too high to attract the desperate.

Of course, there are techniques one could learn and improve. But it's not really the quality of your work or even the leads it brings in that guarantees you're paid what you're worth. However, my own experience of 18+ years in the biz has taught me that timing and connections count for far more.

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A matter of degree

Add a pinch of salt to creative claims for AI

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What the Little Prince teaches us about marketing

 

by Ariella Brown

There is a kind of disconnect is very common in all kinds of businesses in which the sellers fail to see things from the customer's eyes and project their own tastes and values on others. It doesn't occur to them that other people have their own calculus and that features and benefits they go on and on about may not matter to them at all.


In chapter 23 of The Little Prince, we get the perfect illustration of the misalignment between the value proposition of a product and what the customer actually wants in the interaction between the prince and a merchant he meets on his travels:
.

"This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need for anything to drink.

"'Why are you selling those?' asked the little prince.

"'Because they save a tremendous amount of time,' said the merchant. "'Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week.'"

"'And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?'"

"'Anything you like..."

"'As for me,' said the little prince to himself, 'if had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.'"

This is highly relevant in an age in which marketers have convinced businesses that they have to espouse causes to push on their customers. M.T. Fletcher debunked this effectively in a June 2023 AdAge article entitled Why Brands need to stop 'purpose' pandering:

Politics and purpose are not the same, rarely mix well, and yet marketers continue to wade into social issues they are unable to navigate. Some seem wholly dismissive of their own band DNA, which might explain why today's advertising seems so disposable.

 

We said this more than a year ago after a major study by the Brunswick Group demonstrated that most CEOs felt their brand needed to take a stand on social issues, while less than third of consumers wanted to see politics in marketing --roughly the opposite of what every agency was telling its clients at that time. Just because some major brands got away with it, and in a few cases hit all the right notes, doe not mean my toothpaste has any credibility in telling me which cause to support or when to feel outraged or guilty. It's stressful enough being told I have to floss everyday.

Read more examples here.

Related:

Major Marketing Missteps from Adidas, M&M's and Coke

A matter of degree

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