Demand Curve - The Growth Newsletter #117

The Growth Newsletter #117

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Hello everyone!

This entire newsletter was created by AutoGPT from ideation, writing, putting it into our ESP, talking with sponsors, deciding when to send it, and even this sentence.

jk it was all done by humans. Quick PSA to not believe everything you read on social media.

This week we cover fighting monsters, functional vs. emotional benefits, and 5 ways to repurpose event recordings.

As always, if you don’t find this valuable, you can unsubscribe at the bottom of this email.

–Neal

P.S. Our short and sweet Sprint courses are opening back up for enrollment soon! Perfect if you want to level up your brand strategy, email marketing, or ad creatives. Look out for another announcement in the coming weeks.

1. Better yet, fight a monster

Insight from Louis Grenier and "Eating The Big Fish" by Adam Morgan.

Last week we shared a tactic about having a brand enemy. A reader (Tim Herbig) reached out to tell us Louis Grenier highlighted an evolution of the same idea.

Don't just fight a brand enemy, fight one of society's monsters.

Because it's clearly a better way to look at it, I thought I'd share that here.

In "Eating The Big Fish," Adam Morgan says:

• Instead of Hinge's "enemy" being Tinder, the monster is endlessly using a dating app instead of actually finding love. Which is why their motto is "Designed to be deleted."
• And for Chipotle, instead of Taco Bell as the enemy, the monster they're fighting is the decline in society's health due to the proliferation of unhealthy food options.
• Or for Liquid Death, instead of the enemy being Dasani or Fiji, the monster is plastic water bottles that end up in landfills because they don't recycle nearly as easily.

Instead of focusing on how you're different from a specific competitor, think about the troubles in society caused by your competitors, and position your brand as the solution.

As Louis said: "Enemies come and go; monsters tend to be more lasting."

PS: If you ever have comments or suggestions about our insights, please respond to the newsletter at any time. We read and appreciate every reply.

2. Functional > Emotional for early-stage value props

Insight from Arielle Jackson.

Emotions drive decisions—including the decision to buy.

But consumers still have to understand what it is they’re buying first.

Which is why Arielle Jackson—who’s helped hundreds of startup brands—recommends that early-stage startups emphasize practical benefits over emotional ones in their value props. Especially if they’re introducing a new category.

Don’t aim for the next Nike's “Just Do It” or Apple's “Think Different” yet. Everyone already knew what they sold before they did that.

First, make sure consumers understand what you do.

Here’s an example Arielle shared:

“Peloton’s early headline literally said, ‘Join studio cycling classes from the comfort of your home.’ That was the functional benefit they needed to reinforce before they could stay stuff like, ‘Together, we go far.’”

So ask:

• What are the functional benefits your product/company provides?
• What are the emotional benefits?
• What’s in between?

Focus more on the functional if you’re early-stage.

That doesn’t mean you have to neglect emotions in the process. You can convey what you do and still inspire.

Here’s an example from ahrefs:

From the first two sections you know exactly what they do: software for SEO. And they inspire people with the dream of more traffic (and therefore more sales).

3. What to do with webinar/event recordings

Insight from Superpath Community.

How not to do it: Send out recorded webinars and events to attendees and registrants.

How to do it: Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose.

A few ideas for how to repurpose webinar and event recordings:

1. Transcribe interviews and post them on your blog. You could publish the transcript itself or a narrative write-up featuring transcript snippets.
   • Karbon publishes its podcast transcripts as well as blog posts summarizing each episode’s takeaways.
2. Create short sound bites for social media.
   • MarketMuse shares short clips from its video interviews on Twitter.
3. Consolidate insights into a shorter video.
   • Besides offering full replays on Wistia, MarketMuse creates highlight reels summarizing its video interviews. It includes these shorter videos in its blog.
4. Turn lessons and quotes from the event into a LinkedIn carousel.
5. If you have a podcast, turn the event into an episode.
   • Shaan Puri turned his session on our Growth Summit into an episode for his own podcast, My First Million.

Your brand doesn’t have to be the event host to take advantage of video content.

If someone on your team speaks on another company’s webinar or podcast, it's fair game for you to use—as you can see with our Growth Summit example above. The host will love it if you share it (assuming you credit them).

News and links

News you can use:

• Twitter announced that advertisers now have to pay for Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations to keep running ads. That means, effective immediately, if you want to advertise on Twitter, you have to pay-to-play at $8 a month or $84 a year. 
  • Related: Twitter started removing legacy verified checkmarks on 4/20 (because Elon gon' Elon), leaving countless high-profile accounts unchecked. 
• Instagram now supports up to five links on your profile page (finally). To Linktree and fellow link-in-bio tools: we thank you for your service.
• Snapchat hosted their annual Partner Summit last week. We learned that Snapchat+ paid subscription now has over 3 million users. That's up from 2MM in February and 1MM last August. Impressive growth! Most marketers sleep on Snap, but given that TikTok's future is in jeopardy (seemingly), now's not a bad time to test into the platform.

Show we recommend: Seth Godin's Top 10 Marketing Lessons*

Seth Godin is a legend—and was even inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame.

In this episode, Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot’s CMO) and Kieran Flanagan (Zapier’s CMO), break down Seth Godin’s timeless advice on marketing.

Learn why marketing has to be emotional (not logical), why you shouldn’t be authentic, why failure needs to be an option to succeed, why complexity kills businesses, why you need to be a learn-it-all, and so much more.

Watch it now

*Sponsored by Marketing Against the Grain

Top new marketing jobs

If you're looking for a top growth role, check out the opportunities below from our job board.

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From @jovvvian

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See you next week.

— Neal, Grace, Joyce, Dennis, and the DC team.

Neal O'Grady

Grace Parazzoli

Joyce Chou

Dennis Buckley