Demand Curve - The Growth Newsletter #128

The Growth Newsletter #128

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Hello everyone, Neal here again with another episode of The Price is Right! 

Wait no, this is the Growth Newsletter. Sorry.

This week we cover AI-generated glossaries, local Chevy direct mail, and a non-existent Threads strategy.

Let's dive in.

Sprints are back in town

Big news—our Sprints are back! And this time, they're here to stay.

What are they?

Short, hyper-focused video courses that turn complex marketing topics into achievable growth levers. Zero fluff. Zero hand-wavy theory. Just actionable strategies and tactics to help you produce results today.

Growth topics we cover:

• Creative Strategy & Testing — Learn how to build an ad creative strategy that drives traffic, conversions, and revenue for your business.
• Own the Inbox — Reach more customers with every campaign by mastering the most impactful email marketing lever: deliverability.
• Brand Building for Growth — Learn the three-step process for building a brand strategy that accelerates startup growth.

Because we closed the gates for so long, we're offering a 20% discount for each Sprint ($159 instead of $199) for a limited time (expires July 20 at 11:59PM PT).

Interested? Enroll now!

1. An AI-generated glossary

Insight from Jake Ward (with our own hot take).

I still wouldn’t trust AI to generate or write these insights. Or our playbooks. Or our course material. Or our teardowns. (Maybe for outlines and edits, but not core writing.)

BUT, it could be good for more mechanical SEO content and not “thought leader” content.

A glossary that goes deep on industry/niche specific words can be an SEO treasure trove. If you’ve ever searched for anything related to investing, you’ve probably landed on Investopedia's glossary. It’s massive. Every term is defined in great detail.

According to SEO expert Jake Ward, most brands barely invest in glossaries due to the cost-benefit of paying someone to write them. That means they’re generally easy to outrank.

Assuming $0.05 per word (the low end for writers), 1,200 words per article, and 300 glossary items, it’s a $18k investment minimum ($600 per article). And a ton of time.

With AI tools you can generate them for about $1k total ($3.33 per article).

It's a fast way to generate a ton content that's underserved and targeted to your niche.

BUT here's the problem with this strategy.

This is 100% a growth hack. As we shared last week, SEO is fundamentally going to change for top-of-funnel queries once Google bakes in generative AI responses. Glossary items are definitely going to be one of the first to be answered adequately by AI.

So sure, you can use it quickly scale your SEO today. But it will not last as AI quickly develops and gets integrated into search. It could still be worth it given the low investment cost, but don't expect it to be a long-term growth solution.

2. Chevrolet dealership direct mail breakdown

Insight from Joyce at Demand Curve.

Hi, it’s Joyce 👋—here to break down another piece of marketing spotted in the wild. This time, direct mail from my local Chevrolet dealership.

This mailer set off my market-y senses for a few reasons:

• The personalized gift card. That’s an actual gift card—and it even has my name. The personalization leverages the endowment effect—when a sense of ownership enhances value. In this case, a gift card with my name makes me value it more than if it were just a generic “save $35” coupon.
  
  
• The QR codes. They help make it easier to take action—no need to type in a phone number a URL yourself, you just scan a code to book an appointment. Going one step further, the dealership includes instructions in big bold font so that the less tech-savvy can still take advantage—a great call since people of all ages own Chevies.
  
  
• Who can redeem this offer. The offer isn’t just for existing customers: “all Chevrolet owners we have yet to assist” are also welcome. It’s the perfect way of encouraging recipients to share the deal with Chevy-owning friends.

All that good stuff aside, the copy is... well, not great. Here’s how I’d clean it up.

Here's how we improved it:

1. Straight to the point. No flowery and meaningless copy.
2. Shorter paragraphs and lists. Making it way easier to scan and digest.
3. Highlighting the most important parts—expiration dates, phone numbers, and offer.

People have short "consideration spans"—particularly for something they randomly got in the mail and are trying to decide whether to huck into the junk mail bin (or keep scrolling). 

Make it as easy as possible for people to get the point.

3. Maybe the best Threads strategy is nothing

Insight from Jack Appleby.

Threads (Instagram's Twitter clone) is officially the fastest growing app of all time—hitting 100M users in just 5 days. For context, Twitter has 250M users total.

But... it's completely unclear if this is going to be the next TikTok or Clubhouse.

Every creator, founder, and social media manager is asking themselves, "should I be posting on Threads right now??"

The benefits of doing so could be:

1. Land grab. Typically when a new social platform launches, it's easier to grow on it due to reduced competition.
2. New audience. Anecdotally, only my weird tech friends use Twitter. Yet everyone I know uses Instagram. Threads could give access to a new group of people.

But social expert, Jack Appleby, argues that the best strategy right now is actually to do almost nothing. 

Because frankly we have no idea if this could die out in a few months. It's not like Threads offers any unique value over Twitter. In fact, it currently offers less.

So at the moment, the risk-reward ratio tips towards more the risk category of wasting your time and resources. That being said, Jack does recommend doing the following:

1. Create an account, update your bio, and add a link to your site.
2. Do one post as a placeholder so the account isn't blank.

That way if someone searches for you, they find you, and you avoid a negative experience.

But then just wait a few months and see what happens. If it proves itself to have a ton of organic usage and a unique value prop, then great, invest then. 

News and links

News you can use:

• YouTube is experimenting with hyperlinked keywords in video comments to increase engagement and improve content discoverability.

• Twitter is adding several new features, including a job listings feature, access to its Media Studio tool (Twitter Blue only), and payment licensing in three US states (so far), meaning users will soon be able to transact directly in the app.

• Microsoft Advertising released numerous product updates, including improvements to the Advertising Editor, keyword planner enhancements, and new ad formats.

• The FTC announced updates to its rules about disclosing connections between creators and brands. If you do any kind of advertising or influencer marketing, this thread is worth a read.

• Canada has made sending a quick "👍" equivalent to a signature of a contract. What's next? Emojis being officially added to the dictionary?

Agency we love: Bell Curve*

I hate the typical agency model:

1. Sold by a charismatic senior thinker. Pushed off to a junior to do the work.
2. 90% of the value delivered upfront, but charged a high recurring retainer.
3. Will take your money to sell you their "thing" even if you don't need that "thing."

These are problems we wanted to fix with Bell Curve.

1. We go through hundreds of applicants each year and only hire smart and senior strategic thinkers to be your growth partner.
2. We structure engagements to match the value provided—often project-based.
3. We're strategists who assemble a team of expert practitioners for your unique brand and needs. We won't recommend something we don't think is the right fit.

We’re not just an agency. We're your strategic growth partners.

We’ll identify the areas worth investing in, strategize how they fit into your overall roadmap, and execute on them.

If this sounds like a good fit, hop on a free strategy session with Raf.

*Bell Curve is run by us ;)

Something fun

From @alexgarcia_atx

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Who's Demand Curve?

We’re on a mission to help make it easier to start, build, and grow companies.

We share high-quality, vetted, and actionable growth content as we learn it from the top 1% of marketers. We democratize senior growth knowledge.

How we can help you grow:

• Read our free playbooks, blog articles, and teardowns—we break down the strategies and tactics that fast-growing startups use to grow.
• Enroll in the Growth Program, our marketing course that has helped 1,000+ founders get traction and scale revenue.

• Check out our Sprints: short video courses that are laser-focused on a topic in growth.

• Want to build an audience of buyers? Join the waitlist for the Un-ignorable Challenge.

• Are you a funded startup looking to grow? Our agency, Bell Curve, can be your strategic growth partner.

• Get your product in front of startup founders by sponsoring this newsletter.

See you next week.

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

Neal O'Grady

Grace Parazzoli

Joyce Chou

Dennis Buckley