The Growth Newsletter #148 Weird the normal, thumbnails that increase views, and processing fluency. |
Welcome to all you growth-loving founders and marketers! idk about you, but I've reached my quota for BFCM deals for at least the next 360 days. I hope your credit card survived. Now for: Weird the normal, thumbnails that increase views, and good processing fluency. Let's dive in 🍉
– Neal |
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Why should ecom have all the fun?
We're creating Blue Tuesday for startups in the DC community who need no BS ads management from marketers they can trust.
Marketers who are also founders and know what startups desperately need from a partner: Transparent pricing, fast execution, month-to-month contracts , and direct access via Slack.
In October, we launched a dedicated service to run ads for startups—Ad Labs.
We've already brought on 12+ startups like Tabs Chocolates. If you refer us a closed deal, we'll send you, and your friend, $1,000 each (via Paypal).
You can either introduce them to me (neal@demandcurve.com), or you can give them your unique tracking link. 1. Normalize the weird, or weird the normal
Insight from No Bullsh*t Strategy by Alex M H Smith. Don't be the best, be the only. If you compete with all your competitors directly, you're playing on hard mode. You and your competitors will battle over the same features, and ultimately, price.
You need to find fresh market space. To do that, you need to either normalize the weird, or weird the normal:
Normalize the weird Juice shots, bone broth, staying in stranger's homes, and riding in stranger's cars—all pretty weird ideas when they first came out. Now these are massive categories. Here's what you need to normalize the weird: -
Make the weird thing safe and familiar: "Your stay in Airbnb is 100% insured."
- Push into an existing category that people understand. Pick the right one:
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Juice shots' category shouldn't be “juice” as they'd be massively overpriced. But, as a supplement, they're a fresh alternative.
Weird the normal If you sell a normal thing, tweak it a bit to make it weird: All boring and mundane things twisted in some sort of way to make them more interesting.
Normalizing the weird is harder and riskier, but if you can do it right, it can really hit.
In short: You gotta be weird. You chose whether you make it more or less weird. |
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2. YouTube thumbnails that increase views Insight derived from various YouTube creators and put into this post. MrBeast gets ~100,000,000 views per YouTube video. He doesn't make a video unless he can think of the perfect thumbnail and title for it.
A thumbnail really can make or break a video.
The same concepts for a "hooky" thumbnail apply to ad creatives, social posts, and blog article thumbnails. Basically anything visual meant to hook people's attention. Here are ways top creators do that:
Big Numbers Big numbers are unnatural. Unnatural events trigger curiosity. Particularly when it’s money.
Don’t make it too round, or it’ll feel fake. Write out the whole number to make it bigger. |
Reactions
Dramatic faces attract attention. People click because they want to see what provoked it. Your reactions need to seem genuine. Use a still from your footage, not a posed shot. |
Ask a question Asking a question in your thumbnail opens a loop that can only be closed by watching.
Use the video title to tease the answer you pose in your thumbnail. |
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They're not the only ones. Nearly every brand made this shift from busy to simple. Simplicity beats complexity—that’s the idea behind processing fluency.
In short: we prefer things that are easy to read and understand (“fluent information”). Understanding something effortlessly helps us act quickly and confidently. On the flip side, if you confuse, you lose. If something is hard to understand, you're less likely to complete a task or make a decision. It takes extra brain power.
And when you're confused you feel like you need to examine something closely. Making it more likely you second guess yourself and not buy that weird product you saw on TikTok.
You may even value confusing products less. How to apply this: Make things as simple and clear as possible—particularly for conversion events (purchase, sign up, book a call). Keep navbars small (less than 7 links). If more, use dropdowns.
Keep your writing at an 8th-grade level (reading level of the average American).
Hold off on displaying popups until they're engaged. Wait a few minutes.
Reduce the number of fields in your checkout form. Use a single “Full Name” field. Don't ask for company name, website, phone number, job title etc etc. And use city and state auto-detection based on zip code.
- Get users to create an account after purchase, not before. Don't get in their way.
For conversion: clarity > cleverness. |
Community Spotlight
The 3rd cohort of Un-ignorable recently finished where 330 students learned to create an unignorable personal brand. Here's some shoutouts for our best students: -
Louise de Sadeleer. One of our most entertaining students, who uses her personality and growth + psychology chops to do strategic breakdowns, marketing memes and brainy insights.
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Sarah Jane Burt. As she says it, she helps people "sell their sh*t without making people feel like sh*t." Much needed in marketing.
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Orrin Webb. Orrin helps couples and teams stop fights before they even start—one of the best ways to ensure strong relationships.
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Sarah Hart. The amazing designer behind Katelyn Bourgoin's brand. She creates visual identities to help brands stand out naturally.
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Top Pronpudpong. Our favourite profile pic of the cohort. Top helps software agencies get more leads.
Feeling thankful I got to meet so many cool people this cohort 🤗 |
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Something fun I absolutely love the quirkiness of X's community notes feature 😅 |
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— Neal and Justin |
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