Demand Curve - Growth Newsletter #201

The Growth Newsletter #201

Tap into relatable truths

A marketer's worst enemy is apathy.

Today, we'll learn how to make our copy more powerful and memorable.

Yeehaw.

– Neal

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Tap into relatable truths

Insight derived from A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters.

This is one of my favorite tweets about startups:

Clearly, it resonated with quite a lot of other people, too.

Why?

It summarizes a truth that I immediately got but failed to articulate previously:

Every successful person got lucky, and their path to success is nearly impossible to replicate.

Note: Paul Graham says that the best way for a founder to increase their chance of success is to increase their "luck surface area" by meeting people, writing online, building an audience, living in a major city, etc.

This tweet taps into one of the most powerful ideas behind impactful marketing: relatable truths.

Tapping into relatable truths makes your message more powerful and memorable.

In the book A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters, Dan gives examples of relatable truths you can tap into during Christmas holidays:

Notice how you felt after each of them. Did you find yourself nodding along?

I know I did.

Let’s dive into the different types of relatable truths.

Here are a few ways to categorize relatable truths:

Context: Truths related to where the message is seen.

For example, an ad in LA:

Holidays/events: Truths related to current or recurring events.

For example, advertising your product during Valentine’s Day, Christmas, a US election, a recession, or a global pandemic.

Industry: Truths related to the specific industry you operate in.

For example, startups/business (like Andrew’s tweet), kids toys, dating, clothing, and for marketers:

Cultural: Truths related to social, societal, or cultural trends.

Ranging from:

• Hype trends: AI, crypto, Clubhouse, BeReal, and Squid Game.
• Culture shifts: Sustainability, remote work, DEI, personal brands, creator economy, urban diaspora, video > books, anon accounts, and mental health awareness.
• Technological shifts: Internet, mobile, AI, blockchain, virtual reality/metaverse, 3d printing, quantum computing, and nuclear fusion.
• Memes: rick rolling, ok boomer… too many to list.

For example, this leveraged the trend of AI generated images:

Human: Truths related to core human behavior and psychology.

This is the most broad-reaching and hardest to categorize. For example, how people act in an embarrassing moment:

Spend time brainstorming relatable truths for your product, industry, culture, and context. And add to this list whenever you come across one.

They’ll help your marketing resonate.

PS: I'm sharing a few concepts (this and #199) from Dan's book in preparation for a newsletter that will help you generate hundreds of copy ideas.

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Something fun

Spotted on Instagram 😅

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Thanks, everyone! May the owl image haunt your dreams.

Neal O'Grady

Justin Setzer

Nick Costelloe