When I read this week’s Inside Scoop, my jaw dropped. A 420% increase in YouTube views? Those are numbers that a marketer would kill for (metaphorically, I hope). 

In today's email: 

• The inside scoop on how HubSpot earned 420% more YouTube views 
• Multilingual marketing
• Embracing imperfections in marketing 

🕵️ INSIDE SCOOP 

Each week, our colleague Curt del Principe gets the inside scoop on real tactics that HubSpotters use to drive real growth.

When I first heard how HubSpot’s YouTube team bumped up one channel's views by over 400%, I begged for permission to share the story. (I’m not above debasing myself on your behalf.)

It’s a lesson that applies to nearly all content marketing — and one I promise you’re not going to hear anywhere else.

Are you ready for it? Not all distribution is good distribution. And that includes your own.

I chatted with head of YouTube Carl Mueller about how — and why — cutting off all external distribution actually increased our YouTube performance.

📚 WHAT WE’RE READING 

• 🏈 Can you make a better Doritos Super Bowl ad than Doritos? 
• 👑 How to do meme marketing, according to a memelord
• 💥 A multilingual content strategy that attracts and converts more customers
• 👟 4 big strategic mistakes Nike needs to reverse 
• 📈 The fastest growing social media platforms in 2024

✨ THIS WEEK'S MUST-READ 

How to drive growth by … embracing your flaws? 

Here’s something difficult for a marketer to admit: Sometimes, marketing is incredibly glib.

It’s so intensely focused on highlighting positives that it often comes across as superficial. Advertising campaigns, slogans, and product launches all use the same rhetoric — they talk about how great the thing is.

But sometimes, we prefer imperfections.

The pratfall effect was documented back in 1966 by the Harvard psychologist Elliot Aronson. His studies revealed that people saw intelligent quiz contestants as more likable when they spilled coffee down themselves. In other words, competent people are preferred if they’re a little clumsy.

So marketer Phill Agnew ran an experiment to test the pratfall effect. He ran one ad that gave five reasons to listen to his marketing podcast, Nudge, and another that gave five reasons not to listen.

The results surprised even him.

This week's email was brought to you by Laura M. Browning. Editing by Curt del Principe.

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