Happy Sunday!
Many of you are probably watching the Super Bowl right now, enjoying all of the commercials and trying to see who has the best one. For that reason, today’s newsletter will be a short one but still packed with nuggets for you to take away. I hope that by the end of this email, you can answer some of these questions for your brand and figure something out that will improve your customer journey. I hope you’re sitting back, with at least one chicken wing in your hand, and ready to dive into this quick and valuable exercise.
Before we get into today’s newsletter, make sure you check out this week’s episode of Limited Supply! We recorded this live at The Whalies and talked through Serta’s bankruptcy (they bought Tuft & Needle), what we’re doing with Long Wknd, and some fun audience Q&A. You can listen on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube (please subscribe to our YouTube channel).
Whenever I evaluate brands before they’re a client, or for an investment, I like to fill out something called the Red Carpet document. This document helps me with onboarding if we bring them on as a client, or if I invest, it helps me understand where the opportunity is. Although I won’t share all of the questions I run through, I’m going to dive into some of my favorites for you to consider.
In short, although this exercise might seem simple, I think it’s incredibly valuable for brands to do. Oftentimes when I’ve seen someone else ask themselves these questions, founders and CMOs discover new ways to describe their business, and push themselves just a little bit harder to get even clearer on their messaging, creative, value props, competition, and more.
Okay, let’s get into it.
1. What is the founding story of your brand? When, where, and why was it started?
This question is simple but crucial to understand. How many times have you heard a founder tell their “founding story” in different ways? Getting clear on when, where, and why you started your brand can reveal so much about the company you're trying to build.
Also, notice how we ask “What’s the founding story” not just “what do you sell” … I think the best brands are rooted in incredible marketing and storytelling that goes above and beyond their products. Asking about their founding story will reveal a lot more nuance than the numbers alone can. It’s the “why” behind the product’s “what” that will keep your brand going long term.
To win in the publisher landscape today (Facebook is a publisher, and you buy ads on that publisher site), you need to be telling stories. No one wants another billboard, they want to know something that’s going to make them better, and stories are the lowest-friction medium to convey that message.
2. Who’s the buyer in the household for your product?
After we understand the when, where, and why, we ask about the “who.”
Remember, businesses aren’t about products, they are about customers. Without customers, you don’t have a business or a website, and I think more people need to consider that truth. Asking founders who their ideal buyer is, will tell us a lot about how we should approach marketing going forward. If your ideal buyer is a stay at home mom in her mid-40s living in LA, your branding, creative, messaging, targeting, and landing pages etc should all map back to that.
Alternatively, when you launch a product where you’re not marketing to the buyer (like kids juice boxes), you need to reflect on how your campaigns, landing pages, etc. all map back to that buyer vs the person who wants the product.
3. In simple terms, how do you describe the product that you sell?
To answer this question effectively, you should start with the raw description, then expand that into a story or a series of analogies.
So, if you sell a protein bar for instance, you can say:
- 200 calories
- 20 grams of protein
- Non GMO
- Organic
- Naturally sweetened
- Infused with chocolate chunks
- No sugar added
- Etc
Just give me the raw facts. Then, you can use that info to craft it into a story.
i.e, Our naturally sweetened protein bars will help you hit your macros while tasting great. With just 200 calories and 20 grams of protein, our chocolate chunk protein bar has more than 10,000 five star reviews on Amazon, etc.
You get the point. Start with the data first, and the story second. Once you have that, you want to figure out how to go from value props → benefits → angles, like we talked about in last week’s newsletter.
4. What is the punchline of your brand?
What is the 1-2 sentence description of what you sell and why it matters? If it’s more than 2-3 sentences, it’s probably not clear enough.
Here’s a great example from one of my favorite brands, Lomi:
“In every Lomi household, food waste becomes a solution, instead of a problem. Kitchen scraps are used to feed plants and gardens instead of going to a landfill. Lomi is a revolutionary way to dispose of food waste. It’s a small appliance that silently transforms your food waste into a high quality dirt, ready to be returned to the earth.”
5. What is your brand’s tone of voice like?
Answering this question early on in your marketing and creative process, can save you a ton of time and energy when it comes to your messaging testing and iteration.
So, in an ideal world, how does your brand speak? Is it like talking to a friend? An older family member? A smart authority? Does it resemble a celebrity, a famous movie character, or another well-known brand?
Once you answer this question, you can quickly use it to shape how you communicate across all aspects of your creative and marketing activities for your brand.
6. Who are your competitors or what are the other products on the market?
Again, be real here, every product in the world has competitors or alternatives that a potential customer could choose from at any point in time. List them out, study them, and see if there’s an angle that you can learn from or differentiate yourself with.
Just ask yourself, why are they winning? Is it the messaging, the creative, the ads, the pricing, the materials, the unboxing experience, their social media presence, do they have a celebrity founder, what is it? I think many founders shy away from doing this exercise but it’s really important. Having a better sense of the alternatives, their messaging, pricing, customers, etc can really help you figure out ways to differentiate yourself and build your own, unique brand.
7. How does the product that you’re selling win against competitors in the market?
Once you’ve done your competitive analysis, ask yourself, how does your product still win against the competition? Is it your budget, your network, your background, your creative, your relationships with retail, what is it? Again, be very clear here and don’t BS.
Keep asking yourself, why would someone choose your product over the alternative? The clearer you get on this question, the easier it will be to back into all of your creative and marketing decisions going forward. Use these insights to direct your ads, your copy, your landing pages, etc. You have to make it obvious as to why you stand out among the rest.
Okay, so I have a bunch of other questions but I wanted to keep this one short since it’s superbowl time. I’ll save those insights for later.
I hope this exercise helps you and your team get more clarity about what you sell, why you sell it, and to whom.
It should also help you better understand who your competitors are, and why you’re different. If you complete this exercise this week, I can guarantee you that some of your answers will help you create clearer, more valuable ads and content for your customers going forward. Thank you for reading and have a great week!
Now onto some fun stuff…
Vendor of the Week:
Bloomreach — The engagement and retention secret behind the big guys like Albertsons, The Vitamin Shoppe, and Taco Bell.
If you haven’t heard of Bloomreach, here’s what you need to know. They are a retail tech company that works with massive brands like I mentioned above. Bloomreach mainly works with these companies to focus on three things: discovery (personalized search + merchandising), content (with their headless CMS), and engagement (they have a customer data platform and ESP to send emails).
Now you’re wondering… ok, but Nik, how does this benefit me to know about the customer data platform behind Albertson’s. Well, they’re hosting an event with speakers who have an insane amount of experience in business, marketing, customer engagement, and more.
Their Commerce Experience Summit is 2 days, FREE to attend (at least sign up here and get the recordings later). You’ll hear from industry leaders at Bloomreach and Google Cloud, as well as Keynotes from Taco Bell CEO Mark King (the one I’m most excited about) and a discussion with MACH Alliance professionals, just to name a few of the highlights.
Click here to register for free, and learn from some of the best at a different scale.
LP of the Week:
The best emails to get are HOOX clients who say their conversion rates have jumped to 13.4%, or 8.78% or 9%. For this week’s page highlight, I wanted to share a really high AOV product ($800+) and how we were able to get an even higher AOV for the client.
Chances are, if you have an incredible product and you’re not finding ways to sell it properly, you’re just not communicating well enough. The beauty of HOOX pages, is our team does strategy, UX, copywriting, UI design and development from the lens of someone who’s on the outside. If you’re unsure about whether HOOX is a good fit for your brand, schedule a demo with us on this link, and let’s see if we can increase your conversion rate.
Job of the Week:
Has anyone ever told you you’ll never land a job by spending so much time on Twitter? Here’s your chance to prove them wrong! Workweek is hiring a Ghostwriter to join its Executive Branding team.
You’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with a roster of highly-accomplished ghostwriting clients, including industry experts, entrepreneurs, and content creators. You’ll create Tweets, memes, and long-form content, taking clients’ best ideas and sharing them with the world.
Click here to apply for the role!
That's all for this week
I hope you enjoy the Superbowl’s first half and find some inspiration in the commercials. Everyone’s been talking about how brands are going to be huge on TikTok this year, versus just on Twitter. Make sure you get hydrated before going to bed to avoid brain fog tomorrow!
I hope you have a great night, and upcoming week. Get those 9 hours tonight, and I’ll see you next sunday! As always, feel free to DM me or reply to this email to get in touch!