Something I Learned Yesterday

The temptation to marketing apostasy started when I heard Mark Stiving talk about features vs. benefits.

It’s relatively standard these days to focus on benefits in marketing copy — almost to the exclusion of everything else. What does the product do for the customer? How does it make their life better?

Mark said benefits copy is for people who are new to the product concept while features copy is for people who are familiar with...

Watch out, world! My superpowers are starting to emerge!

Last week I was on a camping trip with some friends, listening to the Ravens game on the radio. I had this premonition that the next play would be an interception. I called it, and I was right.

The same thing happened yesterday with the Redskins game (I won’t call them the Commanders). Also, my wife asked what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday. I said cheesecake, and a co...

After reading plenty of LinkedIn profiles, it seems quite likely that most people are, in fact, not everything they pretend to be. Maybe they could do with a little self doubt. Maybe people should spend some time studying the “disappointing affirmations” thread on Instagram. 

Then one of my inner interlocutors kicks in, and he asks if this is a personality thing. Are some people more likely to doubt themselves while others are more...

It’s time to show a little empathy. But maybe not the way you think. 

Years ago, when I was a brash young Evangelical, a Catholic co-worker referred to her priest as “father.” As you probably know, Jesus explicitly said “call no man father,” which I cited along with chapter and verse. 

My Catholic friend said, “Wow, I need to show that to my priest.” 

That was a pivotal moment for me. Obviously her priest had seen the passage befor...

Am I the only one? I need some feedback on this one, folks

I often feel like the odd man out, and I’m not sure if that’s really true, or if lots of other people feel the same way and are just going along to be polite. 

Here are a couple examples. 

I hate it when I’m at an event and somebody tries to get the crowd excited – based on nothing other than getting excited. I’ll get excited when you’ve given me a reason, but the guy who s...

Some publishers see generative AI as a fundamental challenge to their business. Some would say it’s an “existential threat” but that phrase is overused and annoying. 

Generative AI is certainly disruptive, but it also presents a lot of new opportunities. 

As I say in my most recent letter, I believe the larger threat is from AI-curated content. 

No matter where you stand on this, you should have a written policy for the use of AI i...

This morning I had another lesson in “it’s not what you think.” My first big lesson in that regard was with a garbage disposal. It quit working. I assumed it had died, so I replaced it. The new one worked great – for about a week. Then it died. I called the company about it and they said they could send a repairman to fix it for free, but if it turned out not to be the disposal, I’d have to pay for the trip. Or, they could just...

You’re staring at a blank page, and it’s staring back at you. 

Today I’m going to explain a really neat tool you can use with ChatGPT to help you with content creation. 

My son does a lot of writing for his work, and last night we were driving home from a family event. We discussed a few “idea generation” models. 

The tree model. You start with a single idea, and explore how it might branch out. 

The funnel model. You dig into an i...

There are rules and patterns that define and describe compelling content. Here’s an overview. 

The Babylon Bee had a great bit where a husband is complaining that his wife wants to have a deep conversation but she won’t even listen to his podcast. 

That’s essentially the message of “Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t” by Steven Pressfield. 

Let’s break down what’s going on with this fictional married couple. The husband feels that he’s...

Here's a simple technique to write a book quickly. There’s one prerequisite. You have to have already produced a lot of content on the subject. That could be blog posts, articles, podcasts – even documentation, or how-tos. 

Step 1. Gather all your content. If it’s available online, you can point the AI to the web page. 

Step 2. You might be able to upload audio or video files straight into your AI of choice, or you might need to us...

Remember that fun video where the kids are throwing a basketball, and the viewer is asked to count how many times the ball has been passed? About half the people who watch this video miss the gorilla that walked into the middle of the scene and thumped its chest. 

That’s a negative illustration of “relevance realization,” which is a very important topic in the world of AI. 

I like AI, and I hope I’ve learned how to use it well. 

At...

This has been a very long time coming, but I’m glad it’s finally happened. 

Bo Sacks sent this article out to his list last night: “The New York Times is selling audio subscriptions through Apple and Spotify,” by Sara Fischer. 

A lot of publishers have thought about putting a paywall in front of their podcast content, but so far it’s been hard to do. The assumption has generally been that podcasts are free, supported by ads. Many p...

Writing and speaking precisely help you think precisely 

Bo Sacks distributed a fun article titled “Copy editors know best: A journalist’s guide to avoiding common language missteps.” 

It reminded me of my days as an editor. 

I had the great good fortune of having two intelligent parents who spoke well and cared about grammar and such, but when I became an editor I realized how poorly I understood the rules. I had an instinctive se...

Before you erect that paywall, here are some things to consider.

When advertising revenue declines, as it has been, publishers start to think about paywalls, as they have been. 

I was talking with a client about this the other day and tried to come up with a list of things to consider when developing a paywall strategy. Here’s a quick summary. 

Issues

What is your strategic goal with your content? 

• Reach 

• Revenue

• Leads 

  ...

While it’s good to have an instinctive reaction against censorship, some books should be banned for some people in some circumstances 

The phrase “book banning” conjures up images of Puritans, McCarthyism, and even Nazis. A series of Supreme Court decisions starting in the 1950s overturned efforts to censor content and affirmed the rights of adults to read what they want – with some minor exceptions. They also affirmed the rights o...

Image creation

I write an article most weekdays, and it’s nice to have an image to go along with the article. It’s an interesting exercise because you have to convert the concept into something visual. 

For example, I was writing about people using AI agents. How do you make that into a picture? The reality would probably be somebody talking into a headset, but that would just look like a phone call. 

To make it seem like an AI age...

I’m finishing up a short book on customer data platforms. It’ll be available soon, so stay tuned. 

Part of that process is creating the right cover. A cover can make or break a book. 

How should I go about it? 

Here are five approaches. 

1. Go with my gut. That appeals to my ego, but I’m self-aware enough to know that I don’t have an artist’s eye. Back when I wore ties to work, I would have preferred to have someone else pick my...

Last week I did a podcast on how AI agents will change content consumption, and some listeners wanted to hear more about that. Coincidentally, Bo Sacks distributed a very good article on that topic by Matthew Scott Goldstein, which I’ll link below.

Think back to those old news feeds that would ask you to pick your favorite topics and design your own home page. You could organize them into a custom dashboard – like creating your ow...