Commentary: Always Know What to Say
Welcome to the background commentary and recommended reading for the “Always Know What to Say” mental model and the “Making Marketing Messages” framework exercise.
clarity
100 posts
Model: Always Know What to Say
All the social media posts, paid ads, press releases, and website redesigns in the world won’t get you profitable customers if you’re not talking to the right person, about the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, in the right place.
It’s not everything—it’s this one thing
Everything is overwhelming. Writing the copy for your new website. Your social media marketing. Your latent guilt over not yet joining TikTok, and your growing worry that everyone else is moving faster than you are.
“Tell the truth and make it interesting.”
“Tell the truth and make it interesting.” — David Ogilvy Describing his own writing style as “a silk glove with a brick inside it,” Ogvily believed that the best way to make an impression was with facts and information, well stated.
“Ring the bell.”
Marketers especially, but really any type of expert, often have to get our ideas approved by committees, groups, or boards. In any of these cases, we run into the usual problem: Everyone on a committee or in a group has their own opinion and their own mark they want to make.
You’re writing it, not reading it
“I can’t write about that, everyone in my industry already knows it.” A friend recently said that to me. They were worried that the marketing content they were working on was too rudimentary, too basic to be impressive. Have you ever worried about that?
What is there to meet about?
Frequent marketing meetings are often a sign of marketing struggles. Of course, when marketing is struggling, we tend to meet about it. But the meeting itself is part of the problem, or at least a symptom of a greater one.
Flailing for attention
The job of a marketer is not to make marketing assets, or to implement tactics. Or to just get attention. The job is to get customers. Nobody cares about our ads, our social media posts, our videos, or even our newsletters. They care about their own problems, their own lives, their own jobs.
What does “strategy” mean?
What does “strategy” even mean? What’s your definition? Do you see it as just a “synonym for expensive,” as one economist called it?
The danger of disimprovement
The fact is, the more we say, the less our audience will hear. Every time we feel like we should add another offer, another product, another message, or another focus to our marketing, we should try to pause.
We must start with gold
Everything we do in our business either reinforces or damages our market position. Including, or even especially, how our product works and looks.
End the anxiety of marketing
When we meet with a new client, a very common sentiment is a sense of anxiety that pervades their marketing. Some say they hate it. Some say they like it, but it stresses them out. Others have just been trying to ignore it, or let someone else handle it.
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