The Growth Newsletter #149

Respond fast, cover fast. Don't make me think. {Clever 3rd tactic}.  ‌ ‌ ‌ [Demand Curve]( [Read on demandcurve.com]( The Growth Newsletter #149 Respond fast, cover fast. Don't make me think. {Clever 3rd tactic}. Welcome to all you growth-loving founders and marketers!  HOLY COWS IT'S DECEMBER. 2023 flew by.  Now for the final couple weeks before all the OOO autoresponders kick in.  Until then: Respond fast, cover fast. Don't make me think. {Clever 3rd tactic}.  Let's dive in ☃️ – Neal Thanks to our sponsors for keeping this newsletter free for all of you! Check them out :) Brought to you by [Segment](—now free for startups!  Engineers typically dislike marketers, and doing stuff for them.  Installing conversion pixels. Syncing data to analytics platforms. Sending user actions to email marketing tools.  All things engineers dislike doing. And it can be a ton of work.  That's one of the things both engineers and marketers love about Segment: - It's way less work for engineers to set up user tracking. - And marketers can set up new tools/channels, add new conversion events, and create user segments without needing to bug an engineer every time.  Early-stage startup? [Apply to get Segment for free](.  Brought to you by [Sleepless](  Creating enough Facebook video ads to test is hard.  Sleepless is like an Iron Man suit for your internal creative team: - An on-demand, full-time performance creative team 24/7 - Video editors, motion artists and designers who get performance - The world's biggest UGC video library to pull from - Month-to-month, and not a single client has churned yet If your creative team could use some bandwidth, they've got you.  [Learn more →]( Want to be featured in front of 85,360 founders and marketers? [Learn more here](–rates increasing in 2024, book before EOY to lock in rates.   1. Respond fast, or cover fast Insight from Amanda Goetz, North Face, and Stanley.  Two videos (and their responses) went viral on TikTok lately that led to crazy brand exposure. Then their stories went viral on X/Twitter: - [Car fire Stanley mug](. A woman recorded a video of her completely destroyed car, but her Stanley mug was basically untouched. Within 24 hours, the founder of Stanley recorded a 30-second selfie video in response. This video got 38M views. - Amanda's tweet got 30M impressions as well. - [North Face helicopter delivery](. Another woman on a hike in New Zealand complained about her "waterproof" North Face jacket and got 11M views. 5 days later, North Face posted a video of flying a helicopter to her on the mountain to deliver a new jacket. North Face got around 4M views for this video. - Amanda's tweet got 19M impressions.  In both situations, the companies acted fast: - Stanley did an off the cuff response to an amplify a positive mention. - North Face did costly and staged response to make up for a negative mention.  And Amanda, got nearly 50M impressions on her posts. Her tweet promoting her newsletter got nearly 700k impressions on the Stanley tweet.  Act fast, as either the brand, or the "reporter." Waiting two weeks, two months, or two years will hit way less hard than 2 hours. 2. "Don't make me think"—especially in your hero copy Insight from the [Above the Fold playbook](.  If you confuse, you lose.  It's honestly horrifying how many home pages, landing pages, and product pages use confusing aspirational language that don't tell you what they sell or why you should care. Here are some example rewrites: The right one is better because: - It no longer sounds like corporate speak (all-in-one? visual communication solution?) - It describes the specific benefit of the product clearly. The right one is better because: - It no longer uses vague phrasing. - It describes the specific benefit of your product. The right one is better because: - It doesn't talk in self-congratulatory terms. It talks in terms of benefits to the visitor. - It clarifies the specific outcome of using the product. 3. {Insert clever title about experimenting} Insight from [Nate Matherson]( of [Positional]( and Rory Sutherland.  Last week, we had our kookiest sponsorship: - I loved it. It was creative, funny, and I figured it would probably work. - I hated it. I was afraid people might think I made a mistake 😅.  I decided to add the small PS and to run with it. I'm glad I did: It's really scary to experiment.  We don't want to: waste money, look dumb, or fail. 99% of the time, we take the safe, logical option.  As Rory Sutherland says: "You'll never be fired for being logical," but, "the fatal issue is that logic always gets you to exactly the same place as your competitors."  So be like Nate, be illogical.   Quick question: How would you describe yourself? [Founder]( [Freelancer]( [Full-time role]( Your response will help us personalize the content you receive from us.   News and links News you can use: - Google is updating its [Video publisher policy](. - YouTube Shorts [ads are being rolled out to more advertisers](. - Google Bard can now [answer questions about YouTube videos](. - LinkedIn rolled out [performance measurement capabilities and enhancements to Document Ads](. - Meta is going to [launch Threads in the EU before the end of the year](. - I [talked on the podcast]( Marketing Powerups about hooking people's attention.  AI writing platform we recommend*: [Inkform](  ChatGPT is too generic.  Copywriters, marketers, and national brands are ditching ChatGPT for Inkform, the customizable AI writer.  From the award-winning agency Tailored Ink, Inkform was built by serious writers and marketers for serious writers and marketers: - Create fully customizable copy: Unlike ChatGPT, Inkform lets you customize your output with multiple prompts and writing examples. - Build workflows to save time: Creating recurring content? Set up automations and rules to streamline your team’s writing process. - Write in your brand voice: Provide comps and apply your style guide (or compliance requirements) to any of your outputs.  Case study: At 80,000 subscribers, the biggest CRE newsletter in the country uses Inkform to draft daily, top-to-bottom issues in seconds.  Interested? [Click here]( and use promo code DC25OFF250 for a free trial and 25% off!  *Sponsored by Inkform Want to be featured in front of 85,360 founders and marketers? [Learn more here](–booking 4 weeks in advance.   Something fun From [@thebrusselswithmuscles2.0](.  This has nothing to do with marketing or startups.  But I often see dogs like this and think: "This used to be a wolf... what have we done?"   What did you think of this week's newsletter?  [😍 Loved it]( | [😄 Great]( | [🙂 Good]( | [🤷‍♀️ Meh]( | [🤬 Bad](  If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing it with a friend. These newsletters take hours to make each week, so it really helps when you share us with fellow founders and marketers.  And if you have any comments/question, I'd love to hear them. Just hit reply!  In case you're new: Who's [Demand Curve](?  We’re on a mission to help make it easier to start, build, and grow companies.  We share high-quality, vetted, and actionable growth content as we learn it from the top 1% of founders and marketers.  How we can help you grow: - Read our free [playbooks](, [blog articles](, and [teardowns](—we break down the strategies and tactics that fast-growing startups use to grow. - Enroll in the [Growth Program](, our marketing course that has helped 1,000+ founders get traction and scale revenue. - Want to build an audience of buyers? Enroll in the [Un-ignorable Challenge]( now. Enrollment closes in ~2 days. - Are you an ambitious startup/scaleup looking to grow? Our agency, [Bell Curve](, can be your strategic growth partner. - Need to run ads? We’ve built [the]([ ads agency]( for startups. - Looking for a growth freelancer or agency? [We’ll match you]( with one for free. - Get your product in front of startup founders by [sponsoring]( this newsletter. See you next week.  — Neal and Justin [Neal]( [Neal O'Grady]( [Grace]( [Justin Setzer](   © 2023 Demand Curve, Inc. All rights reserved. 4460 Redwood Hwy, Suite 16-535, San Rafael, California, United States [Unsubscribe]() from all emails, including the newsletter, or [manage]( subscription preferences.