Spotify
Amazon Music
Apple PodcastsOn this episode of Open Source Growth, join hosts Dean Denny and Naomi Soman as they dive into the world of marketing, copywriting, and storytelling. Special guest Naomi Soman shares her expertise on user research, customer personas, and the psychology behind effective marketing strategies. Discover the secrets to engaging audiences through storytelling, conducting authentic user interviews, and optimizing headlines and CTAs. Learn how to adapt your copywriting strategies for social media, with a focus on authenticity, creativity, and experimentation. Don’t miss out on this exciting episode filled with valuable insights on crafting compelling narratives and driving successful marketing campaigns.
Timestamps
[00:00:16] Copywriter at Monday,com, developed system for copywriting, focused on voice of customer data for acquisition team.
[00:19:04] Voice of customer data used to create targeted copy for B2B FinTech startup.
[00:37:29] Copywriting for social selling success. Authenticity, humor, and employee spotlights key.
[00:54:27] Copywriter specializing in PPC, website copy, social selling.
[01:10:41] Farmers and beekeepers love technology and storytelling.
Lessons Learned from the Podcast
-
The Power of Reading and Learning:
- Continuously seek out new books and resources to expand your knowledge. The mention of various books like Think and Grow Rich, Buy Back Your Time, Automatic Clients, Trading Up, and Magic Words highlights the importance of reading and learning from different sources to improve personal and professional skills.
-
Value of Frameworks in Marketing:
- Understanding and utilizing frameworks can significantly enhance your marketing strategies. The discussion about Automatic Clients emphasizes the importance of having a well-structured approach to product fit marketing and delivering value, which can lead to better execution and client satisfaction.
-
Importance of Storytelling:
- Stories play a crucial role in how we perceive and interact with the world. They are deeply ingrained in our psyche and offer insights into different cultures and perspectives.
-
Cultural Diversity in Stories:
- Recognize that storytelling varies across cultures, and each culture has its unique narratives. This diversity can broaden our worldview and enrich our understanding of different societies. The stories from China, Israel, the US, Australia, and the UK, for example, each offer distinct lessons and values.
-
Analyzing and Understanding Stories:
- Delving into the structure and purpose of stories can open up new ways of thinking and living. By analyzing the stories we encounter, we can uncover the underlying messages and values they convey, leading to a more fulfilling and enlightened life.
This is Open Source Growth, Australia’s number one SaaS marketing podcast hosted by me, Dean Denny, founder and director of Owendenny Digital. Get ready to deep dive into a world of direct response advertising. Unlock the mysteries of digital marketing, master the art of copywriting and drive massive revenue growth with cutting edge customer acquisition strategies, from product led growth to sales led growth. We’ve got it all covered, and that’s not all.
Join us as we sit down with some of the brightest minds in our industries, founders, CMOs who’ve been where you are and have made it to the other side with stories to tell and wisdom to share.
We’re not just about the strategies in the how to’s, we’re here to fuel your drive with a heavy dose of motivation because in the world of SaaS, it’s not about knowing the path. It’s about charging down with all you’ve got. Whether you’re looking to double, triple, or even 10X your SaaS company this year, Open Source Growth is your ticket to the big leagues.
So plug in, turn up the volume, and let’s get your SaaS rocketing to new heights. Because here it’s not just growth. It’s exponential growth served with a side of fun and a sprinkle of the extraordinary.
Welcome to Open Source Growth. Let the adventure begin.
You are here with me, Dean Denny, the Founder and Director of Owendenny Digital. And we have a special guest today, guys, the Founder of Storylogick, the queen of conversion copy, Naomi Soman.
Naomi: Hi, hi thank you so much for having me here.
Dean: Naomi, it is a pleasure. What have you working up to this morning? Because I think we’re going to have a really good conversation today.
Naomi: Yeah, yeah. Excited to be here.
Dean: Yeah, I’m thrilled to have you here too. So, Naomi, for all the listeners today, give me three facts that people should know about you. This can be professional, personal, spiritual, whatever you want. Just, let’s go with the top three.
Naomi: Three things. I live in Tel Aviv, um, beautiful Mediterranean City. Um, I work in B2B SAAS, uh, in the tech ecosystem here in Israel, and, um, I play the cello in a local orchestra.
Dean: Do you really?
Naomi: Yeah. It’s mostly retirees in the orchestra, but it’s, uh, it’s a fun pastime of mine.
Dean: That’s amazing. So, so let’s get, let’s get straight into it. We can talk about the cello later. I will unpack that by the way.
Dean: You’re young. You’re inspiring, and you’re doing such an amazing work at StoryLogick in the Israel startup community. But, I’m 100 percent certain that you didn’t arrive at working with B2B SaaS. Tell me about your journey that got you into marketing and copywriting and advertising. Let’s go from the very beginning.
Naomi: Yeah, yeah, that’s, um, very true. I did not start out this way, not even close. I think that a lot of people who end up as copywriters, um, end up there by accident through a strange series of events. Um, I originally wanted to go into academia. I wanted to be an English professor. And I, decided to take a six month, uh, trip to France to learn French before starting a PhD because anyone who’s in the humanities should probably know French. Um, had sort of a change of heart there. Um, decided that the academic life might not be for me. And was looking for a place to sort of put down roots. And, I was never so into New York. I’d been in Boston for a few years for university. And, I didn’t really know anyone in a lot of the other large cities in the US and a lot of my friends had started moving to Israel. We started to become like the new hip thing to do. And so, I thought I’d give it a try. Moved here, uh, learned how to speak Hebrew and Israel has a really thriving tech scene. It’s actually one of the largest in the world. A lot of people don’t know this, but there’s a huge, huge startup ecosystem here. And I got a job as a content manager and I sort of realized along the way that, whether you’re telling the story of a character or you’re telling the story of a customer, you’re still telling a story. And a lot of those same principles are still at play. You can pull a lot from one into the other. And I think that marketing is a fascinating, fascinating field. I, I think that it is people don’t give it enough credit, because marketing has a lot of data, and so unlike a world like, like literature, or maybe, Or, even psychology, you, you get immediate feedback from people, either they click or they don’t click. And so, you can learn so much about human psychology. And I think that the difference between, or one of the unique things about marketing is. Marketers almost assume that people are irrational and try to figure out how. Where I think that in a lot of other fields, like economics for example, we think of this like rational man. Like this is the way that a man behaves in the world. And marketing is almost the opposite. We like assume people are totally irrational and then try to explain what that means. Um, and, I think that that’s amazing because the human mind is so fascinating and marketing really gives you an inside look into how it works.
Dean: Yeah. It’s really fascinating when you think about that. Like, marketing is the greatest psychology experiment on the planet. There’s no experiment that gathers so much data over such like concentrated time step with enough you know, team members analyzing that data than anything in the world. Like, and it’s almost like, you know, people plus stimuli equals response. That’s like the, that that is what keeps us alive as marketers and direct response copywriters and, um, and all that jazz. And it’s just really interesting to see how you saw, like, the same storytelling principles from your, like, from your background and your Aspirations Academia, and how did that translate across to the copywriting world from your perspective?
Naomi: Yeah, for sure. So, I think that one of the big thing I noticed, one of the big things that I noticed, is figuring out how to tell a story. Um, so when you think about creating a character, you, you don’t necessarily get, like, a bio or a resume. You get, like, little details, like, the way that her wrist moves, or, um, what somebody thinks about her while she’s walking, walking past them. And I think that when you can take that kind of perspective, and that perspective being, you’re thinking in terms of moments, you’re thinking in terms of Snapshots, in terms of impressions. Um, you can really create a very vibrant persona. Like very early on in my career, I was working with an affiliate marketing site that was involved in online therapy. And this was sort of before online therapy had blown up. And there, at the, the top of the page, there was a picture of a woman on a laptop. I was like, well, this is boring. And a lot of the team members were like, you know, we should show a picture of somebody sad, so we can resonate with the audience. And I said, you know, no, no. This is, this is not what we need. We need to show something inspirational. And, so I, I, I found a picture of a woman. And instead of saying, oh, I think this. This image will help improve the page because of reasons X, Y, and Z. I was able to tell a story about her. I was able to say, look, this is Susan, and Susan has done X in her life, and Susan went through online therapy, and now she has her life together, and she’s out wearing stylish clothing, and she’s out to go see, to go get brunch with her friends, and she has a positive outlook on life, and I think, and the new picture did much, much better, dramatically outperformed the original. And I think that, you know, when you come with more of a storytelling mindset, you shift from these are the pain points, these are the doubts and questions they have, this, these are the features that they use into more of a holistic understanding of the persona. It’s not just a list of demographics. It’s, this is a person, and they’re concerned about office politics, and they’re concerned about, you know, life at home and they’re concerned about all of these things that make them a real person, not just a persona on a newspaper.
Dean: Yeah. I’m so glad that you’ve tapped into that because, you know, with any great customer avatar, need to get the demographics locked in, the psychographics 9 times out of 10 aren’t done to the right amount of detail. And because you’re able to overlay those persona stories, and, you know, really bring them to life. You’re able to not only, you know, come up with a story which people can read and they’re like, oh wow, that’s who we’re targeting. But it’s also enabling the product, the marketing, the salespeople to be able to step into their shoes, really see not only the benefits of the product, but the benefits of the benefits, the functional, emotional and, um, you know, functional, emotional and financial benefits of the product that they have and how that impacts the person’s lives. And um, you can’t be, you just can’t be diligent enough about this. And I think that your storytelling approach really comes like really, really deep into that. So now I’m just now just wanting to talk to you about you were a content manager. At this startup in the thriving, bustling world of Israel. What happened next to get you from where you are now to StoryLogick?
Naomi: Yeah, for sure. Um, so I worked in three different companies in Tel Aviv. One was sort of a mid-sized, then I went to this big unicorn, and…
Dean: Is it still Unicorn now?
Naomi: Ah, it went public.
Dean: Wow! That was unicorn.
Naomi: Um, Yeah, I don’t know if public company counts as unicorn or it has to be private.
Dean: It’s Unicorn enough I guess.
Naomi: Um, It’s monday.com. They’re doing very well.
Dean: Oh, of course. Yeah. We see billboards everywhere with those guys in Melbourne. So, yeah, yeah.
Naomi: Yeah. Well, it started here.
Dean: Ohh, I didn’t know that it was Israeli.
Naomi: Yeah, yeah. Monday.com it grew from Wix, which is also an Israeli business. Yeah.
Dean: Um, so they’re both Israeli?
Naomi: Yeah, they, a lot of times Israeli businesses will try to hide the fact that they’re Israeli, especially when they’re younger, because they want to be seen as more significant. So they’ll put their headquarters in New York or California. Um, like Check Point, Check Point is also Israeli.
Dean: Um, Yeah, I knew that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Naomi: Yeah, monday.com. So, I joined their, um, I think they had like 800 employees when I, when I joined. Uh, and I took over a lot of the I took over all the copywriting for the acquisition team. So, I worked with the Google team, Google campaign managers. I worked all with all of the social campaigns, the media buying, partnerships, affiliates, um, a little bit with LinkedIn and, um, did that for a while. And I felt like it was, um, there, there was sort of a limited amount of room to grow because Monday already had a really large content team. And I wanted to sort of start from the bottom, starting more of a small startup. Um, so I joined a small startup. Um, and I worked there for a little while, it wasn’t a great fit, they were sort of having a lot of changes in management and direction, and, sort of looking around at the, at the startups available. I couldn’t find something that I really felt fit me, and there was an interview that I had, and, um, they, the interview didn’t end up working out, but, they, they ended up hiring me later, um, as a client. But, the head of sales told her boyfriend about me, and her boyfriend told his colleague about me, and he gave me a call and was like, you know, we need somebody to help us with our social media. And I realized, like, hmm, maybe this could be, maybe this could be a good project, it’s a cool company, it’s a nice, nice team, uh, they’re doing something meaningful for the world. And, you know, I kind of realized that I think when you’re hyper specialized, um, the way that I am, you hit a point where either you have to move into more of a management position or you’re, if you want to stay in house, you’re sort of gonna hit a little bit of a plateau. And I wanted to continue growing in my area of expertise. Um, but I wasn’t necessarily interested in moving into more of a management level position. And I felt like freelancing would be a good option. And I’ve developed a lot of great contacts over the years working in this scene. And I was able to leverage those to launch this, uh, freelancing career. And now I’m looking to grow even further.
Dean: Wow! That was insane. I have done all this research through your website. I’ve combed through everything. I knew what website, what university you work for, all that stuff. And I did not know monday.com you were. So, what was your exact role at Monday?
Naomi: Ahh, yeah, I was a copywriter for the, it started off in the media buying team. And then I joined Google and social as well. Um, and yeah, I was a copywriter there.
Dean: Yeah. So tell me about the um, approach that you took when you were working inside of that team, the juggernaut, which is monday.com.
Naomi: When I started there, there was no real system in place for developing copy. There were a lot of great content managers, working on blogs, working on enterprise, partnerships, but especially within the acquisition team. And at the time, um, Monday was spending a massive amount on acquisition. Um, because it was a hyper growth company. And there was no real system in place. Um, so I came in trying a bunch of things and eventually I developed a system. So, I did a lot of research. There was a lot of great product marketers but there wasn’t a lot of great voice of customer data available. Um, we had a lot of case studies but not exactly the same thing because case studies tend to be a little bit more polished and I wanted a lot of that raw data. So, I had a couple of different sources of voice of customer data. I went on gong, and just went through dozens of discovery calls of demo calls. And I created this massive dashboard, documenting exactly what, how people described their pain points, their, their goals and their ambitions and some of their doubts and hesitations, and then I divided that by company size. So small and medium businesses. Mid-sized businesses and, um, enterprise organizations. And then I verified that user testing, great tool. They have a feature that allows you to interview people and they’ll pay the people. So, they’re more likely to show up. So, I would interview a lot of people and, that was a little bit easier because I could focus really on getting my questions answered. And sometimes sales calls are focused on other things. And…
Dean: They also on those beautiful sales calls tell you what they want you, what they want you to believe to hear, you know what I’m saying? Like instead of instead of the truth, they’ll tell you what they want you to think.
Naomi: Yeah, yeah, and that’s where a lot of UX research comes in. I work very closely with the UX researcher there to figure out how to phrase questions, because the way you phrase, you’re exactly right, the way you phrase things really can impact the answer that they give you. And you want to leave it open-ended, you want to make sure to phrase it in a neutral way, so they talk about their experiences in a more, um, authentic way. And then when I, when I start writing copy, I would just take that and put it right down on the page. So, we would get information from product marketing like Okay, people are struggling with this pain point, but then I would be able to say, okay, well, how do they talk about this? Well, it’s not just overwhelming. It’s, they have a spreadsheet with 17 tabs open, or they, they are waking up in the middle of the night worrying about their to do list. Those were like Examples, where when you hear that, you’re like, oh my god, I totally know what they’re dealing with. Um, and then I would take that, put it right down on the page, and then I would test it. So that was the third part. The research, the writing, um, and with the writing, using a lot of frameworks, traditional copywriting, problem, agitation, solution, is, is a big one. That’s pretty much a foundational one that’ll work in 99 percent of cases. And, um,,,
Dean: Yep. Only providing they know they have a problem in the first place.
Naomi: Exactly, exactly. And then testing. And I think that what Monday taught, what Monday, empowered me to do was to really sit down with these campaign managers. And I think this is where a lot of copywriters, undermine themselves. You really need to sit down with these, with these campaign managers. And I think that a lot of times marketing teams are divided into campaign managers or people who work on changing bids and keywords and spread on, changing numbers on spreadsheets and people who are creative and you need to be able to combine those two worlds in order to do it effectively. So, I would sit down with them. I would look at the data, figure out what are we measuring? What are we optimizing for? What stage in the funnel is this? Do we want quality or quantity? Where do they go before they reach this page? All of those questions that you can really find detailed answers to in the data. And then we would test these things. So, sometimes that would be, we would throw it up on a user testing platform. I use Usability Hub, um, which is now I think called Lyssna. Figure out what messages people respond to, what they think of it, do they understand the solution, etc. And then test it on the platform. So, I would run dozens and dozens of tests. It’d be on the headline, on the hero image, on the testimonials, on the copy, and I would say that you, no matter how good you are at marketing, if you don’t test things, you’ll never know what the, what the real answer is until you test it. Because again, people are unpredictable and irrational and you have to put your copy to the test to figure out what’s going to work.
Dean: hmm. Mm hmm. Absolutely. And you need to get your own preconceived idea of what you believe your customer wants. Out of the way.
Naomi: Exactly! And that was a big part of it. Like when I came in, we were talking a lot about efficiency, be more efficient with your team, get more done, accomplish your goals. And at least in a lot of the acquisition team, which a lot of the acquisition team was focused on more small and medium businesses. It wasn’t really an enterprise engine. And through, we kept running these, these taglines. And at some point I thought, why don’t we, why don’t we try something else? Why don’t we try something more related to control? And I think the tagline was, take control of your team’s work. Uh, super simple, right? And automatically, like immediately, huge boost. And it’s like, oh, like, cool. Of course, like, why didn’t we think of that before? But you don’t realize these things unless you test them.
Dean: Yeah. And I think you also need to have the appropriate framework to test.
Naomi: Mm hmm.
Dean: So, when you run split tests, oh this is a perfect segue actually. How do you go about narrowing down the tests and the order of your tests? So, let’s start with, um, this monday.com example here. And let’s first, let’s focus on the ads side of things first before we talk about landing pages, because that’s the time, you know, kettle of fish, so to speak. So, Um, talk to me how you go about narrowing down the tests, prioritizing your tests, and then yeah, just run it, run us through the examples that you would use inside of a Unicorn.
Naomi: Uh yeah for sure. Um when it comes to ads, you’re right landing pages is different based. For ads I have a process and I think this is actually a great way to use ChatGPT. Uh, all of this voice of customer data that I have. And I’ll plug it into all of these templates I have. So, I have a document, um, with a swipe file that I’ve taken, like, successful headlines from all different copywriters. So, I’ve gotten them from books, from podcasts, from LinkedIn. Uh, et cetera. Lots of different headlines from various industries. And I’ll take the voice of customer data I have and plug it in to these templates, these examples of successful headlines. And I’ll do like 30 of them. Uh, and ChatGPT is good at this because it can just give you like a hundred and then you can say I like these four, come up with more like that. And do that until you get like sixty-eight. And then what you do is you create, you create banners for those. So put those on banners and then come up with two to three different designs. So that could be a picture of software versus a picture of more of an abstract design. That was something that we did a lot at Monday, trying to compare different approaches or something with people versus without people. And then we would take, uh, six of them and put them up on Usability Hub, which is now Lyssna and we would, there would be a couple of tests that we would do. First one would be in your own words. Explain what this software does. So we’d show this, the picture of the ad for five seconds. Then ask this, this question to see if they understand or if they understood what we were trying to convey. And that’s the most important, right? If people don’t understand what you’re selling, then you’re not going to sell anything. Clarity is always number one. And then we would put up six and we would tell, we would ask people to choose which one they would, they like best. And I would say that 70 to 80 percent of the time, it would predict correctly which one would work when we put it live. So yeah. And then we would run just dozens of these tests. So again, we would test the CTA, we would test the copy, we would test the image and then we would do like a March Madness, right? We’d like come up with like 25 and then narrow it down to 10 and then come up with like, compare them all to see what we could learn about it. And we learned a lot…
Dean: Yeah, yeah. It’s like, it’s like, it’s like element hunger Games basically. And you just gotta say which one cannibalizes each other and they work their way up. Yeah.
Naomi: Exactly, exactly.
Dean: Wow. And it’s, it’s so interesting, your approach at Monday. When they’ve got the big marketing dollars and they’ve got like the user groups that can go in there and ask the questions with like usability hub and Lyssna, and all those things. It’s such a different world to what most marketers get to experience in small companies. You know, like, we work with SaaS companies who are like pre-revenue and then we’ve got to work with, you know, Australian financial review, listed like unicorns as well. And some of those of those early startups just don’t just don’t have access to this approach. So, if you were speaking to a pre revenue startup and they want to go about testing their message with say, social ads. What would you give them so they could do it on an oily rag and get the results they really need?
Naomi: Yeah, 100 percent. So, ah you don’t need gong to record your sales calls. You can zoom can record your sales calls. So, I would say start there and just have your AE’s. Make friends with your AEs. They’re very, very helpful people. I know that marketers and sales, marketers and sales people live in two worlds, but we can learn a lot from each other.
Dean: I, I, I’ve got this theory, FYI. Um, I believe every direct response copywriter needs to do some form of phone sales, enterprise sales, anything that involves selling, you know toes to nose and closing, basically. You know. So that’s my view. That’s my obscure view, but I agree. The AEs and your, and your sales reps and the copywriters, they need to become friends. So back to you, sorry, I hijacked you. Keep going, keep going.
Naomi: Um, and then I would build on that actually, talk about customer success. Customer success in B2B sales is different from customer success, um, in more of a B2C oriented business because they’re working with these clients on an ongoing basis. And so, they are really good at telling you what success means. And I remember, like I got an, and also people don’t ask customer success as much. Their, their opinion is not usually elicited. Uh, to the same degree that sales is. So, they’re eager to provide you their opinion and you can get a lot of really, really great insights on what a successful, um, uh, what, what an ideal customer partnership looks like six months to 12 months down the line. Um, so I’d say that’s number one. Get as many insights as you can. And when it comes to testing, Usability Hub isn’t actually that expensive. You can start with like 30 to 50 dollars test if you want to dip your toes in as supposed to user testing, which is like a minimum 10, 000 dollars investment. Um, but Usability Hub is definitely, uh, cost, um, is definitely affordable even for small businesses. And then I would say that you can test these just by putting them live, right? You can put up a lot of different ads and figure out which one is working. And I would say that in the beginning, you don’t want to worry too much about quality, because it’ll be hard to really quantify how many quality lead you’re bringing in. Because the sales cycle tends to be much, much longer with B2B. So, I would, that wouldn’t be my first concern. Of course, you’re bringing in a lot of useless garbage leads and you know that maybe this ad is not, is not putting forth the best message. Um, but, I mean, the ad that people click on is the ad that they like, and so you don’t have to overthink it. You don’t have to have huge testing platforms, or you don’t have to have Tableau, you don’t have to have a lot of money to do this. You can put it on, do it on a small budget, the ad that people like is the ad, is the direction you want to go. And then you iterate from there. So, you’re like, all right, let’s sit down and figure out why they like this ad. Is it the picture? Is it the message? Is it the.. I don’t know. Is it the phrasing? What is it? And then let’s try to go in that direction, come up with a bunch of ideas like that and go again and see what else we can learn.
Dean: Love this. So, so, so, so, so so much love for this. Um, oh man, I, I can, if you have you got like a sister or something that you can work in my business? Like, this is just, ah, mmm, so good. Um, so like. Now we’ve gone past, you know, monday.com, Naomi. Then we went into small startup, Naomi. How has that changed? Because you’ve probably gone from this massive product led growth juggernaut, which I’m assuming has some sales led growth, components with demos and stuff, into this tiny little thing. And what, what were you doing in this startup? Obviously, you were writing copy to some extent, but were you in a different vertical? Were you, did you have a different value prop, which was radically different to monday.com? Was the sales process different? Was it sales at growth, product led growth? Like, how did you adjust?
Naomi: Yeah. It was a big transition. And it taught me a lot about more the product sales led growth or I can call B2B SaaS thing. And in start-up, I think the idea was, it was a check-out for B2B. So if you are selling steel, lumber, um, HVACs, whatever it is, you’re not going to have an e-commerce store where you can use Stripe for a 50, 100, 500,000 dollars purchase. Um, you’re going to need something a little bit more complex, more robust, something that allows you to offer net terms, credit to your customers. And you’re going to have to integrate that with accounts receivable. So it was a solution. It was a B2B checkout, if you will. And does much more than that, but that’s sort of the elevator pitch and, um, it was a much longer sales cycle, much more complex and a much smaller budget, at a very different persona because if you’re dealing with payments, you can’t just get the team manager involved, especially in a more enterprise level organization, you’re going to have to get Directors, VPs, sometimes even C-suite members involved in the buying process. So, then you have to start thinking about the buying committee. Who are you targeting? Are you targeting the champion? Are you targeting the Decision-maker? Are you targeting the person who is going to deal with all of the operational side? Well, the answer is you’re targeting all of them and you have to figure out who you’re talking to when. So, I think that some of the, so there were a few key ways that I adapted all of my processes to this new startup. Um, so number one, when it came to writing copy, I did actually need to target more of the upper management. So instead of, I realized that instead of using, traditional PAS problem education solution, I had to adapt it a little bit. Why? Because a lot of the pain points that the solution solved were pain points for the people lower down on the totem pole. So, for example, having a lot of checks in your office that you don’t have the resources to cash because you’re so busy. That’s the kind of thing that somebody a little bit lower down, would, would struggle with not somebody at the top. Um, so instead of using problem agitation solution, I used a different formula, desire objection solution. So, focus on what their desires were. Talk to customer success. They said, you know, a lot of these enterprise organizations, they really want to see their name across publications that they’re innovative and they’re adopting this new technology and they’re really pushing this industry forward. And so, I use that and I described what that could be like. Then I presented the objection, then I present presented the solution. Sometimes that was an e-book. Sometimes that was, um, a demo, whatever it was. So I honed in on that new persona in a way that was relevant for them. That was number one. And number two, I realized that, you’re not necessarily going to see the same, quick funnel. You have to acknowledge that people are going to need a lot more touch points before they’re ready for a demo. But if you look inside your marketing funnel, if you look inside your acquisition campaigns, you can see that, for example, if you’re running more YouTube ads, you’re running more LinkedIn ads, you’ll see more people searching for you on Google. So, even if they’re not clicking on those LinkedIn ads, or they’re not clicking on those YouTube ads, the same principles are still at play, they’re just looking for you somewhere else. So, maybe they’re looking for you on G2 or Capterra, but you can use the same kind of copywriting and just acknowledge that the user journey is going to look a little bit different and you can feel more comfortable in that when you can look at the data and understand what’s going on in a strategic sense.
Dean: Yeah, isn’t that interesting? The old P A S getting turned into D O S. And I love that. So, you know, you obviously would declare the desire, or pique the desire, list their objections that they would normally throw up at throw up at this point, and then launch into the solution. And that’s essentially the copywriting framework you would use with your both MQL style ads and also your SQL style ads.
Naomi: Mm hmm.
Dean: Cool. Cool. So, here’s really an interesting point. I’m assuming, you know Chris Walker from Refine Labs? I’m Talking from one B2B copy to another. Of course you do. And what you’ve just mentioned here was, okay, okay, we’re doing waterfall method in this business, but we also are benefiting from like, like, not so not so much the deliberate impact of doing some form of demand generation. But, You know, when you start running YouTube ads and then your search increases, that’s 101, right? So obviously demand generation is getting thrown up a lot on LinkedIn if you’re B2B and you’ve got a pulse. you know, Chris, I’m curious to know what your thoughts are as a conversion copywriter. Handling this this desire to push towards more of a demand generation approach. Because I know if it’s not just you, it would be definitely me and nearly every other copywriter who’s a direct response cat. We’ve all been taught about, you know, you need to go about doing generating the lead. You need to go about Getting the booking, getting the demo locked in, ensuring that the person is going to shop on the call, and everything has to be super angular and pointy, to drive metrics that drive sales activity, whether it’s revenue or not. So I want to I want to know your take on this whole situation as a copywriter, and what are you doing, and how are you adapting?
Naomi: Yeah, I think it’s just about figuring out where you are in the funnel, um, but creating demand is really important and you just have to have the foresight to know that. It’s not going to look like that nice, it’s not going to fit in a nice neat little box. It’s not going to look like a nice cute little funnel. Because marketing is just not that neat and clean. That’s not how people buy and that’s not how people buy 50, 000 software packages. These are big decisions. So. I think that you can take all of the principles that you, that have been relevant for copywriting since time immemorial and just adapt it to this new landscape. So for example, I’ve been doing a lot more social selling lately because a lot of startups just, their, their budget is limited and they don’t have the kind of budget for marketing that they would have in 2021. And they’re startups, so of course they have a small budget. UAnd so they’re turning a lot more towards social media. And I think that social media is a really good example for that. Because you can take all parts of the funnel, and build it into your content strategy. So one day you’re going to talk about the benefits. Another day you’re going to talk about overcoming objections. So talk to the sales team, write down the top 10 things that people are concerned about. The top 10 reasons people are afraid to take that next step and turn that into content. So you’re getting all parts of the messaging package, just within your content strategy. And it’s not going to be like, okay, first you see a social post, and then you see an ad, and then you see a landing page, and then you see a demo, and then you sign up. Like, no, that’s not the way life works. But if you take all of those concepts and put it into your social strategy, then you can convey all of those important points and communicate what you need to, to get people to sign up. And I think that if you look at the revenue and the revenue is going up, like that’s a good sign, but it’s takes a little bit more creativity and a little bit more patience and foresight.
Dean: Yeah, especially with social selling when you don’t have the huge acquisition budgets that you can just throw on, you know, paid ads like all day long. So, with social selling, how are you finding working as such a data driven copywriter when you’re doing so much work from an organic perspective where there’s less, you know, granularity as to what’s as to what’s performing? How do you, how do you manage, um, your campaigns in, in this environment?
Naomi: Yeah. So I think that with social selling, consistency is a lot more important than virality. Just because it goes viral it doesn’t necessarily going, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to bring in leads. I think it’s analyzing the campaign, analyzing the content in more of a holistic way. So which kind, which kinds of content do well? So for example, I’m working with a company called Bee Hero. They sell IOT sensors to beekeepers and then, or they provide IOT sensors for beekeepers and then take those beehives and sell them to growers. Um, they’re in the business of pollination. And one of the things that I realized very early on was that you could do a lot with employee spotlights. Now employee spotlights are a very common thing to do in, um, in a social strategy. But the way I, I did two things with it that I think were very successful. Three things actually. Number one, I used it to tell a story about the customer, about the, about the business instead of just saying, Oh, this is so and so. They like rock climbing and they work in their front stack developer and they, and we’re so glad that they’re, that they’re on our team. Like, okay, that’s nice, but like, if you take that person’s story and talk about the work that they’re doing, and the projects that they’re working on, and how they contribute to the company, then you are creating a piece of content that’s useful for sales as well. And that was number one. Number two, I made it much more authentic. And I think that this is really why social selling is so valuable because you can create a persona through social selling that you can’t with ads. And so for example, instead of doing a very templated picture that’s branded and looks very polished, I would use a lot of photographs. Um, so in this company we use photographs where they’re out in the apiary. Working with beehives, because obviously that’s just so cool. Um, but like, there was one picture where the team had an offsite, and there was one employee who was out picking apples in a farm in the south. And he was sort of laughing, he had a bunch of teammates around him, and it was very candid. Um, those are the kind of pictures that I really, really love because they bring that sense of authenticity. They convey who you are as a company without having to be, these are our values, and this is our culture, and this is what we believe in. You just show that by taking a snapshot of how the team is interacting, um, but you do it in a way that shows that. This is the value that this person brings to the team. And I think this, this is something that I learned actually on Monday. On Monday we were experimenting on Reddit. I don’t know why not more people are Advertising on Reddit, Reddit is a super cool advertising platform. And the Reddit campaign manager specifically told us, you have to use content that feels authentic. If it feels branded and polished, people won’t pay attention to it. And I think that that is also relevant for social media. When you write in a way that sounds authentic and sincere and candid and shows a little bit of who you are as a company beyond just, the polished brand then you can escape that kind of banner blindness effect that causes a lot of users to ignore you and you can. And then I think the third thing is getting all of the other employees on board. So I would say, let’s all show this, this teammate some love. Go ahead and like this post. And if you can get everyone to like it, in the first hour, then, these posts would get like 50 to 100 likes. Pretty consistently.
Dean: Wow.
Naomi: So, yeah, I mean, That’s not something that I would, like you can, you can create reports, but I think the reports are not quite, they, they won’t tell the whole story, but if you look at the content that’s working and figure out why, and then find a way to repeat that, then you can build a really successful social strategy.
Dean: Yeah. To all the listeners that are tuning in right here, right now. I have just been dousing my notebook in absolute gold from that. That employee spotlight section is absolute genius. It’s red hot fire. I’m going to bring that to my agency. That’s brilliant. Like, you know, instead of just being like, Oh, this is Sam, he’s based in Kenya. He likes throwing spears at lions in his days off, like, it’s not necessarily that, but like, it’s more a case of he loves doing this sort of project, this is what he sees future of advertising becoming, this, this is something he’s really excited to roll out over the next three months, all of a sudden, you’re selling without selling, because people are purely interested in people, not so much the business and the brand itself.
Naomi: Yeah, and.
Dean: Like, Oh,
Naomi: And yeah, tech in Israel is a really small ecosystem. So that person who’s being spotlighted has a whole bunch of friends in the tech ecosystem and they’re all going to be like, Oh wow, it’s so great that you were spotlighted! And they’re going to like it and say, Yeah, I worked with him. He’s such a great guy. Um, and I think that the key lesson from this is this idea didn’t just like, I didn’t sit down and say, Okay, this is going to be our content strategy for the month and everything has to be super planned out. I’m not I like being organized, but I like leaving a certain amount of room for flexibility for these ideas to come up. And this is just, I was sitting with the product manager, and I was like, you know what, why don’t we do a social post on you? And it was like six lines long, it was like, meet Yuval. Yuval is this task, and this is what he’s doing, and it was super short and sweet, um, and that’s where it came from, and I think that that’s where a testing mindset can really come in handy.
Dean: Geez. Love that. Love that. For, for those who are experimenting on Reddit, what have you found to work? Because I’ve spoken to a few people who have got really, really technical startups. And they have massive success on Reddit, especially where there’s like a community of say, programmers who use their platform or whatever, or anyone who’s got like a really tech, you know, that, that target avatar is like, whether they be a developer or a coder or a programmer, or just, just a flat out nerd. I’m one. So I’m able to call it. Like what, what did what did you find work on Reddit during your time, whether it be with Monday or any of the other startups you work with.
Naomi: Yeah. So I would say number one, figure out which ad forms work for you because the ad placement made a big difference. I want to say that we used comment ads. Um, although it’s been a while, so I could be, um, I’m mistaken, but the actual ad format makes a huge difference, and that’s true on Twitter and Facebook as well, like video ads versus post ads, um, so that’s number one, um, because you can’t, copy isn’t going to compensate for more structural differences. Um, but number two, we would use a lot of humor. So, for example, we would take that PAS formula and flip it on its heads. So, for example, we had one that said, How to be a mediocre manager. Um, and then we put all the pain points, right? Um, so, take all of your ideas, or create a really, really long spreadsheet, and have long, long meetings, where you go over all of the points on the spreadsheet, um, and ridiculous things like that. Or, we would say things like, this is sort of common, but it still works, like, oh, I love, um, spending hours Um, going through email threads said no project management ever. Um, right. Like I’m not the first one to come up with that, but if you can get a detailed example, like it’s, it’s funny. It still works. So I think that kind of sarcastic cheeky copy can really work on Reddit in a way that it doesn’t work on a lot of other platforms and are in a way that. You feel you have to polish a bit more, if you’re on other platforms, to align more with the brand image. That is so true.
Dean: That is so brilliant, by the way. And I love how you’ve just like put two and two together and being like, like, P. A. S is always about, you know, getting, hitting the pain point and then ending up at the solution by agitating the problem. Right? Where you look at these frameworks that are quite unquote humorous sarcasm frameworks to actually go about selling your product, It’s about flipping it on its head. Like, you’ve got this innate ability just to be able to look at anything. I’m not just saying ads because we all can see a copy paste copy you know, sales letter, like any day of the week, or we can see ADA or, the four P’s or whatever. Like we know how to pick up those typical ones, but is that something is that something that’s always been within you. That being able to see like a framework, and deconstructing that in whether it be like in pop culture or in on the internet, like this is a skill you’ve got. Like I’ve never seen this before.
Naomi: I mean, I, I think that it’s a skill that I’ve built by doing it over and over and over again. But it’s something that I love. It’s something that I’m passionate about. And I do think that it really comes from that creative literary side. I think that’s a huge advantage when you can think about these. people, these personas as people and embedded in a story, then it’s a lot more interesting. And like, I even had this exercise. I recruited the other copywriters on my team to help me with this research project. When we built this, um, we went through all of these sales calls. Um, I got my colleagues to help me and, um, we were trying to figure out what pain points we wanted to define as the main pain points. And one of my colleagues was sort of having a hard time articulating one of them and I was like, you know, just let me give you this person this person named Michelle. Michelle’s a middle manager in a Software company and she’s dealing with X like tell me about Michelle and instantly he was able to sort of shift his mindset and like he told me this whole long story about who Michelle was and what her day to day life looked like and how she struggled with her team members and what she was trying to convey to her upper manager she wanted to be promoted or she wanted to she was afraid of not coming off as as Organized enough whatever it was And he was instantly able to shift into that mindset and I think that everyone has it in them You Um, and it’s something that you build by finding examples and repeating them and coming up with new ideas. And if you are sort of tuned into the details of life, then you can really make them sparkle. And I think that’s, that might be my edge. Not that, like anyone can do it if they put in enough practice, but when, when, we think about poetry, we think about. Literature, sometimes we, it’s not the, it’s not the material that makes it, it’s those details that really make it pop and really make it memorable.
Dean: Wow! It’s so true. Like really getting deep on the finer details and spending the time, understanding the human condition and what it is to be human. Because I think that copywriting is not one of those professions where you can brute force it. You need to be on your game every single day. And I don’t believe you can write copy for 23 hours straight day in, day out, and create amazing work. Like you need to be fresh. It’s not one of those bits. one of those, it’s not one of those businesses or professions where you can just write and write and write and write, right? What are you doing away from copy enables that enables you to get to the tap into the human condition and understand what it feels like to be human. Because at the end of the day, we’re all humans. we’re all emotional, and all we want to do is use logic to back up our crazy decisions. So tell me about like what your process is to figure out this whole thing called life.
Naomi: Um, yeah, yeah, it’s so true. I’m a people watcher. I love people watching. Just like, uh, standing in cafes, there’s a great cafe culture here in Tel Aviv. Um, or sitting on the beach and watching how people interact, trying to guess, like, the relationship between two people, how they feel about one another, what they’re talking about, what they’re thinking about, if you do that long enough and try to understand the situations around you, then you’ll pick up on some amazing details, like, um, And it’s those little glances too, right? Like when somebody sees somebody that they haven’t seen in a long time, it’s like watching their expression and seeing how much they miss that person and how glad they are to see them. It’s like, it could be just a greeting on the surface level, like, oh wow, I’m glad to see, I’m glad to see you, it’s so good that you’re here, I haven’t seen you in a while. But like, if you watch their eyes, you can tell that there’s so many more emotions going on below the surface. And sometimes it just takes. You just have to take a moment and like, sit in silence and watch like, what is going through that person’s mind. Um, and that could be at a cocktail hour, that could be at a cafe, that could be, that could be in the office. Like, these things happen everywhere and you just have to sort of pay attention.
Dean: Yeah. And you have to get out of your own way as well. Like, one thing that I used to do, well first things first, I need to talk about people watching. Next month, I’m going to be running my entire business from Paris, and I cannot wait just to be sitting at those cafes. You know how they all angle out to watching the streets. I cannot just wait and sit on those corners in the old streets of Paris with an espresso or an expresso, I don’t know how they end up with the x in it, but it is what it is. My cafe, a lingerie or whatever, and a Cuban cigar, like. Maybe two to three days and just watch people and journal. That is going to be the best day of my life. I just love it so much that place, you know, but like, what are you doing? Are you doing mindfulness? Like, are you doing anything to like, get out of your own way when you observe these people? And you try to deconstruct and understand what’s going on inside of you when you see these stimuli, et cetera, et cetera. Like, is there anything that you’re doing that’s not just observing? How do you get to a position where to see you’re able to see it for what it truly is.
Naomi: I don’t think that you can force it. I think if you try to make it too scientific, then you’ll come up with something that’s a little bit too plastic, a little bit too rigid. I think that you just have to absorb it and then your mind will sort of mull it over. And, you’ll never know when something might be useful, but if you just sit there and let it all come to you, then at some point, it’ll be useful. I have a good friend who writes a satirical newspaper, for, in Israel, sort of making fun of lots of ridiculous Israeli things, and, um, yeah, he tells me the same things, like, the ideas just come to me, and he’ll sit in a cafe, he has a pension because he’s been in the army for a long time. And he’ll just sit there and let the ideas come to him. Or he’ll like, this is also something he does, which I think is a great example. He’ll have people vent to him. Like, people will come with, like, their bad dating stories, or their stories about how they got ripped off, ripped off by somebody. And he’ll listen to that, and he’ll write that down, and he’ll turn them into articles for his numerical paper, which is hilarious. But, like, if you want a process, like, that is a process.
Dean: That is something.
Naomi: It’s like, no one will give you more details than somebody who’s like really pissed off at a store clerk or at uh, the last date that didn’t show up.
Dean: Oh, 100%, 100%. It’s really funny, actually. I would say the peak of my direct response copywriting, career. This is going to make you laugh. Do you remember the toilet paper crisis that happened in Australia?
Naomi: Was it during COVID?
Dean: Yes. Everyone was buying the toilet paper and no one could access toilet paper. It was just insane, like literally, stockpile, you had to end up, if you didn’t paper towel have your own stockpile, paper. It actually had to use paper towel on your back side. Literally and figuratively. Yeah. Um, anyway, but I remember sitting in a cafe once when that was all going down, and I was just thinking of the craziness that was going on. And if you, and I really tapped into what the average Australian was thinking about the whole situation. And I noticed was that everyone thinks it’s madness and it was what we call totally an Australian. But basically, the way of saying not on in my country. So, my friend and I decided to create a commemorative t shirt called the I Survived the Toilet paper crisis of 2020 t shirt. And I remember writing three ads. One just being like your typical, get your commemorative t shirt, blah, blah blah. No sales. Ad two, like an AIDA crappy framework didn’t work. But then I got really, really clever and I insinuated in the longest ad you have ever seen on Facebook. It was like full, Gary Halbert length ad that if you didn’t buy one, it was totally an Australian. And it was totally an Australian for toilet paper, and the only way you would show your support the nonsense was by purchasing one of one of these t shirts. I’ll send it to you You’ll think it’s hilarious. It was like a full on story about people getting stabbed. and all sorts of crazy stuff.
Naomi: Amazing!
Dean: We sold 50,000 dollars worth of shirts in less than 3 weeks.
Naomi: No Way!
Dean: I had three or four of my friends try to rip me off and it was just insane.
Naomi: That’s unbelievable! 50,000 dollars!
Dean: Ending up on national TV, everything. It was, it was a time.
Naomi: Oh my God! Wow, power of copywriting, huh?
Dean: Power of storytelling. That’s why we are here with Miss StoryLogick self.
Dean: So, um, so You know what I’m saying? Because it’s like, with story. If you’re because the thing is right, especially when you’ve got those a single ad, products, which are like totally unaware, like people don’t have a problem. You have to sell with story. And you know, if you’re able to communicate. To those who are unaware and take them from unaware to making a purchase in a single ad, especially in the world of e commerce, that is essentially like throwing the Hail Mary throw at the Superbowl. So if you can do that as a copywriter, you’ve essentially, performed a miracle.
Naomi: 100%.
Dean: Six times in a row, by the way.
Naomi: Wow.
Dean: Without any autobombs yet. Brutal. I was just on fire, man. It was just going mental. Oh, everything you’ve been saying today has just been, like, resonating so beautifully and I just want to say that, like, I know our listeners have just been loving this so far, Naomi. But I’ve got a couple of more questions before we can wrap this one up today. Tell me about StoryLogick. Give me the rundown of everything that you’re doing.
Naomi: Um, so, for StoryLogick, I have, a few different services that I offer. My main service is PPC, um, so ads and landing pages, sitting down with campaign, and I offer from A to Z. So sitting down with the campaign managers, figuring out what the campaigns are doing, what kind of ads and landing pages we need if we don’t have enough of them. Then creating them, making sure that the design is on point, that the design is supporting the copy, and that it’s version optimized. And then validating it, and then testing it. So it’s sort of A to Z. Not just providing the copy, but really understanding on a strategic level, what’s needed and why. So that’s really my…
Dean: So just for those. So just those listening. So you do not only the copywriting, but you also execute the design, the development, and the management of the ads as well?
Naomi: I don’t, um, I don’t manage the ads campaigns. Um, but, and I, I don’t provide the design myself, but I’ll work with the designer to make sure that they understand what they need, um, because a lot of times designers are more focused on the design than the overall strategy and marketing philosophy. So I work with them so that they understand not what they need to design, but what kind of things we need to convey and what the goal is of each part of the page so that they can go and do their best work.
Dean: Amazing.
Naomi: Yeah, cause I feel that that’s sometimes a missing piece that it’s. Like, it’s such an important part of the process and you really need to be able to work with designers, uh, in a very collaborative way. And then a website copy. So, this is really important in start ups. Uh, we spoke earlier how when businesses can adapt really, really quickly, they change. So, for a lot of start ups, they have their website that they put up when they’re a series A, and a couple of series later, and they realize that their product is very different, their message is very different, their persona is very different, and they need a new, a new website. And this, I think this happens a lot of times for startups in like series C. And they’re ready to like, they’ve like reached product market fit, and they need to, you know, shift more into scaling. Um, so, or sometimes it’s companies that they have a new AI tool and they want to adapt their messaging and they need to change their messaging across the board so everything’s consistent. That could also be a point. Um, so working with startups to figure out how to adapt their messaging, um, and how to write it in a way that is targeted and consistent and conversion focused across the board. So that’s number two. And then social selling. Um, social selling is a big part of what I do now. Because a lot of clients of mine are interested in it. And again, this is really relevant for smaller startups. So it’s sort of one for every, every kind of startup. So social selling is oftentimes more relevant for smaller startups. The website is more relevant for mid level and then more upper level, series D, series that are more well established, are more interested in, you know, Um, but I, I’ve been developing a lot of, uh, social selling programs and workflows and systems that I use and helping, um, Companies build their presence and establish more of a persona and reach a lot of their target customers I also find that this is really useful for b2b companies that are in more niche markets so as I mentioned be heroes in the agricultural space and it’s very difficult with traditional pbc to find Farmers, like farmers in Central Valley, California, you know, like, how do you find them? Are they on LinkedIn? If they are on LinkedIn, are they using LinkedIn? It’s not easy, but they are on social media. And if you’re consistent and you are providing relevant, useful content, then you can reach them. And I think that that’s a valuable tool for startups in more niche B2B spaces.
Naomi: Yeah, that’s awesome. You know, it’s really funny, actually. I have a friend that’s a farmer. No LinkedIn profile, but literally he drives his tractor around all day. He owns his own business. By the way, it’s like a contractor. He’s literally just taking videos of him in his own Instagram driving his tractor, listening to Luke Combs like fast car. You know like, it’s, it’s interesting to see how like through the invent of the mobile phone with the internet and social media that you think the people who are most unlikely to take on a mobile phone, like just say, farmers, as soon as soon as they adopt it, on the technology adoption life cycle, curve, they get straight into it and they find something that they love and they use it aggressively.
Naomi: And we also deal with beekeepers. I can’t tell you how many beekeepers are on Instagram. I never knew how large this world was until I started working with this company. There are so many beekeepers!
Dean: Yeah, yeah. it’s a, it’s a, it’s, it’s a thing, man.
Naomi: Yeah, and they’re all over Instagram. They love it. I’ll tell you this whole Instagram feed is all, it’s pictures of bees in the hive, pictures of bee beard, beard, bee beards, pictures of, Bees swarms, pictures of bees on flowers. It’s amazing. It’s truly, truly a world unto itself.
Dean: Wow. That is actually amazing. That’s too good. Before we go, I’m going to ask about the Cello. How long have you been playing football? And what are you, um, why the cello out of all instruments?
Naomi: That’s a great question. So I went to, I was lucky enough to go to a school that had a great music department. My high school had like two orchestras, three bands and like five choirs. Um, it was like the thing to do. So I started when I was nine years old, everyone picked an instrument and, um, I did it all through high school, all through school. So age like nine to 18, then I stopped sort of in college and then I rented it, rented an instrument here and there. Cause obviously Cielo is quite an, quite an expensive instrument and it’s very fragile and very bulky. So not something easy to just like pick up on Craigslist. Um, so, um, so I eventually, when I, um, I finished paying off the rest of my student loans, that was like my reward to myself. I purchased a used cello and, uh, picked it up again and ended up joining this local orchestra, which is mostly retirees. Um, but it’s a lot of fun, even though there are not a lot of members of my peer group, um, and why the cello? So I think that this is, you know, in Harry Potter, where like they explain that the wand chooses you. So I think it’s the same thing with instruments, because I think that people choose instruments that are sort of like them. Like, you’re never going to find an extroverted cellist, right? Like, cellists are more like, introverted and a little bit quiet. And, like, they’re not at the back, they’re not like the bass line, they’re not doing the bass just playing like, boop boop boop boop. They sometimes get the melody. Um, But yeah, I think it’s like the instrument chooses you. I don’t think that it’s uh, I don’t think it’s the other way around.
Dean: I couldn’t agree more as a jazz guitarist. There we go. Um, in the background. Um, yeah, a hundred percent. Do you think there’s been a crossover between like your musical expansion and copywriting?
Naomi: Interesting. I mean the first thing that comes to mind is like Toni Morrison or James, James Joyce because once you get into more of these modernist writers, they Um, like, uh, Toni Morrison, specifically, she wrote a book called Jazz. And she used a lot of, like, musical language in her writing. It was very poetic, even though it was a novel. And I think that if you can take that as inspiration, then you can sort of insert language or words or phrases in an unpredictable way into your copy. And that sometimes makes it really fresh. Like, using language that’s very sensory. Like using words to describe certain sounds or certain colors. Um, that can be a really, really great way of infusing a lot of your copy. Um, otherwise, I think that it’s really healthy, especially when you run your own business to focus on other things. And I think that music, music is a very complicated thing and you have to be focused on it. So if you can, it’s sort of a meditative experience. So if you have to focus on the music in order to play it, then you’re not focusing on work and forcing your brain to shift into a different mode. Gives it that time to rest and recoup. And that’s the kind of valuable time you need to come back to your copy with fresh eyes and come with new ideas and new experiences to, uh, to use.
Dean: Couldn’t agree with you more, like that is so true. Like I find this is just a weird correlation, but whenever I’m writing creative for my own business, so whether I’m doing this, the lead gen ads for marketing agency. There is direct correlation between me developing creative and having the guitar play. And it’s weird. They, they power each other along. Because I find them both very spiritually rewarding. I often see myself playing both guitar, coming up with the better ideas, writing, playing the guitar. And it’s just like this beautiful, like a vacation effect of greatness. Mm hmm. It’s amazing. Yeah. I’m glad that you did, it’s not just me that’s experiencing that, you’re getting the benefits as well, right?
Naomi: Yeah, yeah. You need to really find hobbies. Hobbies aren’t just to, to do something fun, they really enrich your life, life, and they help you think in different ways, and I think that using those different skills helps you in a mysterious way in other areas of your life for sure.
Dean: Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna actually give you homework after this. I really want you to understand jazz language and jazz harmony. Because there are so many, so many parallels between like, growth marketing and growth hacking and playing jazz languages.
Naomi: Interesting!
Dean: Hit me up! So basically you’ve got to look at a jazz standard as like a marketing calendar, like what you’re looking, what you’re wanting to achieve, et cetera, et cetera. Now, you know, with like really aggressive growth marketers, they have a dynamic market budget based on the amount of revenue they generate. If you think of that, that’s kind of like whether you’re forte or piano. In terms of your dynamic, and basically how your marketing campaign goes along. You have to often improvise from quarter to quarter, in alignment with the creative ideas that you need to generate. For instance, just say you need to develop interest in your marketing. That’s like developing a new improvisation over the same chord progression. So, if you look into jazz, and you look at digital advertising, especially where you’re earning creatives quickly, you are literally playing the business form of jazz when it comes to growth hacking. So if you look into jazz harmony, and jazz frameworks and the syntax of how jazz works, it’ll blow your mind.
Naomi: All right. I don’t know all that much about jazz, but it’s, it’s intriguing me. Yeah. Caught my attention.
Dean: Just, just pick up a tape of Miles Davis’s, um, the Blue Album. It’s the quintessential jazz album. Mm-Hmm. . Really easy to listen. You’ll love it. If you like music, that’s it, of course, right?
Naomi: A hundred percent.
Dean: Um, two more questions and we’ll, wrap it up. Top five marketing books. Go.
Naomi: Ooh, interesting. Um, I actually think, I actually think that people should read books that are slightly adjacent to marketing, um, because it really helps you figure out, um, it, it helps you think outside the box. Um, so my favorite, or one of my top, um, is Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. Yeah. That one’s a great one. Um, and there’s so much in there that’s a little bit counterintuitive, but very persuasion focused. He talks about mirroring, when he talks about getting to know, um, all of those things are super, super valuable. Um, Shieldini’s influence, that’s, that’s classic, you have to use that one. Um, and then there was another interesting one. Um, bringing it up on my Kindle app. Um, it was something I read a long time ago. And it was about, splitting the, or breaking the demand curve. Um, let’s see if I can find it. Trading Up. Trading Up by Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske. Um, super interesting book on how sometimes increasing the price actually causes an increase in demand, um, if you can help people see your product as a form of experience. Like uh, Panera Bread was one of the examples that they brought up. That Panera Bread is not just the sandwich, it’s not just the food, um, it’s an upscale cafe experience. It’s sort of like your Parisian cafe transported into the US. I mean you can provide that kind of experience, you can really, you can increase the price, um, because you’re providing much more value. Um, and increasing the price actually helps because people see it as more of a luxury item. But a luxury item that the middle class can afford, not a Rolls Royce. Um, Russell Brunson’s Expert Secrets. Um, definitely in a different field than B2B SaaS. But he does an amazing job at breaking down exactly what people need to hear to take action. Um, so I think that’s a must read. He’s great. He’s a great writer, and he talks in a way that a six year old could understand, but the concepts are really, really valuable. And then, I read a book recently called um, Magic Words by Jonah Berger, which I really, really liked. And he takes a lot of scientific studies and explains, scientific studies about language and explains how that, how, how people think and how you can use your words in a very strategic way, but all backed up by science. Um, so like for example, there was one study he talked about, um, I’m not sure if I remember the exact numbers, but he said that they analyzed lots and lots of people’s emails, internal emails. And they found that people whose writing style did not align with the writing style of their peers were something like four times more likely to get fired. Um, Which is like a crazy statistic, right? Um, and the idea being that you can measure how well somebody fits into the culture of a organization based on their writing style. And I think those kind of scientific studies can really help convince you of the importance of messaging and copywriting. So I think that those scientific studies are invaluable.
Dean: Yeah, wow! I never heard about Trading Up and Magic Words. So, I’m gonna put them on my amazon.com wishlist.
Naomi: Yeah, let me know what you think.
Dean: Ohh. Hundred percent. Once I’m done re-reading Think and Grow Rich, Finalizing the implementation of, Buy back your time by Dan Martell, and then I need to read. It is a very significant copywriting book that I need to get my hands on. Oh, that’s right. Automatic Clients by Robert Neckelius and Alen Sultanic. I need to finish that one. Have you read it yet?
Naomi: I haven’t. But I’m gonna write it down and add it to my list.
Dean: Yeah, It’s pretty significant. For my understanding, Alen pretty much created the concept of you know creating the framework and absolutely delivering so then people pay the executions. Not a new concept entirely but the way how he breaks it down when it comes to product fit marketing. It’s pretty spectacular. See how it goes.
Dean: And to wrap up the podcast. I often do this with all the people I interview, and there’s not too many. I do like to ask, what’s your message for the world and how do you want to make a difference?
Naomi: My message for the world at large?
Dean: Take it as you wish.
Naomi: Alright. I would say that, I think my message would be about stories. That stories are sort of embedded in, in our psyche. They’re how we view the world and how we understand the world and that analyzing the stories that both that we tell ourselves and that we’ve written down and stored in the canons of history, um, are some of the most powerful ways, some of the, they serve as windows into, into our psyche. And I think that, I think that storytelling gets thrown out, thrown around a lot as a concept. Um, but stories are fascinating, there’s so much to them, there’s so much complexity and that’s even amplified when you travel from culture to culture. The stories that they tell in China are not the stories that they tell in Israel, are not the stories that they tell in the US or Australia or the UK. And I think that when you can really double down on them and understand what they’re about, how they’re built, how they function, why they’re there, it just opens you up to a whole new way. Of thinking and living in a much more fulfilling way.
That is epic. Thank you so much for being here.
Naomi: Thank you for having me. This was a great conversation.
CONNECT WITH US:
Connect with Dean Denny, host of Open Source Growth and Director at Owendenny Digital
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deanowendenny/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deandenny/
Owendenny Digital, Australia’s #1 SaaS Marketing Agency
WORK WITH OWENDENNY:
Two options:
1 – If you *already* know you need an expert to help you build predictable and scalable customer acquisition solutions to scale your MRR.
To get started, book a Free Growth Diagnostic using the link below and let us show you how we can help.
Get Your Free Growth Diagnostic
2 – If you *do not yet know* if you would benefit from our services, book a FREE 10-min chat with Dean directly and let’s talk about your business.
Have a friendly 10-minute chat with Dean
We look forward to hearing from you!
