Between James and I getting COVID and the weather being as cold and disappointing as freezer burnt ice cream, we’ve seen better months.
A silver lining to isolation was that once I exhausted every Netflix dating show (and TikTok hashtag associated with said Netflix dating shows) I had plenty of time read more of that book I told you about.
One of the interviews from the book told this story that reminded me of that emotional grid we talked about recently.
The story
was about a local live improv show.
The cast worked together for months, having good nights, bad nights, and some great nights.
But this one was…exceptionally bad.
They open the show with a room full of jolly-faced people giddy to giggle along with their shenanigans for the next 90 minutes.
One member of the improv troop steps out on to stage into the spotlight. The crowd claps and gives a few supportive “woohoo!”s.
The person on stage wears a worried look on their face and motions the crowd to quiet down so they can start the show — but in a more somber way than most were expecting.
Once the welcome claps calmed down there’s a dense silence that flooded the room.
The man on stage looks down to his feet, then teary-eyed back to the crowd and said
“I regret to inform you all, but that the president has been killed.”
*The audience gasps*
In rolls a TV on to the stage, seemingly going to play informative news footage until the rest of the bit unfolds as the cast members are flipping between channels, sports, news, drama
“change it back to sports!”
one of the improv members calls from the crowd where they strategically placed themselves.
Too bad at this point most of the audience had left and the few that were still there didn’t stay long, definitely not until the end of the show.
The storyteller admits that they should have let the audience know what they saw was staged much sooner.
(That the president was indeed alive)
My takeaway from this story: They kept the audience in the emotional roller coaster dip for too long.
The skit could've worked if after they dropped into the heavy statement he immediately uplifted the audience by letting them in on the joke, making the emotional dip short and sweet.
Timing is everything!
It's like that weird feeling when you’re on a rollercoaster and you feel your organs drop 😳 it's cool for a sec (to most) but for too long and you feel sick.
Get me off this ride 🤢
Emotional rollercoasters
I love rollercoasters! Even the emotional type, to an extent.
Reality TV and psychological thrillers are my favorite genres but there is a point when the emotional roller coaster of a movie, show or story, is just not good.
For instance, if you’re riding a rollercoaster but your head is banging between the seat restraints and you can barely keep your vision straight about what's going on, that’s not good.
It may be thrilling at first but soon your head hurts and you get off the ride thinking
"Why did I just waste my time and lose brain cells on that”.
The absolute last thing you want people to think about your brand.
Matching expectations
Or what might be even worse is when the drop doesn't match anticipation. This is how clickbait works but imagine that as an in-real-life experience.
They’re on the rollercoaster climbing up and up, anxiety rising only to get the top and be politely asked to get off and wait in a long line for the elevator to get back down.
Their nervous system is heightened, then confused making the rider feel stupid and unsure where to put this uncomfortable energy you left them with.
Again, the opposite feeling that will inspire someone to take action (AKA buy the thing).
All this talk about amusement parks got me thinking, sales-first companies are like the souvenir photo people. You’ve barely walked 2 feet in the door and they're gaslighting you into how much fun you're having;
YOU ARE HAVING SO MUCH FUN LOOKING AT OUR WEBSITE LET’S COMMEMORATE THAT WITH A 2 YEAR CONTRACT!!
No thanks Donald, I haven’t even gotten in line for the teacups yet.
We need to inspire people to act, not just tell them to
Do not approach me as soon as I enter an amusement park asking for a commemorative photo, that only works if you're the Disney World✨ of SaaS companies.
I’ve always been so inspired by Disney’s ability to curate the experience of each park, how they all have their own visual identity, rides, foods, smells, all distinctly fused into my memory.
The thing about amusements parks is that they breed memories. Which if you've gotten my last few messages you know positive memories fuel affinity and build loyalty.
When people call upon positive memories they’re inspired to act in your favor instead of you needing to demand they take action.
READ THIS!…SUBSCRIBE NOW!…OBEY!
Demanding action instead of inspiring it,
will work about just as well as it does when telling teenagers what to do (rarely or not at all).
Think of your brand like an amusement park, a curation of experiences meant to make someone feel a certain way that they want to remember forever and tell all of their friends about.
Content distribution for startups
How to get started with content distribution
I've talked about this concept of a content carousel before on a couple podcasts, where I explain how to get the max amount of content out of every episode.
The focus being on prioritizing quantity over quality knowing that not everything will stick, but can teach us more about what our audience wants from us.
This strategy is ideal for early stage programs where you're figuring out where your audience lives, how they want to ingest your content and what format/messaging resonates the most.
How to level-up your content distribution
Once you know what sorta works, it’s important to continue to refine and amplify one or two specific channels instead of putting all the content on every channel.
This allows you to prioritize and invest your resources efficiently for your highest engaged audience while giving yourself space to experiment and pivot to your community needs as you see fit.
If all your resources are maxed out building all channels it's a lot harder to pivot or track the impact of experiments to achieve higher quality.
For either approach this still rings true:
Whether you're experimenting with what channels work or have a more of a focus, the important thing is that wherever your efforts are, they are connected and feed into one another holistically.
I’m a big fan of physically mapping out how your programs connect, it sometimes unlocks new ideas!
Distribution channels marketers are underutilizing
Visualizing your distribution strategy may uncover low lift channels currently being underutilized.
Social posts
Learning for me recently is that not everything needs to be a blog post to be valuable to your audience.
Some things are just not that deep.
However making people feel seen in a social post is just as valuable and sometimes more sharable than a blog post of data points. We see this the most true in modern meme culture.
In both use cases, you can drive traffic to these assets to build affinity for your people, product or brand.
Try this: Instead of linking to blog posts in your newsletter, link to a discussion post on social media highlighting the story you want to feature.
Social posts are normally less resources than a blog post and are more easily interacted with.
I mean, when was the last time you left a comment on someone’s personal blog website? Sorry, I will not make an account for your obscure WordPress comment plugin.
Content swaps/collaborations
A great way to get feedback on your work is to find more people like you. Best way to do that is to guest post or be featured in other newsletters, podcasts or social profiles. This doesn't necessarily mean The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch or Joe Rogan.
Try this: Sharing your offer in more intimate settings like newsletters, slack communities, or group chats makes your work vouched for by their community owners. Building social proof from the get go.
Making it more likely people are inspired take action due to increased FOMO (fear-of-missing-out).
People trust people
The more intimate the setting the better, that's why social media works so well as a vehicle for ideas, conversation and networking.
It immediately connects that value to a person you can hold accountable, not just a corporate entity whose chatbot probably sucks.
Okay I’ve rambled at you for long enough now, I gotta go. The new episodes of Love is Blind just dropped and I need to melt my brain for while.
Chat soon, byeee!
An Emotional Rollercoaster | Sorry I Missed You (6)