“You've totally shifted my perspective on marketing business and life itself.” — Ed Robinson
“I feel like I've finally found someone who teach marketing the way I want to do marketing myself. So excited to learn and implement.” — Mui Tsun
“As usual, these emails are a piece of art!” — Giacomo Verdez
“… I wanted to thank the 2 of you for liberating me from the marketing prison I had so carefully built over the past 5 years. I truly feel free for the first time in a long time to walk the path I've always wanted without fear of missing out.” — Anita Toth
Hey, it's André & Shawn…
Firstly, welcome to this foundational series called Emergent Marketing. The ideas and insights in this series underpin everything we do, and we want to share this with you.
We're going to take you on a journey through a new paradigm of how we view marketing and the work we do as creative professionals to serve and matter in a world of distractions and sameness.
You're either going to deeply resonate with our version of marketing, or at some point you will feel a need to bolt back to safety, back to the comfortable world you're familiar with.
Either outcome is a certainty.
There'll be no middle ground.
We hope you choose to stay. There's a big payoff for you if you do.
To orient you, this first email is going to give you a broad overview of what you can expect as we systematically unpack what we call Emergent Marketing.
Emergent Marketing is a principles-based framework that will give you a new lens to see the role of marketing in your business and life.
Marketing that is so good, it invisibly pulls and tugs at the people you seek to serve without the need for persuasion tricks and coercion tactics.
Between the two of us we have near enough four decades of experience and wisdom in digital marketing. We are going to share our highest leverage thinking with you in this series.
Marketing In The Ordinary World
Direct response marketing today is broadly unchanged from years past.
Classified ads have been replaced with Facebook/Google Ads, advertorials replaced with sales pages and VSLs, and the idea of value is what is put in incomplete lead magnets and faux “value-driven” webinars.
But it's the same ‘push' marketing tactics just beneath the veneer.
We've all experienced push marketing. It's objection-crushing, persuasive sales copy with the added high-octane racing fuel of urgency.
The subtext of push marketing is: buy, buy, buy, now, now, now.
Does push marketing work?
Absolutely.
Because it masterfully taps into the coronary artery of human fear, insecurity, hope and desire. But it's getting harder to create results from marketing at people instead of with them, especially online.
Prospects are increasingly sophisticated, and they've been burned too many times by shady businesses, over-hyped launches, and underwhelming products.
This version of marketing is a decision.
There is a better way. And this better way is available to you the moment you decide to embrace it.
Modern Marketing In The New World
Instead of pushing prospects through a sales funnel, persuading and coercing them along each step of the way …
We can ‘pull' prospects forward with the power of belief-shifting insights and compelling, empathy-led stories.
The fundamental difference between push vs. pull marketing is the perspective we take when designing our marketing system.
When marketers in the ordinary world push a prospect, they're engineering a system to move prospects forward step by step, in the order that they care about.
- Click this ad (laced with clickbait-y curiosity) …
- Buy this low-cost offer (now, before we raise the price) …
- Buy the first upsell, buy the second upsell (or never see this one-time-offer ever again) …
- And in a week, buy the core offer (before we pull it from the market).
- (Then, after 30 days, prepare for the onslaught of affiliate offers. The inevitable reality of the behind the scenes ‘you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' dealmaking.)
Let's look at an alternative reality …
When we look at our marketing system from the perspective of what our prospect wants …
And through that lens, we make our marketing meaningful and valuable — to him or her — before asking for anything in return …
When we do that, something magical happens.
Our audiences feel an invisible pull towards experiencing more — they want to go deeper down the rabbit hole we've created for them.
The question we start with is: how can we make our marketing so valuable to our audience that they can't help but be pulled forward and want to experience more?
Pay attention to this next piece, because it's an important insight we're going to give you right out the gate …
Giving value is not the same thing as giving “helpful information” (that may be delivered within a lead magnet).
Helpful information is a dime a dozen.
Helpful information has a low barrier to entry (Google search) and offers little value other than being helpful within a certain context.
Value that's truly meaningful takes an entirely different form; a powerful insight.
Useful information is a paper airplane. A powerful insight is a rocket ship! Useful information is a lightning bug. A powerful insight is lightning!
This series will present you with insights to find, and when you do, everything you see will be different. Everything.
Suggestion: Re-read this series many times. Each time you do you'll likely find a new insight hiding in the shadows that you previously missed because you weren't ready to find it.
Enjoy!
Your attention is the only currency we require. There's nothing to buy at the end of this series. Our focus is on building relationships first.
As we've already said, we believe in marketing that leads with generosity and empathy before a transaction ever takes place.
We win because you win first. (You'll understand why this idea is so powerful when you read the third email in this series.)
The next step is for you to take.
If you want to come on this week-long journey into what we call Emergent Marketing, click the red button below, then enter your best email address.
NO CHARGE. NO SPAM, EVER. UNSUBSCRIBE ANYTIME.
See you in your inbox.
Our ethos is based on value-first. You'll never be coerced to buy anything.
