The Humanized Marketing Podcast

Is your business shrinking?

When a business is shrinking or stagnant, marketers worry. And their worry pushes them into a frenzy, where they start solving different types of problems.

‘Oh, we have a lead generation problem’

‘Oh, we have a conversation rate optimization problem’

‘Oh, it's because we are not stuffing our blogs with SEO’.

Most of the time, these are the wrong problems. The actual problem is - ‘Your business has become a commodity.

In this episode, we talk about how we can convert a commodity business into a brand.

What if we had a system that could help us in creating content that is relevant to our brand and our mission?

The Solar System Content Model helps Creators and Small Business owners come up with content ideas and outlines for their Podcasts, Blogs and Videos. In this episode, we look at the nuts and bolts of this model.

Mike's coffee business was failing. He had tried multiple things to make it work, but all his tactics had failed.

Just when he was about to give up, Mike realized something. He was making the same mistake that most of us do. He was thinking too big!

Mike showed empathy toward a small audience, and today his brand (Death Wish Coffee) has become one of the most prominent coffee brands in the world.

Listen to this episode to hear the complete story. 

A great brand story pulls the right people

Instead of pushing our marketing message down their throat, we can pull the right audience towards us. A great story cuts through the noise and gets the attention of the audience. It inspires them. It moves them from inertia. And pulling eventually leads to more profits and better impact.

There is a simple framework that we can use to create this story - The Old Game/New Game framework.

In this episode, I take you through the step-by-step process of creating a brand narrative by using this framework.

Your existing customers are a gold mine. They have a lot of wisdom to share with you... wisdom that will completely transform the way you do Marketing.

Asking the right questions to our customers gives us an insight into -

• Why did the customer purchase your product?
• What was the exact pain that they felt because of which they decided to buy your product?
• What were the exact objections that they had before buying?
• What is the problem your product solves?
• Which features are loved by customers?

And so on.

But despite this, we often ignore the customers that we have. Instead of asking them questions, we move on to acquiring new customers. 

In this episode, I talk about the questions that you can ask your customers to get valuable insights from them. 

Every brand that aspires to build its 1000 true fans, needs a story. A story that pulls the right audience towards the brand.

Building a brand story isn't always easy. And so here are 3 themes that you can use to create your brand story. 

1. Good vs. Evil

2. Counter-intuitive thinking

3. Expert view

While Creators and Small businesses want to build an audience, most of them use a traditional vertical funnel to get the job done.

But if you study successful Creators like James Clear, Louis Grenier, Jonathan Stark, and many more... you would realize that their thought process of building an audience is entirely different. They don't depend on the vertical funnel.

Instead, they use a horizontal funnel. And this is what we discuss in this podcast episode.

Great storytellers collect ideas for stories. These are the ideas that they can use later in their stories. 

Now, this goes against the traditional image of a prolific storyteller who can pull stories out of thin air. But it’s the truth. Like a chef who keeps his ingredients ready, storytellers keep their ideas ready.

In this episode, we discuss 3 ways in which you can collect ideas for building kickass stories.

In this episode, I talk about a simple storytelling framework that you can use to build your Brand Story as well as other stories that are needed in your content. By taking examples like Harry Potter and Finding Nemo, we explore the nuances of this framework and then also discuss a few other brands who are using this framework for storytelling.

Here's what we cover -

- The simple 3-step framework for storytelling

- How movies use this framework

- Examples of brands that have been successfully using this framework

How should online Creators measure the performance of their Content? 

Should they be concerned about the number of Tik-Tok followers? 

Should they be looking at their Google Analytics every day? 

Should they be creating more Instagram reels? 

To find the answer I decided to reach out to a few Creators that I admire. 

Here are the 2 questions that I asked - 

1. How do you measure the impact of your content? 

2. What kind of numbers do you pay attention to? 

And here are the Creators I reached out to - 

1. Philip Morgan 

2. Rochelle Moulton 

3. Jonathan Stark 

4. Louis Grenier 

5. Margo Aaron 

6. Jay Acunzo 

Their answers were insightful. And this is what I talk about in the podcast.

What are the skills that you need to build as a Creator?

What are the crafts that you should focus on?

In this episode, I talk about the 3 essential skills that a Creator needs to build.

What type of content should you put at the Top of The Funnel?

Should you just chop your big piece of content into smaller pieces and distribute the content?

Or is there something else that you should consider?

According to Shyam, there is.

In this episode, Shyam and I discuss the concept of “Sequence of Beliefs”. Understanding this sequence of beliefs helps you strategize your content much better. Listen now and let me know :)

Talking points -

1. What is a sequence of beliefs?

2. How does a sequence of beliefs apply to social media content?

3. The sequence of beliefs that Shyam uses for his brand

Why won't your clients give you testimonials?

What holds them back?

And even when they do, they send testimonials that are as boring and ineffective.

In this episode, I talk about how you can create a testimonial that is awesome and totally convinces your prospects to buy.

Here’s what I cover in the episode -

1. How to ask for a testimonial from the client, so that he doesn't refuse

2. A testimonial shouldn’t be ready-made. It should be constructed

3. The right questions to ask while constructing the testimonial.

Do you first develop your offer?

Or do you first develop your audience?

Of course, the answer isn’t simple. And has a lot many nuances to consider.

In this episode, Shyam and I explore the pros and cons of both these strategies. Here are a few talking points -

1. What is the difference between audience building vs. offer creation approach?
2. The benefits and drawbacks of both the approaches
3. How people buying from you can start trusting you
4. When to consider the offer path and when to consider the audience building path

Creators and small businesses want to build an audience. But how many people do we actually need? Should we aim to get a million followers on Instagram?

Or should we listen to legends like Kevin Kelly and Seth Godin, and just focus on building 1000 true fans? In this episode, Shyam and I talk about the drawbacks of chasing a big market and the advantages of obsessing over 1000 true fans.

Talking points -

1. The problem with mass marketing and interrupting people
2. How mass marketing needs big budgets
3. You don't need to be a mass-market brand. You can continue being a brand for just 1000 people.
4. How do you define 1000 true fans?
5. The financial viability of 1000 true fans

Who are you writing for? Who is your real audience?

I recently participated in the Copy Workshop by Margo Aaron and I had an aha moment. I realized how my inner demons are holding me back from unleashing my best writing work.

In this episode, Shyam and I discuss how to think about your audience and push everyone else out of your mind, when you are writing copy.

Talking points -

1. How our conditioning affects our writing
2. How we write to impress our colleagues, instead of customers
3. How wanting to write for our heroes is a bad idea
4. A tactic to ensure that we write only for our audience and nobody else

In this episode, Shyam and I discuss the Pros and Cons of having a practice of writing and publishing daily

Talking points -

1. The role of writing in building an audience

2. The difference between writing daily and publishing daily.

3. How writing and publishing on Linkedin got me a couple of clients

4. How writing every day changes you as a person

5. The disadvantages of publishing daily

6. The mindset of a daily publisher

All the parts in your Marketing are inter-connected. It’s a complex system.

Some Marketers foolishly focus on a single part and optimize it. They don’t consider the repercussions of this optimization on the whole system.

Example -

“Oh, the business is low. Let’s see what the problem is. Oh, the Conversion Rate of the Landing Page needs to increase. Currently, it’s at 1.32%. Let’s aim at 2.5%. Because when that happens, the business will improve.”

And then they put all their efforts into improving this conversion rate. They use the best practices in CRO. The Call To Action button is made bigger. The user is given all the information in the first fold.

And sure enough, the number of leads increase. But the quality decreases. And hence, the profit is reduced further.

This is an example of Linear Thinking.

But perhaps, the landing page is not at fault. Perhaps, you need to zoom out further, and you need to step back and look at your business as a whole. This type of zoomed-out thinking is known as ‘Systems Thinking’... and sadly, most of us don’t indulge in it.

In this episode, Shyam and I talk about the difference between these 2 types of thinking.

A lot of content on the internet is just noise. And it fails to build an audience.

Why does this content fail?

Well, mainly because most Content Creators struggle to build an audience.

They struggle because they use Shallow Content Strategies.

What is a Shallow Content Strategy?

If you are using social media platforms like Tik-Tok, Clubhouse, Instagram, etc. to build an audience, then you are going to struggle. This Content does not bring about a transformation in your audience.

The alternative is Deep Content.

Successful Creators like Tim Ferriss, James Clear, Shane Parish, Louis Grenier, and many more, have built an audience by using Deep Content Strategy.

In this episode, I and Shyam explore the topic of Shallow Content vs. Deep Content.

Without stories, you cant build an audience.

If you are a Creator or a Marketer of any sort, then telling impactful stories is a skill that you just can't ignore anymore. Without this skill, it's difficult to stand out from all the noise out there.

This is precisely why I recorded this episode with Shyam.

In this episode, we discuss the 5 habits of an Effective Storyteller.

The question is - How do we build an audience?

An audience that trusts you, likes you, and respects us. They would cross the street for you.

It’s easy - Run Facebook ads, get them onto a landing page, get their email ids, send them emails, and boom… you have now started building an audience.

Except, that this approach doesn’t work anymore.

All the successful Creators have a completely different approach to audience building. They use, what I call, the Horizontal Funnel. It’s generous, it’s long-time… but more importantly, it’s not selfish.

In this episode, Shyam and I decode how successful Creators think about audience building and how we can learn from them.

In this episode we broadly cover -

1. Why the traditional vertical funnel is broken
2. How using a horizontal funnel is the need of the hour

This is the recording of a live session that I had conducted. 

Many of us want to publish impactful content daily. But, there is this one tiny little problem. Fear.

This is exactly what we address in this live training episode, along with the other strategies and tactics that Creators can use, to publish impactful content. 

A few things that were covered in this episode - 

1. How publishing content gives us clarity of thoughts

2. How publishing helps us build an audience

3. How we can learn to structure non-coherent thoughts

4. How publishing every day makes our writing better

5. How publishing makes you see the world differently and makes you smarter.

And so much more.

In this episode, I and my friend Shyam  (The Founder of Lazyfitness.in), go deep into the topic of the Tripwire Funnel. 

if you are a Creator who is selling an Online course (or if you plan to launch one in the future), then this episode is a must-listen.

Here are a few pointers that we discuss in the episode -

1. What exactly are tripwire offers? How do they work?
2. Why are tripwire funnels so popular?
3. The advantages and disadvantages of tripwire funnels.
4. Should you be using Tripwire funnels?
5. What is the alternative?

I have been away from Podcasting for a while now. But that’s about to change.

The Humanized Marketing Podcast was so far, let’s say… ummm… not so streamlined. It was just me narrating my learnings, my experiences, with the hope of adding value to the listeners.

And then I stopped publishing. I am not quite sure why, but I did.

But now seems like a good time to revive the whole Humanized Marketing Podcast Experience.

Going ahead the podcast makes a simple promise - Humanized Marketing Podcast is for Creators who want to build deep, meaningful relationships with their 1000 true fans.

In this episode, I am joined by my friend Shyam. Shyam is a weight loss coach and the Founder of Lazyfitness.in

He helps busy people like corporate professionals and entrepreneurs lose weight without stupid hassles or restrictions.

In this podcast, Shyam and I discuss who this Podcast is for and how will it help the listeners.

When you ask a Marketer, the true purpose of email marketing, you would get a few answers like these...

• Email marketing is for increasing your conversions
• Email marketing is for nurturing leads
• Email marketing is for reducing churn and so on.

Fair answers, really. Nothing wrong here.

But when you ask the experts, you get some interesting answers.

Is email marketing merely transactional? Or is there some kind of a spiritual side to it too?

In this episode, I talk about a cross-sell email campaign that I did for one of my clients, and the result I got for the same.

In part 1, we discussed the flaws of the brand story framework that Donald Miller uses. Here, we talk about how to complete the framework.

Most of the Happy Diwali emails do not get a response from the reader.

Why is that?

How can we change that?

How can we create high-engagement emails?

Let's find out.

Social media marketers, email marketers, copywriters, content marketers - all have a problem. 

It's challenging to consistently create new stories that will appeal to the reader.

In this episode, we talk about one way to tackle this issue...

Donald Miller helps brands build a compelling story.

Through his writing, workshops, and Consulting, he has helped numerous brands clarify their message and create a story.

In his book, ‘Building a Story Brand’, Donald Miller lays down a 7-step framework that brands can use to tell stories. Here’s what the framework looks like -

• A Character/Hero - (The client)
  
• Has a Problem - (The struggle)
  
• And meets a Guide - (The brand)
  
• Who gives them a Plan
  
• And calls them to Action
  
• That helps them avoid Failure
  
• And ends in Success
  

But there are some flaws in this framework, which need to addressed...

Imagine this beautiful scenario - A subscriber is intently staring at his inbox, eagerly waiting for your email.

Yeah, now stop imagining that. Because that doesn’t happen too often. :(

But, even though we know the rarity of this phenomenon, when we send emails, subconsciously we assume that the reader really, really cares about what we have to say.

The honest truth is that the reader doesn’t care about you. The reader cares about himself.

And the reader especially doesn’t care about your product features and the updates to these features.

How do we deal with this? How do we send impactful emails?

There’s a whole lotta science in the subject line that I used in this email.

Stick around, I will explain what I just did there.

People like information.

That’s what evolutionary science says.

“Hey, I know a secret. But I won’t tell you.”

Yeah, this creates curiosity, tension, and at times obsession.

And that’s the reason why so many shows on Netflix withhold information at the end of every episode. There is always a cliffhanger. Because people cant live with the secret.

But it doesn’t end here. There is something deeper than this...

The other day, I received an email from a brand that was quite selfish and annoying. 

I think our email marketing would get a lot better if we asked one simple question before writing that email.

The other day, Pooja, my wife, was almost convinced, that I had lost my mind.

It so happened, that I was reading out a piece of content that I was going to publish online.

What was I up to exactly?

Most brands out there, use copy that is robotic, corporate, and almost makes the reader puke. And so here is a tip that I learned from Nick Usborne through this copywriting course - Conversational Copywriting.

When J.K. Rowling puts out a book, it is well received by her raving fans, regardless of the title of the book. However, a brand that is new and looking to build trust, is much less likely to earn trust with a vague message.

You get to choose how specific you want to be.

But you can’t afford to be too vague.

I have a love-hate relationship with hacks. I feel a squirming inside my stomach when I hear words like ‘quick hack’, ‘growth marketing’, ‘tips and tricks’ and so on. The BS detector in me just won’t shut up...

However, I try to be aware of my biases.

I don’t think tips and tricks are inherently bad. I don’t that tactical advice is always useless. There is always a time and a place for those.

If I have severe pain in my arm, I do need tactical advice from my doctor.

Yep, you got it right.

Today’s email is about tactical advice about improving your email writing.

In this episode, I talk about how experts can learn about Persuasion from Cialdini and apply it to their Email Marketing. 

A lot of experts produce a substantial amount of content. However, many of us still struggle to get more subscribers in our email list. In this episode, I talk about how experts can build their top of the funnel, to get relevant people into their email list. 

In this episode, I talk about how every word that we use communicates something to the audience. I also talk about coming up with a word-cloud for your brand - basically freezing on a few set of words that you will use time and again in your communication, so that your brand sticks.

In this episode, I talk about how all the elements of your brand Online and Offline are telling different stories. They are making a promise. The question then is, is the promise in-line with what you want to convey? Is it in line with what your brand stands for?

In this episode, I have taken 6 random business ideas and attempted to create word of mouth strategies for them. 

In this episode, I talk about whether word of mouth really matters, and if it does, how can businesses enable their audience to talk about themselves... 

In this episode, I talk about how a few Marketers do not depend on their headlines, but rather depend on the trust that they have with their audience. 

It's case study time.

This time it's about employer branding.

I worked with this offshore product development company a while back and helped them with their Employer branding story and content marketing. This case study is all about that experience.

So far you have seen me ranting on my podcast.

And it’s been fun.

The ranting will continue.

But, once in a while, I will take a break. ;)

And have a conversation with a change-maker… a Creator… someone who is doing work that will help humanize marketing.

Natalia Alvarez is one such kind soul.

Natalia and I have been friends for a few years. Both of us connected when we were a part of eth Godin’s Marketing Seminar.

Natalia believes that stories can change the world.

She helps business owners communicate their authentic stories to the world. She is a firm believer that stories move people to action. Without a story, you are just another brand that people are going to ignore.

In this conversation, we talk about these things -

1. Why does a business need a story?
   
2. How does a story affect the business?
   
3. Does the founder decide the story, or does the audience decide the story?
   
4. Why is ‘vulnerability’ an important element of stories?
   
5. Natalia’s 3 layered framework of storytelling - Purpose, Narrative, and Stories
   
6. How do we measure if the story is working or not?
   

In the third part of the series - “How to write impactful emails”, we will be talking about the storytelling framework.

I have learned this framework from one of my favorite Marketers - Bernadette Jiwa.

Most of the emails are noisy, cluttered, and overwhelm the reader.

Your emails don't have to be that way.

In this episode, we talk about the process of writing clean emails that make an impact.