Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post issue #061, easy to implement digital marketing ideas straight through your metaphorical letterbox.

Thanks for all the love last week – it’s good to be back writing. Some good news: did you know it won’t be dark before 6pm until October? We’ve made it, spring is here!

Anyway, here’s three systems you can set up today to help you win at marketing.

How many do you currently have in place?

You only need 3 systems to win

Welcome back to Drawing With Dan. ✏️

The series where I simultaneously share marketing wisdom and fulfil a lifelong aspiration to be the next Neil Buchanan.

If you didn’t see last week’s instalment, take a look here.

But today, we’re breaking down the three systems of marketing success.

This is one of my favourites.

We overcomplicate so much.

I’m guilty of it too, but we’re too clever half the time, when all we really need are these 3 ingredients:

• A way of reaching new audiences.
• A way of sharing value with them.
• A way of converting them.

Let me explain…

You’ve gotta love a firework analogy. 🎆

So what’s the takeaway?

If you have lots of marketing activity underway, list out which of the 3 systems it all falls under. Do you have the balance right or are you focusing too much on one system?

If you’re just starting out, think of one idea for each system and get started.

Either way, if you fancy someone to bounce ideas off, let me know – I’d be happy to grab a virtual coffee. ☕

That’s all for today.

Before you go – we’ll never use these newsletters to directly sell you our services, but we’re always here if you need any expertise or support 👍

Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post – easy to implement digital marketing ideas, straight through your metaphorical letterbox.

I hope you’ve had a good week.

Today we’re talking about how we can overcomplicate things, and I got to play with Lego. Win-win.

Less > More 🤯

Are you ready for a Friday morning brainteaser?

It’s an easy one.

Look at the photo below. It’s a bridge made of Lego.

Using only what you see, how would you balance the bridge?

You added the spare brick to the left hand column, didn’t you.

I knew you would.

You’re correct, well done! ✅

You made the same move as 99% of people.

But did you spot the alternative solution: remove a brick from the right hand column?

The result would be the same.

But only 1% of people take a brick away.

It’s an illustration of how the human brain naturally looks to solve problems – through addition not subtraction.

If the situation clearly calls for subtraction, we’ll subtract.

But if we’re faced with an equal choice of addition or subtraction, we’ll always add something.

It highlights the importance of knowing how our brain works when we make decisions.

What if, against all our better instincts, less is better?

You may have heard of the Pareto Principle (AKA the 80/20 rule).

80% of output comes from 20% of input, or in marketing terms 80% of success comes from 20% of your activity.

The problem is working out which 20%.

It begs the question:

What if the answer to your sales and marketing challenge is to do less, rather than more? To spend time understanding what you can leverage to bring disproportionate results.

Sometimes doing less can be a competitive advantage.

Rick Rubin, author and founder of Def Jam Records, takes a minimal approach to social media – posting once per week and archiving each post after seven days, so his Instagram profile always shows just one post.

Posting less becomes a compelling reason to pay attention to what he says.

In a world that demands more, less is a competitive advantage.

Let’s take this from the theoretical to the practical…

If you’re juggling 6 different marketing channels, ask yourself:

“If I spend twice as much time on half the channels, would results go up or down?”

Chances are you couldn’t be 100% confident one way or the other.

So test it for a short period of time.

You might be surprised.

That’s all for now.

Until next week.

✌️

Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post

Don’t call it a comeback… but did you miss me?

We took a few weeks off to focus on other things (more on that soon…) but your friendly neighbourhood postman is back, ready to deliver.

And I’m picking up where I left off, ruminating on the rapid reshaping of the marketing landscape at the hands of our old adversary, AI.

Let’s get to it…

AI and digital, in three conversations 💬

Are you bored of conversations about AI?

I kind of am. 🫠

It feels like everything that needs to be said has been said.

So rather than the same boring chat, let me share 3 recent conversations that gave me a really clear view of where we’re at.

Those conversations are:

1. “The Sloppening” ⚰️
2. The competitive advantage 🏆
3. The now and not yet 🔮

The first conversation was sparked when someone sent me this post – titled “The Sloppening”.

It warns of the overwhelming spread of low-quality, AI-generated content.

(You should read the whole thing)

It’s fairly damning: “We’ve sloptimised ourselves into oblivion”

But it’s also clear: “AI didn’t break things, we did.”

We’re the pilot, AI is the plane.

Applying marketing expertise and strategy is crucial.

As a digital agency, we’re developing an approach that gets the most out of AI content generation without losing authenticity and authority.

It’s a framework designed to safeguard your brand from the pitfalls of AI-generated content, while keeping innovation and creativity at the core of your strategy.

Spoiler; more often than not it points towards original creativity over AI slop.

Which leads me to the second conversation…

Someone asked me (in a half-polite way):

“Anyone can use AI to create a social media strategy, a monthly schedule, and a month’s worth of graphics and captions in 5 minutes. So why shouldn’t I?”

My answer was easy.

“You shouldn’t, because everyone can.”

When it comes to digital marketing, people wrongly position AI as the clear competitive advantage.

But if everyone has access to the competitive advantage, it’s not really an advantage, is it? In fact it’s the exact opposite – the competitive disadvantage.

In a world of slop, you gain ground by pursuing what AI hasn’t nailed yet;

100% connection, 100% creativity, 100% authenticity.

Supplement it with AI, but start with the human.

It sounds like I’m a skeptic in complete denial.

But that’s where the third conversation comes in:

“One day AI will take all of our jobs, no one will work and the government will have to fund universal salaries for everyone.”

It’s true. AI will take 80% of all jobs that don’t require manual labour (those are for the robots to take.)

When that happens is less clear.

Probably not before 2050, but who knows?

At the moment we’re living in the now and not yet.

We know the way things are going, and I’m not naive enough to think that very soon AI won’t be producing slop, but content that is 100% creative and 100% authentic.

But that moment is not today, and we shouldn’t pretend it is just because we can all turn ourselves into Disney Pixar characters at the drop of a prompt.

Here’s ours btw (sorry Matt and Mark):

We’re prioritising how to get the most out of AI now, and also preparing for future developments.

If you want to do the same, it looks like two things:

• Become an AI-Augmented Marketer – Learn AI tools like ChatGPT, MidJourney, and AI-driven analytics.
• Stay ahead of AI developments, ethics & regulation – know what’s here, what’s coming and what won’t stay.

That’s all for today.

What do you think, more AI or less AI in future newsletters? I wouldn’t be offended either way:

See you next week.

✌️

Promotion alone won’t cut it 👀

In 2010 I studies for a diploma in marketing.

Every Tuesday and Thursday I drove to Stoke-on-Trent in my 1986 Nissan Micra for evening classes with the Charted Institute of Marketing.

I’m feeling nostalgic just thinking about it. Look at her:

To be honest, a lot of the diploma felt irrelevant.

It was about supply chains and international markets, in a time where marketing was in purgatory – digital was emerging but not a viable or understood channel.

It was helpful to a point.

It taught me a few things – most surprisingly that there’s a university in Stoke-on-Trent.

The one thing I remember above everything else is the Four P’s of Marketing.

But before I get into that, let me tell you a familiar story:

When fundraising, sales or revenue aren’t going to plan, the CEO tends to be straight at the door of the marketing department. A “what can we do to move the needle” chat. A request to see the analytics. A demotivating tone that the latest campaign has seen disappointing numbers.

We all know the scenario, right.

But don’t worry, you’re in a safe space here in this marketers’ community, and I’m pleased to tell you that it’s not all your fault.

Back to the Four P’s of Marketing: The four essential elements, with equal weighting, that contribute to your success:

• Product: Is what you’re ‘selling’ any good? Can it be improved?
• Price: Is the price point representing value? Is it affordable and reasonable?
• Place: Is the place people buy it easily navigable? Is your marketing where people are?
• Promotion: Is your marketing message effective?

All four are elements of marketing, and as marketers we have to take responsibility for all four, even though two of them are hard for us to influence.

Promotion is only 25% responsible for your performance.

So when campaigns, products and sales flop and it’s time to do a post-mortem, why do we put a disproportionate amount of attention on promotion? If you think back to your last failure, can you analyse the whole, taking into account all four P’s not just one?

In my experience, the main culprit for underperformance is the Product itself.

We often think our product/service/charity has a right to exist.

Or that there’s an audience desperately waiting for it.

That’s just not true, and a lot of commercially successful start ups that get profile for having great marketing campaigns actually understand that it’s a combination of promotion, product, price and place.

If you were to improve your product, price and place, what steps would you take?

That’s all for today.

 What even is

 marketing? 🤔

Sometimes I wish I worked in the golden era of advertising.

You know the one; skyscrapers in Manhattan, trilby hats, client dinners.

Whiskies at 9am 🥃

Inspiration at all hours ⚡️🕰️

Storm into a boardroom to deliver the headline that’s been alluding everybody.

Walk out triumphant. 🤴

Don’t worry, it’s not the whisky, cigars and party lifestyle that attracts me.

It’s the approach they had to selling stuff.

We live in a different world now.

As channels multiplied and attention evaporated, advertising morphed into marketing and we lost something.

Take a look at this:

It’s bold, it’s clever and it reads easy.

It breaks every rule in the book, but it sells you a vision. It makes you feel something. You’re ready to roll up your sleeves for the underdog. 💪

I recently saw a quote from the golden era:

I wish we approached marketing the same way.

There’s no such thing as a good ad, only good content that gets read/watched.

People connect with a vision and are prompted by emotion.

Digital is different to print, but the concept still stands 65 years later.

We have to create content that interests people.

We know that deep down, but we talk-the-talk more than we walk-the-walk.

We applaud Apple and Nike’s campaigns, we quote Simon Sinek, we share the John Lewis Christmas ad and we watch the Pespi halftime show at the Superbowl.

As marketers, we recognise what makes great advertising.

So why don’t we do more of it?

Answer: We are drawn to the easy sell.

The quick, lukewarm headlines.

The endless URLs and CTAs.

Why do we care more about hashtags than the craft of good copy?

Consider this a call to arms to the heyday of advertising. 📢

Let’s unite at the skyscraper at 9am, whisky-less but grasping our oat milk flat whites, ready to inject some creativity into our marketing.

And if you need some external perspective and a huge dose of creativity, get in touch and work with us.

Because this is an ad, after all.

See you next week ✌️