I got some surprising mail

Yo! Welcome to the next episode of The Content Strategy Reeder. Today you’re getting a marketing lesson courtesy of my mailbox.

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A few weeks ago, I got some surprising mail.

Typically my haul is just a mess of bills and ads. I collect it every few days, pour it on the kitchen counter, then begin sorting the junk from important stuff. It usually looks something like this:

But something unusual caught my eye. Can you spot it?

Tucked in between all the crap, something jumped out. I noticed something handwritten — the #1 sign that something was actually sent from a human instead of mass marketing engines gunning for my attention with big red “ATTENTION, RESPONSE REQUIRED!” which screams that this is an ad.

You know “real” mail is rare these days, so I got excited to see who wrote us.

I saw blue ink in normal handwriting — I went for it immediately and pulled it out of the pile, ignoring everything else. Here it is:

Hmmm, I thought. Looks like Shali talked to someone about… windows? I wonder if one broke that I don’t know about. Glad she jumped on it and got some sort of quote…

Half way through I paused and squinted. I picked up the paper and held it to the light.

Wait, this isn’t handwritten! Well it is, but it’s mass printed. I looked at the top and noticed the “to our neighbors at…” and the stamp, the it clicked. Snap! It’s an ad!

I genuinely thought this was some sort quote or follow up document from a conversation because it appears like something a person created one-off.

You might be thinking, Geez Dev, you’re pretty gullible!

You could even understandably presume that I also give Nigerian princes money over the internet.

But you have to remember the context. This covert ad was in a sea of obvious ads. Compared to those, it jumped out as something completely different. In fact, here’s a side by side (without the “noise” of all the clutter):

All these ads and offers have the same goal that you do with your content: get the recipient to stop, open, and read what’s inside. Most fail because I can immediately tell that it’s junk.

The on the bottom right, by ValPak, caught my attention for a split second, but quickly reached the bottom of the garbage can because it looks like a damn billboard (aka an ad).

On the left, Renewals by Anderson, understands their attention competitors, and changed their approach completely. Let’s quickly break down why it worked:

1. It’s not even in an envelope!

They changed the format completely so it didn’t look like mail, it looked like a quote. They chose to deliver a vertical document while everyone else is in a horizontal envelope.

2. It’s “handwritten” in blue ink.

Most mail is formal — white paper, black times new roman font. This couldn’t be more different from that. What I would call “just good enough” handwriting topped off with a few purposeful mistakes crossed out to make it look real.

3. They highlighted in yellow.

Most companies rely on bold red font to call out information. Instead, “Nate” highlighted his phone number in recognizable highlighter yellow, which makes it seem real instead of manufactured because humans use highlighters, not print presses.

4. The doc was crumpled.

Because it wasn’t delivered via an envelope, it got a little beat up in transit. That might bug most marketers, but it actually gave it an authentic feel because paperwork in my house is typically a bit wrinkled from being passed around.

in short, this ad successfully pierced through the noise and grabbed my attention because it doesn’t follow any of the “rules.”

I’m not mad I got duped for a hot second, I f-ing love the creativity. I was shocked at how well crafted and intentional it is. It takes courage to do something so different.

Here’s your headline and takeaway for today:

When creating your content, do the unexpected.

That is, if you want to stand out. If you’re OK swimming in the sea of sameness, well, then, do what everyone else is doing. But I can’t imagine you’d subscribe to this newsletter if that was your M.O.

Look at your content — emails, landing pages, social, etc — and see where you can switch it up. Find ways to go against the grain. Sometimes you gotta say “screw ‘best practices’” and do something completely different.

Sure it takes courage. But no one ever made it big playing it safe.

Holler at you next Saturday,
Devin

If you want advanced content strategy tips…

You’ll like my conversation on transformational content strategy with Carl Ferreira and Cassidy Shield on Refine Labs’ podcast, Growth Stacking.

I recommend giving it a listen if you’re interested in:

-Getting leadership buy-in for LinkedIn
-Learning how to affect change internally
-How I monetize content from consulting to gated content

It was fun to go deep into what it’s actually like as Head of Content and how internal decisions are made. If you give it a go, LMK what you think afterwards.

Apple | Spotify