Marketing

A 11-post collection

What sells? Climate or ROI?

Climate vs ROI

What sells? 🌍 Climate, or 💰 ROI?

In the world of sustainability, what *actually* sells?

Is it a friendly, climate-focused tagline?

Or is it cold, hard business return-on-investment?

As someone who’s been leading with a sustainability focused message for over a year, just asking that question makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

When selling a product in a crowded market, you always need to stand out from the rest of the industry. And it’s hard to dislike a more sustainable alternative.

Standing out from the industry tends to mean leading with a proposition that is different. If everyone else leads with a pitch around ROI, then how do you lead with a pitch on ROI and still maintain differentiation?

I recently had an inspiring conversation with Tim Schumacher who put the question to me: do people buy based on environmental benefits or business benefits?

What gets you in the door might not be what gets you bought.

From what we’ve seen at EcoSend, leading with a pitch around climate is a fantastic way to drive awareness and attention, and it expresses our values in building the most environmentally conscious email marketing platform in the world.

However, leading with an environmental pitch doesn’t always drive business.

In fact it’s a challenge I’ve heard many times from other founders in the climate space â€” people love the idea of changing the world for the better, but when push comes to shove the business decision almost always wins out.

That business decision might be:

  • Switching will take time, so we’ll stick with our current tool.
  • We will go with the most trusted brand, to avoid unnecessary risk.
  • There’s a specific feature we need that your product doesn’t have.
  • We can get this cheaper elsewhere.

Fortunately with many environmental focused products and propositions the trade-off of climate vs ROI doesn’t necessarily need to exist.

Often what is better for the environment is also the more effective, more impactful decision for the business.

The challenge is finding the right balance between communicating your climate focus while driving awareness of business impact.

It’s something we’re going to experiment with more at EcoSend — by focusing on sustainability, we’re building a highly optimised, efficient platform where your emails are much more likely to get delivered, opened, read, and actioned.

Can we ultimately drive more people to a climate conscious solution by leading with a business focused pitch?

We’ll find out.

Email is not free

For pretty much ever, it's been free to send email.

But just because there's no charge on your credit card every time you send an email, it doesn't mean there is no cost.

The costs of email are hidden.

Sending email is not free in terms of the time and attention of the recipient. Some studies show that people spend over 25% of their working day handling email. How much is their time worth?

Sending email is not free in terms of the data that can be gathered by other parties along the way. Gmail is "free" for good reason.

And an eye-opener for me this week, after the hottest day on record in London: sending email is not free in terms of its impact to the planet.

But despite all of this, at some point, we told ourselves email is free. Look at your inbox (and, if you dare, your spam folder) to see how many people treat email as if there are no costs at all.

We’d do better as senders, and as recipients to think of email as being just as costly as posting a letter in the mail.

Because in many ways, it costs a whole lot more.

P.S. I realise there is some irony if you are receiving this post via email. I hugely appreciate you subscribing, and I hope it was worth the cost on this occasion.

Building a long lasting startup – interview with Biro Florin and yours truly

Building a Long Lasting Startup

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by prolific podcaster, entrepreneur, and all-round lovely guy Biro Florin this week on the The Startup Corner.

We spoke about how GoSquared got started, why a healthy dose of naivety can be an asset, and how raising money ideally needs to start with asking yourself a big, deep question. Plus a whole lot more.

If you have a spare moment in your day I'd encourage you to check out the show – Biro is a fantastic host and presenter, and a real pro when it comes to producing a quality podcast in record time.

View the show on YouTube

Should you use Twitter Spaces or Clubhouse for live audio?

Clubhouse has been all the rage for months, but is it already starting to fade into irrelevance?

At GoSquared, we have been looking at how we can speak with our audience directly – we want to share more of what we’ve learnt with others out there, particularly with other people starting and growing SaaS businesses.

We have run a podcast in the past, and we’ve put together video content, and we’ve done a fair bit of blogging over the years, but live audio is something we’ve never experimented with at all.

So we wanted to give live audio a shot. But what is the best tool for the job?

Clubhouse is now a household name and synonymous for live audio streaming – it pretty much created the category. But Twitter has just released Spaces to more users – a product with extremely similar functionality to Clubhouse, but integrated into the main Twitter app.

I asked my audience (on Twitter, ironically) and the votes flooded in with a clear winner: Twitter Spaces is where to start a live audio stream.

Should I use this simple, mildly biased (users on Twitter will surely prefer audio on Twitter?!) poll, as gospel? I suspect not, but for the next week I will be trying Twitter Spaces out and seeing what happens.

Can I build an audience of engaged listeners on Twitter Spaces? Is my voice ready for the airwaves? Do people even want to hear what I have to say? All will be revealed once I try this out…

If you don’t already, please follow me on Twitter!

Drone footage through a bowling alley

Right Up Our Alley

I'm a sucker for cool drone video footage.

An ad for a bowling alley could be pretty dull – everyone’s seen a bowling alley before.

But this just blew me away – the continuous long shot reminded me of great scenes like the long shot from Goodfellas, but with less drama.

The angles and tight spaces that a drone can manoeuvre through just seem impossible. I’ve watched this a handful of times now and I can’t stop ducking when the drone flies through the tiny gaps under the ball returning machines.

So good!

Amazon Basics vs Peak Design

A tale of two Slings

I love this response from Peak Design.

When a huge megacorp such as Amazon blatantly rips off your work, you can respond by complaining, by writing angry tweets, by reducing your prices, by panicking, or... by putting together a hugely entertaining ad.

Always a good reminder that every day we get a chance to influence the world around us: vote with your wallet.

(Via Gruber)

Apple’s storytelling

If there was an event where Apple expressed the importance of telling stories, it was their services event earlier this year where they launched Apple TV+. Every other word at their March event was either “Services” or “Storytelling”.

But everyevent features storytelling from Apple. They’re incredible at storytelling. And I always enjoy seeing the stories they want to tell with each product announcement they make.

Yesterday’s event was no different.

From a product perspective, it’s hard to get excited about year-over-year device upgrades these days – when phones are objectively “more than good enough” for the overwhelming majority of customers.

How do you make people want something new when what they have is good enough? You tell a great story and make sure millions of people hear that story.

Here are the stories I took from Apple’s September event:

  • iPhone 11 Pro: this is a professional video and stills camera in your phone. Stop thinking you need a camera and a phone and get this.
  • iPhone 11: the new iPhone is tough as nails and the battery lasts longer. It’s also a bit cheaper. What more do you want from us?
  • Apple Watch: this watch will change or save your life, or both. And we’ve got the watch for you – pick from a thousand variations.
  • Apple Retail: everything is fine despite Angela Ahrendts leaving. To prove it, here’s two new initiatives and a beautiful redesign of our most famous store.
  • AppleTV+: We are taking this content thing seriously. We’re not messing about and one way or another you’re going to end up watching these shows.
  • iPad: This is a platform of its own now. It’s not a bigger sibling of the iPhone. We’re going to keep pushing the price down at the low end and keep pushing the tablet paradigm to its limits at the high end.
  • Apple Arcade: Families, we get you. Don’t worry about the slimy games out there trying to nickel and dime you. We’ve got fantastic, exclusive games for you, and for just $4.99 / month you don’t need to worry about your children racking up a huge credit card bill for fake coins ever again.

The stories Apple didn’t tell

  • The Tile competitor: a new way to find the stuff you own. Never lose another gadget or item around your house. Seamlessly integrated with your existing Apple devices. Tiny price compared to the iPhone you’ll be buying soon – why not buy a pack of 10 Apple Tiles? They’ll make a great stocking filler.
  • The pro story for anything other than iPhone. Mac Pro, iPad Pro, MacBook Pro all are waiting for their time to shine.


Obey the rules or exceed the rules

I had an encounter with a business the other day where I felt frustrated by their marketing approach.

They sent me snail mail without my consent, and even had the misfortune to send their mass mailing out with a typo in the headline.

I messaged them to tell them about the typo but also to politely ask them not to send me such mail in the future. Aside from being mail I didn’t want, I thought it was against the GDPR ruling we’ve had in Europe for over a year now.

Apparently their approach was still legally compliant with GDPR, and they have no intention of changing it.

But it made me realise – some individuals, and some businesses choose to scrape by and meet the rules.

While some people and some businesses think the rules don’t go far enough – they choose to set the example, and enforce a higher standard than the laws ever could.

Some rules are there to be broken, but some rules and laws are there to protect customers, society, the environment, and more. Those kinds of rules can be obeyed, or they can be exceeded by each of us.

The companies that exceed the rules, tend to exceed customer expectations. And those companies have a bright future.

Don’t change your birthday on Twitter

On Friday I changed the birthday on the @GoSquared Twitter account.

It was set to 3rd February 1991. Correct date, wrong year. I thought “🧐 that looks odd” so changed the year to 2006 – the actual year we legally started the business (unlike 1991 which was the year I was born).

I received a warning saying “you can only change this a few times” – in itself a poorly worded error. Why can I only change it a few times, and what definition of “a few” are you going by, Twitter?

Either way, I thought this would all be fine. After all, why would I need to change the date again after this? So I went ahead and confirmed.

“Your account is locked.”
Your account is locked

This was literally the next thing I saw. A blank screen with one link to a support doc. No buttons or options to undo the change, or change the date again.

What did this change cause?

  • It locked everyone out of the @GoSquared Twitter account – you cant read the timeline, you can’t post, you can’t do anything.
  • It instantly hid our profile so it didn’t exist publicly – we didn't show up in search results, and if you went directly to the profile it just told you it didn't exist.
  • It paused our active Twitter Ads running – of which we spend a not-insubstantial amount of money on every month.
  • It cut our access to all related Twitter tools including the Twitter Analytics product.
  • Any Tweets mentions or quoting our own Tweets showed a lovely “This Tweet is unavailable” message.

We were deleted from Twitter.

All this, despite being an active user of Twitter since February 2008 with over 6,000 followers, being a verified Twitter account, and an active paying customer of Twitter Ads having spent many many thousands of dollars over several years.

To make matters worse, the issue arose at around 10:30am London time. I immediately took their recommended action of uploading a scan of my ID, and also submitted a support ticket to Twitter Support. I also reached out to the Twitter Business team via an email address they shared in previous communications. A number of people also mentioned @Twitter, @TwitterUK, @verified, and @TwitterSupport in various tweets to try to drive attention of the issue. We even reached out to any contacts we had at Twitter. But nothing.

Nothing until 8:30pm, and only after calling in a favour from a couple of very helpful people: @KeaneJoel and @Jonah.

I’m not writing about this to moan, I’m writing about this with the hope that no one else goes through the same stressful ordeal.

Don’t change your birthday on Twitter.

Twitter – you have got to improve on so many fronts here:

  • This is very nearly the most destructive action one can take on their Twitter account. You have to make that clearer to the user at the point they are making the change.
  • Is there any such

How much do you care about the details?

The details are not details. They make the design. – Charles Eames

I was lucky enough to get a new Apple Watch this week – the Series 4 Nike+.

Apple Watch box and lid.

The packaging is beautiful as with any Apple product. Compared to my Series “0” original Apple Watch, the packaging is different – being a sport model it's unboxing the Series 4 is slightly less theatrical, but it’s still delightful and the details astound me.

One point that stood out – there’s hardly any documentation, but the paperwork that is in the box is carefully crafted down to the last detail.

Apple Watch face, bezel, and paper border radius.

Look at the border radius and shape of the paper – look at the border shape of the watch, the screen of the watch, and even the wrapper that goes around the paper. Even look at the previous image and see the box cut-out that holds the paper in place.

They all match up. And that’s not by accident.

Imagine the time and effort it took to ensure that happened internally – from the graphic design of the leaflet, to the collaboration with the printing team to the facility where they cut the paper stock. To the quality control to ensure it always looks perfect and not wonky or misaligned.

All this effort for a detail that almost no one will pick up on. But almost everyone will feel it.

What Starbucks can teach us about consumer behaviour

“A tall skinny macchiato with syrup and 4 shots please.”

On a recent visit to Starbucks I spent some time watching and listening as customers flowed in, collected their drinks, and left to head to their busy work days ahead.

One gentleman walked in and if I had to guess I’d have put him as a standard cappuccino kinda guy. But I was wrong – instead he asked for a tall skinny macchiato with syrup and 4 shots.

I always enjoy people watching, but after hearing a few orders – even within the rush hour in the centre of London in a coffee shop – something blindingly obvious struck me: people can be so very different from each other.

It’s pretty obvious when you think of anywhere that has a menu as extensive as Starbucks, but it made me reflect on assumptions we often make throughout the day when running a business.

It’s easy to think people are “like you”. And it’s easy to think “no one would do that!” Or “why would anyone ever ever want that?!”

Figuring out what people want doesn’t necessarily mean you need to hold a bunch of user groups or feedback sessions or do extensive research.

Sometimes all you need is a reminder – get out of the building and just watch the world go by for 10 minutes.

Starbucks is a great place to observe consumer behaviour in all its wonder.