Recently, we just started spinning up some marketing magic. We’re talking Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Mailchimp campaigns, etc. We all struggle with making this a priority for our brands, but once we start firing them off…it typically goes better than we expected

Then fatigue and blurry ROI starts to make us question how we’re doing it and even worse, have imposter syndrome on why we started in the first place. Over the years, regardless of the company, I get reminded that the best outcomes for marketing aren’t easily found on the balance sheet.

🦖 Instead, our best outcome is not losing our dinosaur.

💒 Practice what you preach

I first got a real taste of what it was like to be who you are, everywhere you are at Crossroads Community Church. There’s a simple reason they’ve grown to be a top 5 church nationwide: they speak up, all the time, everywhere, all at once.

In a piece by Bloomberg, of all the photos they could show how the church is disrupting the ministry marketplace, they chose… a soda machine?

• There are more opportunities for people to get to know you than you think there are.
• Our brand voice can be as impactful on the front of a soda machine in the hallway as it is on the main stage.

🧠 Words create worlds

I lost my dinosaur for a couple of years until I started the consulting arm for a mobile app developer. In my experience working with clients with vision for the next great app, I felt they all suffered from the same core symptom: we think everyone wants what we have to offer them.

What I learned at Crossroads (which was founded by former P&G brand managers) was cheeky candor is fun, pointed and infectious. I deployed it at will so we could have an honest conversation about whether or not anyone really wants your app. Of course, Mailchimp campaigns were a big part of our outbound strategy.

Surprisingly, the hardest rub I ever received from our voice had nothing to do with it at all, instead it was a really displeased email subscriber.

Most brands would just unsubscribe and talk sh*t about him at the water cooler. Oh, but not us, that’s not on brand. I emailed him directly back, in part:

Dear, ______ –

Appreciate your willingness to let us know directly this upset you so much. We enjoy these types of emails. They are very much in-line with our culture here. We are happy to let you know how we resolved this for you:

• Nothing sly about simple unsubscribe buttons. They are at the bottom of every email. Whether they come from TJ Maxxx, Target or your local small business. We are attaching a screengrab where you’ll see that. Just in case you have someone else you want to not receive any messages from who uses Mailchimp.
• We noticed when we subscribed to your daily devotional (yes, we do our homework here), that you are using what’s called a double opt out strategy. This is when a user has to click twice to actually unsubscribe by confirming the email they want to have removed.
• We use a single opt out strategy. Plain and simple. One click and you’re done. We went ahead and clicked that button for you. And we’re attaching the line-item from our CMS to show you that it’s been removed

We don’t send this email as a gotcha moment, but we hope it makes you take a beat before sending a similar message to anyone else.

🦖 wanna see some coolsh🪄t

When we’re talking brand voice and outbound marketing, it can all come to an abrupt halt if we choose to spend more time talking about ourselves rather than listening to what we sound like when we talk about others. It seems obvious when you step back for a moment: what we sound like to others is all that matters.

You know that friend that whenever you’re telling a story, they seven ways to Kevin Bacon find a way to tell you a similar story about them? Yah, guilty. That’s kinda the point here, we don’t need to talk about ourselves for others to get to know us. Curiosity is reciprocal.

Take a look at your brand guidelines. What would it look like for you to add a section like:

• What interests us (Brand Intrigue)
• Who we’re friends with (Brand Association)
• Who we trust (Brand Perception)

If we did, it would feature some pretty cool people doing some pretty cool shi*t. Real recognize real.

Recognizing the dope things around us is the surefire way for us not to lose our dinosaur.