Inside the copy Harry sent me.
This book is SIGNED by the author. By E.B. White himself!!
E.B. White touched this book. E.B. White inscribed it in black pen, in a scrawling, spidery hand. (Must google "Lee Dodge" later.)
This copy is not hungover.
This copy is pristine, preserved in near-perfect condition since 1976, its publication date. He likely signed this then, E.B. White. He would have been
77.
I can't emphasize the thrill it gave me: E.B. White touched this book. He. Signed. This. Book.
And now it's mine.
* * *
Maybe you're like... big deal. But from the story of your own life think of a person you admire.
Imagine that you hold an icon or a symbol or the art of that person in your hands right now. Imagine that adult-you is
suddenly connected to the child-you who first felt connected to wonder, felt its spark, and then felt it ignite something in yourself, too.
Imagine holding a symbol of something that made you who you are today. Imagine that.
That's how it is for me now, standing in my dining room, holding a book that my literary hero had also held in 1976, 48 years ago.
I am holding a book touched literally by the
person whose words first touched me.
The person who inspired me to want to be a writer, too, back when 8-year-old me was sitting on my twin-sized bed in my childhood bedroom, reading Charlotte's Web for the very first time.
* * *
In an age of writing robots—an age where machines are going
to only get better and faster at creating content at scale—the question I've been obsessed with lately is this:
How do we sign our work?
Whether we use AI in the process or not, it's
never been more important to ask:
- How do we signal to an audience that this is ours?
- How do we show our reader that we touched this?
- What can we sign?
Here's the reality: We might use AI, but the value of marketers increasingly comes in the things that cannot be
automated.
The value of creatives comes down to how well we can do things that do not scale.
The
value of our work comes down to how much artful creativity* it has.
*(Side-rant: I will slap any elitist who says that any of us are not "artists." Maybe smack them with this 2-pound, 768-page Letters of E.B. White. Creativity is about possibility: solving problems differently...
showing up in memorable ways... considering out-of-the-box alternatives... and thennnnn... shredding the box entirely and refashioning it to construct something brand new.)
So how do we sign our own work?
▶️ By kindling the warmth of our actual human voices in whatever we create, with a focus on building and sustaining relationships.
- Your From Line matters more than your Subject Line. A particularly good Subject Line might inspire an open. But the From Line offers a more consistent signal of a relationship.
- You've opened this
newsletter because it's from me; not because I've used a tool to write 15 subject lines and A/B-tested them to select the best-performing one. (I did not do that.)
- This example is specific to email. But it's also a proxy for building relationships through any marketing we create.
▶️ With the pounding pulse of people within an organization, with a focus on sharing who we are, not just what we do.
- The point of view of subject-matter experts, internal influencers, execs, and you.
- How consistently we're showing up, building connection and trust along as many customer moments as we can think of. (Or as many as AI can help us identify.)
- In a meta way... Harry did this for his company Lower Street by
researching and connecting with me, and then gifting me the perfect gift that (in a meta way x2) inspired this post.
Walk with me into the future...
Two blog posts are side-by-side: Both offer the exact same content.
Two newsletters arrive in your inbox: Both contain similar value.
Two copies of the same book sit on your shelf: One is signed, one is not.
Which do we read, open, treasure?
Which do we engage with the most?
Which do we remember?
We engage with the one that feels like it was signed.
The one that feels like it was touched by someone, anyone.
I want that someone to be you.
* * *
WHY WE AREN'T MORE CREATIVE IN MARKETING [sponsored]
Because we're...
😑 Maxed out?
🔥 Burnt out?
💸 Creativity doesn't matter? The road to success is paved with ROI + dollar bills not stories + funfetti + imagination?
Just kidding about the funfetti part.
Creativity is about imagining possibilities. (As we talked about 14 paragraphs ago!)
A brand-new survey of 1,900+ marketers from Braze says it's not any one thing holding us back... It's a combo platter of 4 parallel challenges. (See the chart 👇.)
Braze looked through the lens of Customer Engagement... but I'd argue that the
data applies more broadly, too.
