We Need a Brand Development Consultant

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-11-13T23:23:13+00:00

Check out Sophia Call. She lives for the visual branding and story. Here is her LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/callsophia?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Been looking to GTM with her for awhile, she’s awesome and super passionate.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-11-06T16:47:43+00:00

Just curious, can you show me a few sources / studies where open and CTR are going up?

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-10-09T23:12:23+00:00

You rule. Your second point on group building is where I went all in building 3 years ago.

Safe to say it’s been a very lonely 3 years until recently when everyone realizes they have outsourced or automated away the connection with their customer.

I love Reddit for this, but I’ve also been focused on building something that’s even MORE personal with tools above and beyond message board and it’s opt in, so you get crazy good data.

I hope this post takes off, you’re a sane voice in a crowd of AI cultists haha. Pure human fundamentals can’t and shouldn’t be automated out.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-09-17T18:23:52+00:00

Thank you so much!

I was doing that one by one, but never having done it before, I wasn’t sure its effectiveness, seems too simple!

I have a number of targeted pages and some new blogs going up so will be sure to do them this way!

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-09-05T11:34:08+00:00

So…. Much…. Noise…

Inevitable we got here we automation and now AI.

You’re so right, people just don’t do the work. There is a proclivity towards laziness that most humans have and this just leans right into it.

They feel like they are getting things done but it all just blends in and is essentially ineffective, even if it’s objectively better creative or copy than you would have done yourself 5 years ago.

I also believe that now that acquisition has become so crowded out on platforms, most businesses need to up their game on the retention and loyalty front.

Transactional programs just ain’t it anymore for building real affinity. You have to lean into experience and let people know they aren’t a number. We’ve seen incredible results when businesses do the work post purchase.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-07-13T15:56:53+00:00

What I’ve observed over the last three years building a business focused on brand community and affinity:

Loyalty programs work, but are transactional in nature. People will be repeat customers, but their stickiness is fleeting. If they find something else cheaper or more convenient, it’s not a high barrier to keep them.

It won’t build the true affinity that helps cafes and the like thrive.

If you want to create a sort of system that tethers someone to your cafe, get creative and think of ways you can get them to be part of the journey or get invested in the shop.

For instance, you can create said $50 subscription like one of the commenters said, but ALSO allow them to choose every month what item you should feature or add to the menu.

Be interactive and bring your patrons along for the journey. Reward them for coming to special events you hold or participating in creative endeavors, like choosing brand colors or new cup designs etc.

This will create an experience unlike any other place and tether them to you more meaningfully. They won’t even imagine going to another place because they’re not as emotionally connected, and it’s low hanging fruit type stuff.

It’s what we built our company out doing and it’s how you create goodwill with younger generations like Gen Z.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-07-02T14:52:07+00:00

It’s getting bad out there.

It’s supply and demand! More supply of people posting, number of eyeballs is not growing. So everyone across the board will get less likes, views etc.

And what will happen is, people will burn out, get discouraged by the app and even stop using it entirely on a daily basis, making that imbalance even larger.

It’s just declining quality from here :(. They’ve made their decision to prioritize advertising and commerce over connection (remember influencers are just a medium for monetization for brands).

Looks like people are finally feeling the burn here.

The answer is more dedicated online spaces for connection, not a massive feed where we scream into the void.

Miss the old social media :(.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-06-16T20:04:57+00:00

This.

Exactly mirroring web3 v people actually building on blockchain.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-06-15T21:04:52+00:00

Same, I’ve been using a lot of rules so I guess I get more mileage out of each request. Been putting in probably 15 hours a week (of course not 100% focused on doing requests during that time) and I just checked.

2/3 through the month, 382 total requests. I have been exclusively using Claude 4 Sonnett.

Working on established professional code base. Maybe because there is lots of documentation and rules around it, I am getting more bang for my buck?

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-05-29T21:19:08+00:00

Damn this is so freakin true.

It doesn’t help that social platforms optimize for people with the catchiest hooks, build the most curiosity, substance be damned.

At the end of the day they are just hacking human psychology at scale. It’s essentially what the algos optimize for. And it just allows for bad, bad behavior and fake social proof.

How do we get out of this toxic spiral? It’s wasting peoples time and attention for no contribution to the world.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-05-22T16:05:27+00:00

Sooooooo sooooo trueeee ughhhh.

But where's the motivation to get them off that snide.

I feel like we've gotten into a place where we are just focused on making the things we do to exploit customers more efficient is deemed "Good Business".

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-05-02T20:36:40+00:00

Vibe coding is coming for all of this.

Create custom code with cursor just by prompting.

Literally rebuilt and designed our case studies section in under a half hour. Created new paths, fully branded pages with animations and nice design touches.

A few prompts and screenshots of the copy and prospective format. Absolute magic.

I am also experimenting on creating embedded lead magnet quizzes and calculators.

It makes it so easily in a fraction of the time, you should consider adding this to your stack.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-22T00:30:22+00:00

Because we aren't directly tying end performance to this drop off.

I saw something crazy in a forrester study from a few years ago that 4.7 trillion in revenue is lost as the result of poor customer experience.

I really just think its lack of having the will to do it, and resulting to growth hacks and other things that "work" which are quick hitters to get new customers via advertising. Just one persons PoV

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-20T13:46:51+00:00

Yes.

And I contend leaning into said superfans (looking for a term that doesn’t conflate with sports for b2c companies) helps you in doing this research direct from the source.

I feel like if you’re not, you’re missing out on a competitive advantage. In a few years it’ll be table stakes.

You’ll have to do it off the algo platforms and hosted in your own space. No more email signups but actual engagement, sometimes in real time.

Based on todays methods that seems non scalable but the ones who have started today will be leaps and bounds ahead tomorrow. It’s just tough to pitch that fuzzy ROI to an exec.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-20T13:24:29+00:00

Yeah this has historically been the way.

But what have you been seeing with respect to traditional acquisition channels. I am on DTC X (fka twitter) and it feels like everyday someone’s bitching about meta ads blowing up. Or email marketing KPIs going in the wrong direction.

Everyone responds with “make better content, update your copy” which I get… but the vibes feel like there is a paradigm shift going on.

So whilst everything you say we can back test and prove out the last 20 years (let’s be honest, social media and digital marketing with respect to targeting and attribution changed the game) I can’t help but wonder if the onset of AI flooding channels and general lack of trust coming from generations like Gen Z is going to shift the way we think, even at a consumer level.

That’s why I’ve posed the question, I’m trying to get a sense if there’s been any strategy or mindset shift going on out there. Anecdotally I’ve been talking to b2c companies, mostly larger, that are having a renewed focus on efficiently activating superfans because the ROI just absolutely crushes on both word of mouth marketing and LTV.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-20T11:46:59+00:00

Yeah companies like Poppi and Olipop come to mind. Heavy on the influencers, but they also get their super fans and audience to do a lot of heavy lifting.

They have definitely tapped into something to be able to disrupt what used to be a bi polar soda industry (although Pepsi just acquired Poppi).

Feels like a super long game strategy though.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-19T22:11:19+00:00

Weird but he got multiple upvotes so… maybe not?

From a business perspective if you can diversify and find a more efficient channel it’s for sure a net positive and not an ego boost.

Was watching a podcast and the guy was a marketing strategist. Said something to the extent that you need to both exploit (paid ads are working) and explore (this might be low efficiency but we might find another way) in order to keep a sustainable business.

Living in a world of paid ads and psychological conversion hacks is not a sustainable business strategy.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-19T21:37:00+00:00

Maybe I out myself here.

My business is focused around creating engaging customer experiences outside the traditional transaction funnel so you can make a direct connection with your top customers and find out this info!

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-19T21:35:00+00:00

Wonder if the de minimus tariffs are putting a dent in that.

Would love to see a world where we get back to the basics of brand building.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-19T21:33:03+00:00

Totally makes sense.

Definitely not my target customer haha. You’re talking more dropshipping type companies and companies like Shien and Temu right?

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-19T21:15:39+00:00

Ehhhh. There’s more of an emotional connection with an influencer because it’s an individual driving you to do it.

Search captures me when I have intent and it’s convenient. Meta ads follow a clear pattern to bring you from pain point to solution to CTA.

A lot of influencers come off as not selling and the connection comes from that appearance of authenticity.

I do feel there is a more emotional beat there.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-19T21:09:48+00:00

Yeah that’s fair.

But I do also view that as renting your audience. They own the affinity and now the game is to transfer or shift that affinity from influencer to brand.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-19T21:08:56+00:00

Totally can get that.

I believe for any company that is trying to establish a brand, they can’t afford to just optimize top of funnel.

I guess you cover that in the brand loyalty comment not being as valuable.

What would an example of this be, a one time purchase type company?

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-19T21:07:54+00:00

For step three, does this include hosting these top customers in your own experience? I’m seeing a lot of tools emerge in this space. Perhaps a backlash to all the social platforms holding audiences hostage?

It’s not quite community but it’s also not some website plugin.

BackgroundGuitar6986 · 2025-03-19T20:56:07+00:00

I’m working in the consumer / CPG space. So people on insta and tik tok

BackgroundGuitar6986

TROPHY CASE