I love that. I don't think I brought it up on the show before but in college, I almost got a degree in journalism before I kind of like panic switched into business. Yeah, I learned way more than I used today. In my time studying journalism, the internships that I had writing for papers that I did in the business college to be honest, the inverted pyramid style of writing just teaching you to revise. I want to zoom in here and talk a little bit about what I just mentioned, the inverted pyramid style of writing. In my college journalism classes, this was one of the first concepts I was taught. And honestly one of the most useful concepts that I still think about today. The inverted pyramid is a way to think about prioritizing information in your writing, it's fairly intuitive, just picture a pyramid, then turn it upside down, the widest part of the pyramid is at the top, and the pyramid itself is divided into three sections. The widest part at the top of the pyramid is filled with the most newsworthy information, the who, what, when, where, why, and how. Right off the bat, journalists are trained to get the most important information to the reader as quickly as possible. The middle of the pyramid is for important supporting details of the who, what, when, where, why, and how, if you want to understand more about the story, that's what the middle of the piece does. And then the bottom of the pyramid, the smallest chunk is for other general background information. Journalists are taught to write in an inverted pyramid style, because there are literal physical constraints to print journalism. As an editor works with layout to make sure the words actually fit on the pages of the newspaper, they often need to remove pieces of stories to make the layout work. It's kind of like a puzzle. And when everyone writes in the inverted pyramid style, editors know that they can remove the endings of stories, because that's the least necessary information to understanding the details of a story. This is fascinating to me, because it's not the way we're taught to create content online. Often we design our content to have open loops in the beginning, so that the consumer sticks around for longer periods of time, instead of giving them the payoff right up front, like traditional news reporting. This probably comes from a place of trying to hold attention and sell that attention through ads, more so than trying to serve the consumer the best way we can. I know that's kind of not exactly what you're referring to with your more feature mentality here but I feel like that training is so strong, is so useful. And I almost wish some of that was like required education for people going to college.
You know, it's funny, I don't have to think about that. First of all, let me just say like, I think this approach is really helpful in an email newsletter, because the email is an inherently personal space, right? And what I mean by that is, if I were to write you, like, if you were on my list, and you get an email from me, you're opening it in your inbox, right? You're not you're in, it's just you and your phone, or you and your computer, looking at that content in your all by yourself, right? And so to me, that's like, that's a really, that's a moment where as a writer, I think is a really critical moment. And I've talked about this in the past, but so many people, so many brands think about that email newsletter, as a distribution strategy for other content. And they focus on the news piece of that word, they focus on what they want to say, or what they want to tell their audience about, or what they are trying to drive an action toward. But I think that in an email newsletter, specifically, and I'm not talking about email marketing as a tactic for brands, or for even for people for that, you know, I'm not talking about something that you're trying to sell like a straight up email marketing, I'm talking about an email newsletter, but an email newsletter, I think the focus should not be on the news, it should be on the letter, right, it should be on the second part of that word. Because the ability to connect directly with one person at one time in one inbox is an inherently personal environment, right? And so that, to me, is such a special place. And that's the place that I want to be as a marketer. And as a writer is just I am in your inbox. And, like, if you don't like the value that I'm delivering there, if you don't like me, if you don't like my words, you can unsubscribe and I can never darken your doorstep again. And I love that pressure on me as a writer, and you know, from a marketing standpoint as a marketer, too. I love the fact that somebody can unsubscribe and I can't show up there again, like, that's amazing. You're not trying to game an algorithm, you're just speaking directly with one person at one time, and that person is making the decision about whether they want to hear from you or not. So all that to say, to answer your question about, you know, why don't more people take this approach. If I were a creator, I would 100% take this approach, and in terms of connecting with the audience, because they will become your most loyal customers down the line, but to focus on the relationship to focus on building that relationship and that trust, yeah, 100%, that's why I do it. As a brand, though, for example, if I were working for a big company, like if I was at, I don't know, you know, almost like I don't know, Merck Pharmaceutical Company, like what I take this approach, I think that there is a hybrid to this, I think there's there is some elements of what I do that you can take and apply. Would it be as personal what I would be looking for something like an open to write back rate, if I were the chief marketing officer for Merck, probably not like I don't think that it translates 100% but I think that elements of what I do and how I approach it and things that I've tested there, I do think 100% work for brands and to give you like a really quick example of that, like look at what the New York Times has done with their daily newsletter that goes out in June of 2020, they completely transformed the way that they delivered the morning news rather than just having it come from the New York Times. It now comes from an actual person, a guy by the name of David Leonhard, who writes that email newsletter that goes out from the New York Times. So in other words, David is more or less the host, right, he's more or less the anchor for the news in the email newsletter. So that's an example I think, of taking a more personal approach. But for a brand, you know, so certainly the New York Times is trading on the brand's name of The New York Times. But they also recognize that they need to be more personal, right, personable in the inbox. And so that's why they have this email that comes from David even though it's a New York Times publication.
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