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- [00:02]
Alex
What is up marketing besties? We are kicking off a brand new mini series called Go to Marketplace where we break down one go to market move in under 10 minutes. Real tactics, zero fluff, just the kind of stuff you actually use to launch smarter, grow faster and win your market. And joining me for this whole series is someone who lives and breathes Go to market, Tamara Graminski. She's an award winning product marketer, former VP of Product marketing at Kajabi, and one of the sharpest minds in the game. Let's get into it. We are back with another Go to market play in 10 minutes or less. And today we're talking about something every marketer struggles with. Making people actually remember your message or campaign. And the truth of the matter is most marketing out there gets ignored. It's forgettable, it's boring. Or drowned out by the infinite scroll of content we're all consuming every day on LinkedIn, TikTok, wherever you're consuming your content. But the best marketers I know crack the code on stickiness. They create messages and campaigns that people remember, repeat and share. And again, to help us break this down, I've got Tamara Graminski back with me, ex VP of Product Marketing at Kajabi. She's award winning product marketer. I can go on. She's also the founder of PMM Camp. But I want to start off. Tamara, why do you think most marketing fails to stick?
- [01:48]
Tamara Graminski
Thanks for having me back. You know, I've thought a lot about this. I've created a lot of, you know, messaging and positioning in my time. I've worked on a lot of campaigns, I've analyzed a lot. And I think the problem tends to be that most marketers focus on explaining their product rather than making an emotional connection with their audience. And yes, there is a time and place to sell, but most of the time when we're talking about the campaigns and those of more top of funnel messages, that's not the right moment. And so think about some of the ads or content that you remember the most. Right? You probably don't remember a list of features, you probably remember a feeling that you got when you saw that ad. And again, you might not remember their tagline, but you might remember a moment when it showed up like Nike. Just do it. Right? And so that's exactly what we're going to talk about today. I want to talk a little bit about why some marketing messages stick while others kind of fade from our memory. Specifically, we're going to dig into how you can use the made to stick framework to make your brand messages unforgettable. And then we'll also go beyond that framework to give listeners three ways that they can start applying this to their marketing today.
- [03:01]
Alex
And it actually might sound counterintuitive that a product marketer is saying a lot of these things, because product marketers love talking about products usually, and I understand that why, because their role is to market the product. But there's also other ways to do that. But I know you mentioned something called the Made to stick framework. We both have read the book Made a Stick by Chip and Dan Heath that shares why some ideas stay with us and others disappear. I want you, for the people who haven't read the book, could you break down the core principles for us?
- [03:42]
Tamara Graminski
Yeah, it's an oldie but a goodie, and I find myself going back to it time and time again. So Made to Stick lays out six principles that make an idea sticky. Meaning, as you mentioned earlier, it gets remembered, shared and repeated. So first we have simple. You want to strip your message down to its core idea. I kind of hinted at this earlier. The Nike one. Just do it. The second is that it's unexpected, so you want to surprise people, you want to break a pattern, you want to stop them from scrolling. The third is concrete. So we want to use vivid, tangible language that paints a picture and makes something feel tangible, real, concrete. The fourth is credible. So we need to give people a reason to believe. This is where we do start to incorporate things like social proof, experts, experts, data. The fifth is emotional. People remember how you make them feel, not what you say. And then finally, we have story driven. We know that stories stick better than facts, and so we always want to find a way to use a story to deliver our message.
- [04:49]
Alex
You just broke down these six principles. But I know also people love to hear examples of a marketing campaign that does this. But today, could you just break down a marketing campaign that actually nailed these six principles?
- [05:06]
Tamara Graminski
Yeah, I brought a really fun example with me to the show today and so I want to talk about DuoLingo and their TikTok strategy. If you don't know Duolingo, it's like the language learning app. I'm using it right now to learn Greek. I think you and Ari are also using it to learn different languages. And so Duolingo, you don't really think language learning and really fun TikTok, but they basically broke every rule of corporate social media and it worked and it has everyone talking about them. You know, if you go on TikTok, you'll see a lot of Brands still take that more educational approach, but Duolingo kind of took their mascot Duo, and they turned him into an Internet menace. It was very entertaining to watch. So instead of posting kind of generic language learning tips, Duo, the mascot, started doing, like, really unhinged things. So he was flirting with Dua Lipa. He was, like, threatening users to do their lessons in really absurd, exaggerated ways. They have these little videos of him running around the office just, like, causing chaos. And then he would just, like, comment wild things on different viral videos. People loved it at first. People thought it got hacked. And then as it kept going and going and going, it even went across Twitter and other channels. It really became clear that, you know, Duo was a personality, not just kind of like representation of the company itself.
- [06:36]
Alex
And for the next episode, Tamara is going to speak in Greek for everybody. She will love that. Just kidding. But I do. I do use Dula. I was learning French last year, but then I moved to Miami and Spanish is needed, so I'm on the Spanish train. But that's just a diversion. But I want to go into. Yeah, Duolingo. People love looking at Duolingo. But let's break down why it actually stuck. Why did this work so well?
- [07:09]
Tamara Graminski
Sure. So I took this campaign and I mapped it back to the six criteria from made to stick. So remember the first one, Simple. The character of Duo became the whole brand. They didn't try to introduce a family of mascots. They kept the message simple. With Duo, it was unexpected. As I mentioned, no one expected this, like, random language learning app to act like an Internet troll. So it certainly got people's attention. And then they kind of kept delivering on the attention as well. Right. Like, every video they created was equally unexpected. And you're kind of just like, super curious what the next adventure for Duo would be. Concrete. Every video had a clear story they were trying to tell. As I mentioned, Duo would go on these adventures. He would cause very specific mischief. So it felt clear and concrete. You knew what you were getting credible. So, I mean, they started this when they did not have a large audience at all. But I just checked before we filmed this episode, and they're up to 16 million TikTok followers right now, which I think is kind of social proof at its finest and definitely representative of, like, the success of this campaign. It was emotional. People felt entertained, engaged. They felt like they were part of the joke. And then, of course, it was story driven. Right. Duo became this recurring character. He wasn't just a mascot. We felt like we were getting to know him. And we were like really bought into what he was going to do next. So I think it meets all six criteria personally.
- [08:40]
Alex
And I love also how slyly they map Duo back into the product so the whole, the whole storytelling online becomes a storytelling in their product as well. They, and I think the best brands know how to do both those things. But I know they, what they did is instead of saying download dual lingo right now, because you can learn languages, they just made you want to be part of the fun. They wanted part of the community, part of this adventure, part of the story, which is what great brands do is they, they tell a story and make you want to be a part of their story.
- [09:24]
Tamara Graminski
That's exactly it. So they weren't sell, sell, sell. Again, I mentioned there is a place for selling. It's not at this level, but they built a brand that people wanted to follow and be a part of so that when it came time for you to decide, oh, I am ready to learn a language, Duolingo was the only obvious choice. You already had this affinity with them.
- [09:45]
Alex
And obviously not all companies can become the next Duolingo. But we could take these learnings from Duolingo and apply it today. So, Tamara, how would. If you were giving this advice to a brand today, what are some ways that a brand could start and apply what Duolingo did to their own brand?
- [10:08]
Tamara Graminski
As always, every episode, I like to bring three things that people can steal. So if you are wanting to make your marketing more memorable, here's what you could do today. First, one, simplify your message. Can you sum up your product in one short phrase? You need to strip it down to the most important repeatable idea. Because if your audience can't say it back to you, it's too complicated. Right. I've actually struggled with this a lot as a product marketer and I would say this is one of the things I've gotten better with over time, like simplify, simplify, simplify. The second thing you want to play around with is this idea of adding the surprise factor, right? So you mentioned at the very beginning, we're always in that, like Infinite Doom scrolling online, we need to make people stop and pay attention. And so that actually is called pattern breaking. And so we want to create pattern breaking marketing. So to do this, just ask yourself, what would make my audience stop and say, wait, what? In Duolingo's case, it was kind of like turning Duo into this menace, right? You're like, that's not the cute little mascot I thought I knew. So this could be a really bold claim. This could be a visual representation of something, or it could be a unique format that you're playing around with. The options are really endless here. Then finally, I think the most important thing I want people to take away from this episode is you need to tell a story, not just sell a list of features. Right? Features don't stick, stories do. And so use storytelling to show how your product solves a real problem. And I think you know you're going to be off on the right track with these three tips.
- [11:47]
Alex
Well, if you want to start the framework of the what Duolingo did, take what Tamara just said. Apply it today, tell us how it did. I'm going to try say something in Spanish for the end of this episode. So gracias por escucar. Thank you for listening. I don't want to. I'm not going to put you in the spot and do that in Greek, but thank you. I hope my duolingo is good. Is there any Spanish speakers? Please roast me in my LinkedIn DMS. Or you could roast me behind my back to tomorrow and her LinkedIn DMS. But thank you so much.
- [12:24]
Tamara Graminski
Bye.
- [12:30]
Alex
Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.