Katelyn Bourgoin's 5 Fs of creating un-ignorable content

[00:00:00] Ramli John: Did you know that your thumbs travel two marathons a year? That's over 18,480 feet scrolling on your phones. We spend over two hours, 27 minutes a day on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and getting people to stop scrolling and paying attention to your marketing is hard 

[00:00:21] Katelyn Bourgoin: The problem isn't necessarily that people can't pay attention. It's the actually catching their attention. Getting them to notice you in the first place is just opposed to scrolling right by. That's the hard part. There's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of people who are competing with for that kind of initial attention.

[00:00:37] And you can put so much work into something that's a really great piece. If you can't capture their attention in the first five seconds, they're already gone and doing something else, 

[00:00:46] Ramli John: It's why Katelyn Bourgoin came up with the five F's of attention to help you grab your target buyer's attention and get them to check out your marketing.

[00:00:54] In this Marketing Powerups episode, you learn first the five Fs of attention. Second, an example for each one of those. And number three, one thing that's helped Katelyn accelerate her career to become a CEO of Customer Camp. For each episode, I create a powerup cheatsheet that you can use , download, fill-in, and apply the marketing concept to your business right away.

[00:01:15] Go to marketingpowerups.com to get those right now. Are you. Let's go! 

[00:01:21] Announcer: Marketing powerups. Ready? Go. Here's your host, Ramli John 

[00:01:33] Ramli John: Talking about marketing powerups, one of the things that you recently written on your newsletter, also on Twitter thread, it's around the nine Fs of attention. You provided some stats and some reasoning that it's really hard for people, even marketers, to get attention and other people to pay attention to what they're doing.

[00:01:52] Why is it so hard? Is there any things that you can share around, like why it's so hard for people to pay attention to things 

[00:01:59] Katelyn Bourgoin: nowadays? I mean, I don't think that, I think that getting people's attention is hard. Mm-hmm. . Um, and I think that holding people's attention is hard, but I think that there's also this kind of like, um, untrue, um, thing that's said by a lot of marketers, which is, you know, like it's really impossible to like keep people's attention these days.

[00:02:18] But if you look at. Some evidence that's not necessarily true, right? People like still binge Netflix series, they still listen to like three hour episodes of Rogan. Um, they'll watch like hours of YouTube content. They'll read insanely long threads like some, what did I read? So the problem isn't necessarily.

[00:02:38] That people can't pay attention. It's that actually catching their attention, getting them to notice you in the first place is as opposed to scrolling right by. That's the hard part. And you could have the most amazing content, but if you can't hook people really quickly, , then you don't, they, they'll never discover it.

[00:02:56] And so it's really about stopping the scroll, being able to create scroll, stopping content. And that's a thing that a lot of, you know, marketers are struggling with. And there's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of people who are competing with for that kind of initial attention. And you can put so much work into something that's a really great piece.

[00:03:15] But if it's got the wrong headline or you. The wrong intro. If you can't capture their attention though first, like five seconds, they're already gone and doing something else. So that got me really thinking about, well, I'm curious, like why do we pay attention and what grabs our attention? And that led me to going on this path of, to come coming up with what I call the actual seven Fs of attention.

[00:03:40] I've actually combined a couple of them. Nice. Um, and there's a new one. It's this way of remembering what the kind of key things are. And then within each of those, there's all sorts of cool brainy psychology stuff going on. But really there's, you know, if you, once you get a sense of why people pay attention and how attention works, then as a marketer you can get better at actually capturing attention consistently as opposed to having like amazing viral like hits.

[00:04:07] And then things that just like that you're so confident are gonna work when you post it. Nobody gives. in terms of like 

[00:04:12] Ramli John: how hard that is. I remember sharing in your, uh, a stat, you, you shared a stat on your, your post around this, uh, attention. I'm gonna link it in a description as customer camp. That CEO of four slash Attention pe most people go through two marathons a year of scrolling.

[00:04:28] That's like 18,000. 480 feet of scrolling, and I'm just thinking about last night before I went to bed, I was on Reddit, just, I was just scrolling through my feet. I'm going on Instagram, I'm going on Facebook, going through Twitter, like just, it's just a scrolling fest. I realize now, and I, I probably run to three or four marathons a year, just scrolling as a marketer just to see what people are up to.

[00:04:52] Katelyn Bourgoin: I think marketers do a lot more scrolling with the average boat, right? Because we're scrolling for pleasure, but we're also scrolling for work.

[00:04:59] Ramli John: That totally makes sense and that is a challenge. And, uh, it's great you put together this Fs uh, this seven, seven Fs now. Uh, around grabbing attention from, from people.

[00:05:08] We're gonna be able to, uh, cover five in, in this session. Mm-hmm. , but I'll, I'll, like I said, I'll link through through the rest in, in the description. One of the things that you, one of the F's is fierce, and fierce is such a primal emotion. Can you talk a little bit about how marketers can capture. and, and get people's attention through, 

[00:05:30] Katelyn Bourgoin: through fears.

[00:05:31] Absolutely. And so one thing I always wanted to start off with, the caveat when we talk about this one is that you do not need to be one of those sleazy marketers, right? It is all zoom and gloom and talking about death and disease and trying to scare the crap. One of people that get them to buy their, your product.

[00:05:44] So there's this great kind of example that we give in this new, um, challenge that I'm working away. Compare two commercials for mouth wash. One of them is from a brand and they talk. gingivitis, which is this terrible mouth disease that can lead to cancer and death and heart disease. And like, you know, like, you're like, yeah, gingivitis is scary.

[00:06:04] That's f like, you know that that's them really hitting into that visceral fear, but you don't have to go that route. This other brand that also sells mouthwash has this great ad and it's of a, a minister or a priest, and. , um, giving his congregation like, yes, a sermon, and they're all at the other end of the room in the corner because his breath is so bad, he's scaring them away.

[00:06:28] And it's like you laugh, but what's actually happening, right, is it's tapping into one of our very human fears. Which is about losing status or being rejected from our tribe. And that is a very scary thing. Cause if you think about the way humans evolved, we needed other humans for survival. We lived in groups, we were herding species, and we needed each other so that we could get water and shelter and food.

[00:06:52] And so we have a very hardwired emotional fear around rejection. So you can tap into the literal fears. Gingivitis and like heart disease. Or you can play with something fun like bad breath and how that's gonna like be revolting to other people and you're still actually tapping into fear. But it's a different approach and it's an approach that no potential customer is gonna look at your brand and go, Ugh.

[00:07:20] Another fear mongering marketer, they're actually gonna appreciate it, but in their unconscious mind, they're connect. . Oh, I don't wanna have bad breath. I don't wanna alienate people. I'm afraid of being rejected from the tribe. I'm afraid of losing status. I should freshen my breath. So fears are a big one, but like I said, you don't have to go right for the kind of like the jugular when it comes to how you market around fears.

[00:07:47] Ramli John: Another example you brought up in your Twitter treads, uh, Snickers, the, the bar chocolate bar, and there's a race. There's uh, three people who are going for. And the middle one is going the other way. And it's like, you're not yourself when you're hungry. And it just feels to the core around, uh, you want to be yours.

[00:08:04] You know, the desire to be, to be yourself and to be productive and going the right way. And it's really tapping into that, uh, subliminal, unconscious desire and fear that people have to, to be productive essentially. 

[00:08:17] Katelyn Bourgoin: That's it. That's it. And there's another way that we can, you know, that marketers often tap into fear and it's actually something.

[00:08:24] There wasn't, there's a, like, wasn't really a name for it that I could find in the, um, you know, neuroscience literature, but it's something that I think that we all experience and so I named it myself and I call it fobo, which is fear of being outdone. Mm-hmm. . And so, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but you're scrolling through social media and you see a peer or somebody kind of that.

[00:08:45] Look at as being, you know, in maybe another marketer, maybe, um, you're a business owner, maybe it's another business owner in your space, and they're talking about how much money they just made on their launch, or they're talking about, um, the house they just bought. It looks like a frigging mansion. And what, that's another really powerful motivator because we're very competitive.

[00:09:06] Mm. By nature. There is this incredible study. That psychologist did that tapped into happiness and competitiveness and people's happiness, which is kind of unnerving but true. Is that as a kind of a broader, um, analysis, people aren't necessarily happier. when they make more money, they're happier if they make more money than their peers.

[00:09:29] Mm-hmm. , like, it's less about, like, they did this study and they asked, um, people, would you rather, assuming that cost of goods is the same, right? Nothing, the cost of goods is the same. Would you rather, um, make, uh, $50,000 a year? and your peers make 25 or make a hundred thousand dollars a year, but your peers make 150 and unanimously, even though the cost would be the same unanimously, people opted for $50,000 over a hundred thousand so that they would not be making less than their peers.

[00:10:02] So that's a real figure, and it's something that marketers can tap into in a. I think, not in a slimy way, but just showcasing people who are finding success with your solutions. As social proof, it inspires, but I think it also really taps into our fear of being outdone and we see other brands and other peers doing and achieving the things that we would like.

[00:10:27] It kind of motivates us to wanna keep up and if we can buy a product or sign up for a software, they might be able to help us keep. , we're gonna do it. 

[00:10:35] Ramli John: Yeah, that is, uh, I love that. And it, it goes to one of the things that you're a big fan of, jobs to be. Uh, that's for, that's for a whole different episode.

[00:10:43] I feel like we can, you, you and I can probably chat about that for several days, show if we wanted to, but it's kind of connected to one of the F's that you shared around Future Me, like how this desire, you know, one of the things that you can grab attention is like helping them see who they can, who somebody can be, uh, in the future with your product.

[00:11:05] Can you, can you talk a little, a little bit more about that and. , any examples that you have for it? 

[00:11:10] Katelyn Bourgoin: Sure. And you often will see, um, when we look at kind of what I'm calling Fobo, um, which lies under fears, and you look at future meal, often see them used together in content. So people will start with kind of a really shocking number of like, you know, how much time they've saved or how much money they make.

[00:11:28] Something that makes you go, oh shit. I'm not doing that well and your competitive streak hits in. But then they'll explain, well, if you read the rest of this thread or if you watch this video, I can reveal how I'm doing this. And that's tapping into your desire for future me. So again, like we, we buy things because not of who we are necessarily.

[00:11:48] You know, I don't buy things because I'm a 37 year old woman living in Nova Scotia who drives a Volkswagen. Like that's not why I buy things. A lot of marketing personas would say that's why. But the reason that I buy things is because there's progress that I'm trying to make in my life, and ultimately there's another version of myself that I wanna become.

[00:12:05] And I see that product being something that will help me become that future me. So again, in the case of the, uh, mouthwash commercial, like Future Me doesn't want to alienate , my, um, you know, potential people I meet with. Terrible Breath. You could see. , um, a commercial for li uh, mouthwash showing somebody out on a date and they're getting close and like, you know, but they can do that because they don't have to worry about having bad breaths.

[00:12:34] So now future me can envision how my life might be better if I were to meet that partner that I've been seeking. And we were to have this romantic encounter. So you can take your product and you can insert it into the. , but it's not the star of the story. The star of the story is the journey that you're gonna, the customer's gonna go on to become this future.

[00:12:55] Another 

[00:12:55] Ramli John: example you, I saw you share on the Twitter thread with Nike, like, and there's a person running your only limit is yourself. And it's really tapping into, I guess, people who have this growth mindset and want to perform better and. Nike is the one that's the path 

[00:13:11] Katelyn Bourgoin: to towards it. This section, Nike's such a great example.

[00:13:14] There's actually this study, and I'll have to find a link to it, um, but I'll include it in a future piece where cl like in a high school basketball, they did, um, they had all of these teams and they gave a bunch of the players Nike's and they actually performed better. Interesting. Like the same player from one game pre having Nikes to then.

[00:13:34] you know, having Nikes, they actually performed better and it's because they believed the shoes would make them better. And so they, because they believed they'd be better, they did perform better. And this is something that, um, Behavioral conducts refer to as the glacier effect, which is oftentimes you've probably heard, um, you know, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

[00:13:54] Mm-hmm. , right? Your belief system and your ability to achieve or your ability that you're not going to believing that you're gonna fail can really have huge impacts on your performance. And so, because Nike has spent billions of dollars showing people that they're the brand that will allows you to become an athlete to perform better.

[00:14:15] Then when people put on the sneakers, they actually perform better, which is just incredible. 

[00:14:19] Ramli John: That is, that is, wow. That's, uh, a great way to show also placebo effect, but it is effective a hundred percent. I telling you, when you believe it, you, it becomes true. Before we continue, I wanna thank the sponsor for this episode 42 agency.

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[00:15:21] Well, that's often Now let's jump back into this episode, and I guess 

[00:15:25] that 

[00:15:25] Ramli John: ties back to, uh, one of the other f. , it's around, uh, fables. It's around story telling a story. And Nike is also such a, they do such a good job of, of telling a story even within, within 30 seconds, uh, with an ned. Uh, I, I, I was watching, uh, somebody share how Vine videos, which was six seconds back then.

[00:15:46] You can have like everything you need, like a beginning, middle, and end essentially of a story. Uh, and it's all about, and that's one great way to capture people's attention. Is, is one of your f. , can you talk a little bit more, uh, about, about fables and Yeah. How that that is effective in terms of capturing people's attention?

[00:16:05] Katelyn Bourgoin: So as marketers, we know that stories sell, right? We're like, if you can actually communicate your message, but you could do it as opposed to listing a bunch of features and benefits, but you can actually craft a narrative around it. You can capture people's attention, you can keep their attention. But what's interesting is, again, like looking at the neuroscience behind it, they've done research when people are sh when somebody is sharing a story and somebody is actively listening, they're.

[00:16:30] Brainwaves of them actually come together. It's this really amazing thing, like our brains are so impacted by stories, but we really build a bond and we empathize with the storytellers. It's so fascinating. And so when you look at some of the world's best marketers, you know, Steve Jobs, he did this incredible job of standing up on stage when he was releasing, getting a product.

[00:16:52] And you know, the iPad's a great example. One of his best. Talks ever, but when he's talking about the iPad, he's not talking about any of the, you know, the technical like innovations that went into creating this amazing product. He's talking about being able to read the newspaper, like, you know, being able to read in the bath or like watch a movie, like he's sharing how your life is going to change.

[00:17:16] because this product now exists. And he does that through telling stories. There's this fascinating approach to selling, but you look at the best brands and they all do it. They all do it so well. Mm-hmm. , and they all do it over and over. And again, those stories coming back to the one we talked about before, the feature me, oftentimes those stories are not about the.

[00:17:37] they're about how you can be better because of the brand. You look at Red Bull, they've done this incredible job of positioning themself. As you know, red Bull gives you wins and they tell these stories, but you're putting yourself in the hero's role, right? You're seeing yourself being the person who's able to do these defying stunts because you are drinking Red Bull.

[00:17:56] So the best brands, they tell great stories, but they also are not the. They let you be the star of the story. They show how their product enables you on your journey. 

[00:18:06] Ramli John: Uh, you mentioned Steve Jobs. I think another thing that really helps him stand out is his, his turtle neck , the way he looks and talks, which I, I'm trying to tie it to , what the Fs, which is foreign.

[00:18:19] Like he's just so. It's just so unique. I think, uh, there's this effect that you talked about, the bond restaurant, uh, effect. Mm-hmm. that I could have totally mispronounced that, but essentially it's around Got it. How, how you can buck the trend to really stand out and, you know, Steve Jobs is a good job, but that, um, can you give like other examples and, uh, talk a little bit more how people can be more foreign or more, uh, standing out so that they can really capture that 

[00:18:46] Katelyn Bourgoin: the day that, um, That Ram and I are doing this as the day before Black Friday.

[00:18:50] And Black Friday is obviously a huge day for marketers, and you're trying to figure out how am I gonna stand up for all the noise today? There's gonna be so many people talking to my prospective buyers, how do I stand out? And so I actually just wrote of thread about 10 standout, you know, unignorable, um, black Friday campaigns.

[00:19:08] And one of my favorites of all time is, um, the one that Cards Against Humanity did last year, where instead of offering a Black Friday sale, , they put the price of their product up by $5 . So they called it a once in a lifetime deal, and then on the buy button it said consume with an explanation point . So they were poking fun at the fact that like, obviously every brand is trying to get you to buy on Black Friday.

[00:19:35] They're trying to get you to spend, spend, spend. They're like, we're gonna buck the trend. We're actually gonna make our product more expensive and of. This worked for them, right? They got a huge amount of press. Everybody came to the website and they ended up selling more games. , they sold the year before, and so it's a great example.

[00:19:51] Another one along the same kind of thinking was this amazing one done by ikea. So Ikea. Instead of them saying, Hey, come out and buy more stuff today, what they said is, Hey, we wanna buy your stuff back today. We're going to do a buyback sale. You bring in your old furniture, we're gonna give you 50% of what it was worth.

[00:20:11] And then I think that, , I think the old furniture got donated maybe to people in need, but then you got a voucher you could use for ikea. So it was this beautiful thing where it's like, don't put this furniture in the garbage when you're done with it. This is not disposable stuff. Let's be more, um, environmentally friendly and rather than you consuming today, why don't you give back today and we'll actually buy back from you.

[00:20:33] So that was a super smart campaign too. Again, of course, whatever is going to work for you to differentiate your brand. It completely depends on your brand. The one from Black Cards Against Humanity makes sense for Cards Against Humanity to do. Another really smart one that was on brand was r e i, which is an outdoor clothing, uh, brand.

[00:20:52] They closed all the stores on Black Friday. They said, don't spend money, go outside as the brand that sells outdoor clothing. Right. Their customers loved that, right? It was completely different. Than what other brands were doing. It deepened the bond. Right. That R ei buyers felt with that brand. They didn't make any money on Black Friday, but I g and frigging tea.

[00:21:13] You over what? The holidays coming off. They probably made even more that year. Mm-hmm. Than they had previously with the Rock Friday sales. So you've gotta do, like, you know, if you wanna be, you know, foreign, if you wanna stand out, you have to really do things that are distinctly unique, but they should also be in alignment with your values and your brand.

[00:21:31] That 

[00:21:31] Ramli John: makes sense. And I think you're probably right, like the more people would start buying, uh, that brands, um, product for the holidays especially, is probably a bigger sale for them potentially. 

[00:21:42] Katelyn Bourgoin: Spread a really important message, especially when we think about future me. Who do I wanna be in the future?

[00:21:47] Do I wanna be the kind of person that buys yet another huge like, you know, device or like something that I don't need so I can sit inside and scroll? Or do I wanna be the kind of person who goes outside and lose my life? So r e i is. in that message, even though it's so clever and it gets so much attention and press, it's also communicating very closely with telling people we are the brand for you.

[00:22:09] If this is who you wanna be, you wanna be the kind of person who goes outside with your family on Black Friday, not the kind of person who stands in line. Mm-hmm. Trying to get $20 off the tv. It seems 

[00:22:18] Ramli John: like this, uh, this, uh, Approaches. This FS all can work really well together. It's not like very distinct.

[00:22:25] It's new. Mm-hmm. . And which ties, you know, the last one is around faces. And I'm guessing, you know, when, when that company has some ads, they, they use faces and customer camp has a face that looks directly to the call to action, uh, for one of your pages. I feel like, yeah, going back to that, it does work well all together, 

[00:22:46] Katelyn Bourgoin: uh, is what I'm hearing.

[00:22:47] They all work well. Cause the faces one can be the one that grabs attention. So unsurprisingly, again, humans being a hurting species, we notice other faces. So if we're scrolling through social media, let's say you're on Twitter, you're gonna see all the little biopics in the top corner. But those are not huge.

[00:23:01] Right? But if you're scrolling through and you see that somebody's posted a picture, Like, you know, of their face and their, their face is making a funny expression. Like it, it captures your attention. And so what we're doing, whether we, you know, we usually don't consciously realize it, but we're looking for what I like to call friends, foes and fucks

[00:23:19] So we're looking for people who, you know, are friendly, people who we could trust, people who are already part of our tribe, or we'd like to have part of our tribe. We're looking for foes people. , uh, we need to watch out for potentially threats. Interesting. And we're looking for fucks, which is not possible.

[00:23:36] Meats. Right, right. And so we're doing this unconsciously all the time. And when you look at some really eye-catching ads, they often have. Faces most of the best thumbnails on YouTube videos. Right, right. Really funny faces like go to Mr. Beast's channel, Mr. Beast. Right. He will see his face making this ridiculous expression, right?

[00:23:57] With like, you know, a pile of money behind him where he just got buried alive or something. Right? But like, it's always his face, right? His face is just gonna catch you. And so when you're using faces, it's a thing that you can fall back on to kind of like catch that quick a. , but if you don't incorporate some of these other things we've been talking about, then you'll probably lose that attention really quickly.

[00:24:19] They'll be like, oh, that's an, oh, I'm not interested in that, and they'll just keep going. So you've got, you can't rely on just the face alone and you've gotta back it up with like something compelling as well, but the face can help you stop the scroll and get that attention. 

[00:24:31] Ramli John: I feel like what's also tied to that is around us trying to understand.

[00:24:35] What they're the emotion of that face or like going back to Mr. Beast, like when Mr. Beas has his mouth wide open and he looks shocked, like I used to said the word shock, but there's no word shock there. I'm just looking Okay. That he's shocked, like, oh, that person's sad. Or that person's like, we're trying to, even a young age, babies, so I'm guessing, are trying to figure out the emotion of their parents or people and I feel like that goes back.

[00:24:58] We're trying to understand, is that full time to attack me or trying to, to reach out a hand, or is that friend upset and how can I help? So that really, uh, it really taps into the YouTube tunnel that now that you think about it has a lot of faces and emotion to it. 

[00:25:13] Katelyn Bourgoin: Absolutely. If you go, one of the, uh, examples we give in this new program we're working on called UN Ignorable is.

[00:25:20] Um, Alex Hermo, who's written this great book called a hundred Billion Dollar Offers, he's, his style of marketing isn't necessarily for everybody. He's one of those kind of more, uh, traditional internet marketers. But, you know, he puts out really good content and he's certainly worth paying attention to.

[00:25:33] But if you go to his YouTube channel, he's got this video where, um, it's. It's him in the front looking, kind of nervous, looking over and behind him. The kind of thing he's looking at is this like woman in a bright red dress. And of course like that makes us think about another one of the F's, which is.

[00:25:50] Fun and well guess what's fun, pleasurable things like sex or food or whatever, right? Um, so you're kind of, your eyes caught there. And then the other side is a big pile of money and I can't remember what the title of the video it is. It's like, you know, you know, they could leave you broke if you're not careful.

[00:26:06] Now, of course your brain goes, is he gonna talk about how women are stealing your money? So like, you're curious and you wanna see, but when you go through, it's got nothing to do. With women stealing your money. It's just this attention grabbing like visual that makes you curious enough that you're like, I wanna watch that video.

[00:26:24] And then the first time seconds he reveals what the video is actually about and like, but it's this, it's just evident that the, you know, if it would've just been. He could have probably shared the same message in that video, and I'll have to remember what that specific video was about. But because he tapped into fears, right, leaving you broke, your loss aversion is a huge thing for people because he's showing his face and his face is looking scared and worried because he's showing this beautiful woman in a red dress that's capturing your attention.

[00:26:54] There's, on the other side, there's a big pile of money that's capturing your attention. It's like, Holy pza of attention grabbing stuff, , right? All connected. So you combine these things together and you really start to see how you can layer these techniques to create attention grabbing content. But again, it's not just about grabbing attention because if you don't deliver, if you don't create value, if you don't leave your audience feeling like they're better off because of it, you feel like.

[00:27:22] You know, there's nothing worse than clickbait. , where you go through to an article that you're excited about reading and had this really fascinating headline and you have to scroll through 19 ads, and it's a pointless article like that. We are all sick of that stuff, so there's lots of traditional ways to get attention, but if you don't, um, Actually leverage the attention and deliver, then you won't become what another one of the Fs is, which is familiar, right?

[00:27:47] Like we, we will, if a brand grabs our attention and it gives value back or a person, we eventually become to recognize that that is somebody of quality. We're gonna pause when we see their content, right? But if we see that somebody's consistently, or like, you know, a brand or a media company or whatever, it's consistently just writing these, um, There's clickbait headlines or using clickbait imagery and that they're not delivering.

[00:28:14] we're gonna know to scroll right by, right. Us feed was really, really good at capturing your attention, but a lot of people probably don't click on those articles anymore cause they know that they never actually fed them anything, anything nutritious, , it was just a bunch of junk 

[00:28:27] Ramli John: food. I wanna shift gears now and talk about career powerups, particularly for you.

[00:28:31] You've been in marketing for 12 years now. What's, what's helped you in your, your career progression? Uh, and, you know, what's, what's the power up you can share to people? That's really helped. , take your career, uh, forward and, and, mm-hmm. as you've move forward. 

[00:28:46] Katelyn Bourgoin: I would say that I got to have a very fortunate start in my career because I, um, you know, I was working in a marketing agency, so I got exposure to a lot of different types of businesses, which is really great.

[00:28:56] And then I ended up starting a marketing agency and got to be both a business owner and get exposure to a lot of different businesses. So I feel like that's kind of like a cheat code, because when you are. When you're running an agency, you get to see so many different types of business. You have to think about how to create different, like value propositions and how to build different brands.

[00:29:17] It forces you to be creative. And so I'd say that that was a bit of a cheat code. Um, That kind of like leveled me up for when I was going to do more of the work that I'm doing now. But the biggest thing, and it's uh, maybe a bit cliche, but the biggest lesson that I've learned in in my career as a marketer is just you really need to focus on understanding your buyers.

[00:29:40] and every marketer says that, but very few of us are actually doing the work , um, because it is work, right? It's like, you know, everybody can say, if you wanna lose weight, you need to die in exercise. But how much fun is that? Not very much , but you still need to do it right if you wanna lose weight. Um, and it's true for marketers too.

[00:29:58] We need to stay focused on our customers. We need to get close to the customer. And so one of the techniques that for. Has been the most game changing for really understanding the audience that I'm trying to sell to. And, um, crafting better marketing materials is just one-on-one interviews with buyers.

[00:30:13] It's been a huge unlock. Just, it gets you, you are able to learn about why they bought products and really understand their buyer's journey, and it just gives you insight into a part of the journey that's typically. , you know, in the dark. And from that, I think you can come up with way better and more empathetic marketing.

[00:30:32] So I'd say that that's been my biggest power up. It's just learning the technique. I was lucky enough to get to see, um, And learn from Bob Mata, one of the co-authors of Jobs to be done co-creators. And I, uh, and I've, I'm just grateful for, for that learning. 

[00:30:48] Ramli John: Nice. And I believe you have a worksheet, , trying to plug in your, fr with your product here you have this, uh, product here.

[00:30:55] Can you talk, um, It's on your site, customer Cap Co. I, I've used a really, really great way to help people get started, uh, and not just help people. Yeah, 

[00:31:05] Katelyn Bourgoin: so it's a clarity called cheat sheets and you know, it's not a video course, it's actually just a bunch of templates and scripts that you can use when you're starting to get started with interviews.

[00:31:15] But the goal is to help you feel comfortable leading our first interviews, be able to get people. to commit to an interview. That can be a little bit tricky. And then to be able to pull useful insights out of them so you can kind of structure those in a way that's really obviously actionable. So that is available on my website.

[00:31:30] It's a resource that I created cuz I wanted it to exist in the world, . I'm glad that other people find value in it too. One 

[00:31:37] Ramli John: last question before we wrap up is around what would you give, what advice would we want? One or two. Three, how ever many piece of advice you'd like to give to your younger self when you were just starting out in your career, what advice would you, would you share to the younger Caitlin 12 years ago?

[00:31:55] I 

[00:31:55] Katelyn Bourgoin: wish sweet, little young, Caitlin, so naive. I wish that she would've known sooner. That there are no marketing secrets or growth hacks. Like the, like things like if somebody, if something starts working and everyone's talking about it, it's not gonna keep working very long. Right? Like so you, there's ways you can kind of start doing things, jumping on trends and get some short-term growth.

[00:32:15] But really the long-term stuff is really just what understanding. Customers committing to investing and understanding why people buy, how they buy, how your customers buy specifically, and the more time that you spend exploring and being curious about customers, you're going to get more out of that. Than trying to hop on whatever the latest fad in marketing is.

[00:32:39] Marketers are exceptionally good at making you think that you're missing out on something awesome. . That's kind of our job. And so I just wish that she would've understood that because I think I spent a lot of time early in my career feeling like an imposter, right? Feel like a fraud thinking if all of these other folks are having such amaz amazing wins and they're doing this technique, you know, they're using funnels or they're doing this, or they're having like, You know, like downloads or whatever, like, you know, following all of these, um, you know, marketing gurus and thinking that I was following the techniques, but I wasn't getting the results and that I must be doing something wrong.

[00:33:16] And the reality is that oftentimes, It's, there's just no, there's just no shortcuts. It's exposure to a brand and trust that is built over and over and over again. And then when people are ready to buy, they buy and they buy from you because they know you and they like you, and they trust you. And that's a sucky.

[00:33:34] Reality for marketers to face because we want there to be this secret, right? We want there to be this, this like hidden reality that if we could just tap into it, it would be so much easier, but it's so often not that . I love this chat 

[00:33:48] Ramli John: with Caitlin about the five Fs, new Year's faces, foreign evils, and Peter, me all to help you grab your target buyer's attention to find out more about Keily and her work by subscribing to a.

[00:34:00] Why we buy our customer cap.co. And also follow her and find her on Twitter and LinkedIn. Find all of those on the show notes and description. Thanks to Caitlin for being on the show. If you enjoy this episode, you'd love the Marketing Powerups newsletter that I sent out each week. I share the actionable takeaways and break down the frameworks of world-class marketers.

[00:34:21] From each episode. You go to marketing power ups.com to subscribe, and you'll instantly unlock the five best marketing frameworks the top marketers use to hit their KPIs consistently and wow their colleagues. If you wanna say thank you, please like and follow marketing power ups on YouTube, apple Podcast, and Spotify.

[00:34:39] If you're feeling extra. Kindly leave a review on Apple Podcast and Spotify and leave a comment on YouTube. It goes a long way for others finding out about marketing polyps. Thank you to Mary. So for fading the artwork and design, thanks to 42 agency for sponsoring this episode. And of course, thank you for listening and tuning in.

[00:35:00] Well, that's all for now. This is your host family, John. Until the next episode, have a powered update. Bye 

[00:35:07] Katelyn Bourgoin: marketing Powerups until the next episode.