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- Personality in marketing for the win, trailblazing women in business & copy resource of the week
Personality in marketing for the win, trailblazing women in business & copy resource of the week
Kimberly Houston
January 28, 2024
Welcome to Issue #9 of The Subhead, a bi-weekly newsletter about copywriting, marketing & media, and a look at some of the women who make it great.
Here’s what’s on deck in today’s edition:
· Personality in Marketing for the Win
· Trailblazing women in business: Karissa Bodner
· Copy Resource of the Week: Every Copywriting Formula Ever (Yes, really!)
· Just for Fun
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Hello, hello!
I hope you’re enjoying winter, or summer, depending on which part of the world you live in.
I, for one, dislike cold weather. I don’t think I could survive winters where it’s actually cold – places like North Dakota, Minnesota, Maine, Michigan, etc.
I live in the South, where 45 degrees is considered too cold to go outside (at least for me). 😊
But enough about the weather. Let’s get to it!
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Personality in Marketing for the Win
If there’s one thing I love, it’s the use of personality in marketing.
I’ve been banging this drum loudly for years, on my blog, on LinkedIn, in my other email list, in conversations with other copywriters and marketers, and so on.
Adding authentic personality to your marketing, messaging, copy, and anywhere you come into contact with your audience, is a tried-and-true way to differentiate your brand, stand out in a sea of sameness, and stay top-of-mind to your ideal prospects and customers.
In this blog post, I share the story of how Bolthouse Farms used personality in a super creative way to position baby carrots to compete with cheetohs, potato chips and other junk food as a snack alternative.
Baby carrots, say what? How is that possible, you ask?
Read the post to find out. (It’s short, unlike a lot of my other blog posts.) 😊
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Trailblazing Women in Business: Karissa Bodnar
I recently read a New York Times profile of Karissa Bodnar, founder and chief executive of Thrive, a cosmetics company.
Having recently done a load of research into natural beauty brands to write website and email copy for a skincare brand, I was intrigued.
And since one of the main reasons I started this here newsletter project in the first place was to highlight the stories of successful women doing cool things in media, business, & marketing, etc. (especially in a world where it often seems the Elons and Zuckerbergs of the world get all the attention), I thought her story was worth sharing.
I encourage you to read the entire article at the gift link below, but here are a few excerpts I found fascinating (bolding mine):
Thrive is a direct-to-consumer brand, avoiding the distribution fees associated with selling through Sephora or department stores.
In 2013, Ms. Bodnar’s close friend, Kristy LeMond, who had been working in the nonprofit sector, died of soft tissue sarcoma, a rare cancer. Ms. Bodnar had a reckoning. She quit L’Oréal. She bought a bunch of makeup. She wrote a business plan in the notes app of her iPhone: vegan makeup with a business model that mimicked Toms and Warby Parker, the pioneers of the buy one, give one model.
She got a day job at Bulletproof, the supplement company, to finance her after-hours innovations, like false eyelashes that “work whether you have lashes or not,” Ms. Bodnar said. “So much of what I heard in the beginning was, ‘If a woman’s going through cancer, we tell her not to wear makeup.’ I was like, ‘That’s not an acceptable response.’”
…..
Ms. Bodnar said she has turned down offers to sell. What about an I.P.O.? “My goal is to donate a billion dollars,” she said. Thus far, she has donated $125 million, which a public offering would likely preclude.
Employee-generated content fuels Thrive’s social media feeds as well as ire. An April, Instagram post of a male employee applying concealer, eyebrow gel and pressed powder generated a slew of hateful comments and disavowals like, “If this is turning into a ‘woke’ company, I’ll stop buying.”
“People get very upset about the L.G.B.T.Q.-plus and reproductive rights stances we take,” Ms. Bodnar said. “I would have thought that those same people would care about our immigration support, but ….” She shrugged.
There are advantages to stoking discord.
Check out the full article here:
Karissa Bodnar played on her customers’ desire to belong to something bigger than … well, beauty.
By Sheila Yasmin Marikar
If you want to learn more about Bodnar and her company, check out the Thrive Causemetics website, learn more here about her background and some of the obstacles she faced, or listen to her interview on Simon Sinek’s Purpose Over Profit podcast here.
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Copy Resource of the Week
Need to write web copy? Or a sales page, landing page, About page, email, blog post, or testimonial? How about a value proposition, a bullet list of benefits, or a persuasive call-to-action that gets people to click?
This comprehensive blog post from the esteemed Copyhackers blog is 100% solid gold and well worth reading, because it contains ….
Now, for the non-copywriters, you may take one look at this blog post and think, “Oh no, I’m not reading all that.” And I get it.
But go ahead and squirrel this link away for the next time you need to write persuasive copy for the thing you’re eager to promote, sell or get traction on. I think you’ll be glad you did.
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Just for Fun
Plus, a classic Key & Peele sketch I watch on repeat anytime I need some laughs. Check out this 3-minute comedy break here:
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Okey doke, that’s all for this week, my friends.
I hope your New Year is off to a great start! ✨✨✨
Be well. Stay curious. See you again in two weeks, on February 11.
Warmly,
Kimberly
P.S. As always, feel free to reach out if you need copywriting support. I have space in my project schedule to take on 2-3 new clients this quarter.