Now Is Not the Time to Hide
Don’t despair.
Roger here. Writing this intro from the heart.
I wasn't sure whether to send our dispatch today (its scheduled release day). I'm a little shaken at the moment. Maybe you are too. And I doubted it was the right time to send out a monthly round up of lighthearted newsletter insight. In the face of cataclysmic events, Show & Tell's work seems very small indeed.
But we are communicators, and communication is very important now. This isn't the time to hide and shy away from being and living and doing. If we retreat, repression wins. So rather than take a step back, it's better to continue on and speak up and live our lives undaunted. Doing so isn't disrespectful to the people of Ukraine. It doesn't diminish the gravity of what is happening to them. But we must send a message to tyrants who want to suffocate us, and tell them we aren't bowed by their brutality.
So this dispatch has gone out to you, after all. A tiny measure of defiance.
In the coming months, we'll need to communicate and band together tightly. If we do our duty to ourselves, our children and to Ukraine, we'll have some difficult choices to make. Hard sanctions against tyranny will hurt all of us. We've all been through so much already in the past couple of years. So we must continue to communicate with each other and lock arms. And say to each other, "I'll stand by you."
Immovable Bicycle
(Work by others that steals our breath away)
The clever people: Rowdy (only click on this link if you want to lose yourself in a magical realm of stop-motion animation)
A short story about VanMoof: "We're a team of riders, designers, dreamers and doers, united by one goal: to help you get from A to B faster, smarter, happier, and in utmost style"
Your Final Warning Will Only Be Repeated Once
During February, I got a series of emails from the same sender. These were the subject lines:
11th February: "How to get our $497 Capital and Credit Course FREE"
12th February: "Free loans? Self-paying loans? Yup, take a look..."
14th February: "Expiring: Claim your free $497 "Capital and Credit" upgrade"
15th February: "[8 hours left] Going to skip this and just risk it?"
16th February: "REOPEN: Emergency meeting gives you 1 final chance"
The sender wanted me to buy COURSE A for a 51% discount and and get COURSE B (usually $497) for free. Neither course interested me, so I ignored the emails as they came in.
The first three subject lines are fine, aren't they? They basically say:
"Here's how to get a free course."
"This is what the course is about."
"The offer of a free course is about to end."
But the final two (on the 15th and 16th) are a bit mad, aren't they?
The subject line of the email from 15th February is downright hostile. It might as well read, "Are you some kind of idiot, or what? There are only 8 hours left and you still haven't bought COURSE A for 51% off and claimed COURSE B for free. Well, if your life ends up in financial tatters, don't come crying to us."
Then in the email of the 16th, I'm told there was an emergency meeting (by the Federal Reserve in the USA no less). As a result, I get one more chance to spend my money on COURSE A to get COURSE B for free. Why the Federal Reserve would get involved on my behalf, I have no idea.
I see this kind of email sequence a lot. Marketers send out increasingly alarming messages with a final cut off date, only to send you an email a few days after the deadline giving you one last chance to spend your money—usually because they've been allegedly been overwhelmed by people begging to be let in after the deadline.
Emails like this are a surefire way to lose credibility, aren't they?
We're on Your Side
As a business, one of the most powerful things you can say to your audience is, "We understand your situation and we're on your side."
Here are two ways you can do that:
1. Poke fun at the authority figures in their life
2. Highlight how marvellous your audience is
Here are two sets of memes we created in February to help a financial services client connect with crew on board superyachts.
First a bit of fun at the expense of the mega-wealthy superyacht owner:
And a couple to tell superyacht crew just how super they are:
Audio Dispatches
Anthony Day does a weekly environmental podcast that includes news, interviews and commentary. It's a terribly good example of what a newsletter in audio form sounds like. (He transcribes the podcast and publishes it as a blog page too, increasing the mileage of his content.) Recommended listening:
Shamelss S&T plug right here: Did you know we produce audio that can go in your newsletters? Here's one we produced for law firm RDJ:
New Work: Illustration
We had a secondary school student working with us for a week as part of her work experience requirement.
We asked her to come up with an idea for a Valentine's Day illustration for BiteSize Café Bakery. We pitched her idea to BiteSize, who approved it. She drew it and even managed to incorporate a photograph of one of BiteSize's actual products (carrot cake):
S&T's second unrepentant plug: we do illustrations and put them in your dispatches
Your next step...
Thank you for letting us into your inbox again this month. We're very grateful to you for the privilege.
If you have any feedback on this issue of the dispatch or any other comment, you can reach us here: hello@showandtell.ie. Your thoughts will be welcomed with open arms.
See you again at the end of March,
Roger, Anne & Paul