NEW: ⭐️ This is storytelling

Hey 👋

In his masterclass on screenwriting, the well-renowned Aaron Sorkin tells us that to become a great storyteller, you need to get good at identifying two things: intention and obstacle.

All a story is is a transformation — a change. If you study some of the greatest movies, you’ll notice that there is a character that wants to do something (intention) but something is in the way (obstacle).

And to make things even more complex, there’s usually something at stake if that obstacle is not overcome.

Storytelling: Intention + Obstacle (+ Stakes - what’s at stake? What will happen if the obstacle is not overcome?)

In most great movies, you’re able to pause the film at any time and identify what the main character is trying to accomplish and what the challenge is they have to overcome.

If you’re not able to do this during a story, you’ll most likely lose interest and stop watching.

The best producers know this. And they leverage this storytelling framework to keep people on the edge of their seat.

And the skill of storytelling goes beyond just making great movies. It also applies to things like marketing and how you communicate with others.

By detailing the intention (goal), obstacle (challenge), and stakes (what’s at risk), marketers can craft stories that captivate and motivate their audience. Let’s look at a couple examples.

Case studies

Take, for example, Webflow's case study with Attentive that’s designed to attract enterprise sales customers:

Intention: Attentive’s marketing team needed to ship faster and have more design flexibility.

Obstacle: Their current setup with a third-party WordPress agency took them weeks to ship new landing pages.

By outlining this narrative, Webflow demonstrates how its platform overcomes these challenges, directly speaking to the needs and frustrations of their target audience.

Landing pages

Another example comes from ONCE (a 37signals company), which aims to disrupt the modern software payment model.

Intention: To allow people to pay for software once, not on a recurring basis.

Obstacle: A prevailing market structure where capitalists favor high valuations that come from recurring revenue.

ONCE uses this narrative to differentiate itself and appeal to customers tired of subscription models, effectively setting the stakes: a more customer-friendly approach to software purchasing.

But case studies and landing pages are just the tip of the iceberg.

This storytelling approach can be woven into social media captions, emails, blog posts, YouTube videos, and almost any form of content.

By analyzing stories through the lens of intention, obstacle, and stakes, we can start to uncover the mechanics of what makes a story not just good, but great.

Remember, all great storytelling, whether in art or marketing, revolves around change. It’s not just about what happens, but about how what happens affects and transforms the characters involved.

With that, let's get into what we have in store this week (lots of good stuff):

• Marketing news from the past week

• GTM strategies that took ActiveCampaign to $250M ARR

• How to write better social media captions

• How to convert blog traffic

• The 4 W’s of product-led sales

• Ad from the past

• Website of the week

• Cool marketing jobs

• And much more

🗞 In the news

• Instagram’s testing longer reels to maximize engagement

• Why the latest TikTok ban attempt is different — and what it means for marketers

• Media buyers don’t want to pay extra for publishers’ first-party data

• X’s latest data shows its ad revenue share payouts are reducing over time

🚀 All things growth & product

ActiveCampaign’s GTM strategies to reach $250M ARR, the marketing playbook of the 1%, and a PMM’s guide to customer conversations.

✍️ Copywriting, ads, & emails

How to write better social media captions, how TV ads grow brands, 9 high-converting email subject lines, and how to personalize your email campaigns.

⚙️ SEO & content marketing

Types of sites being hit by the latest Google update, how Monday.com grows with content marketing, and how to convert blog traffic.

🧠 Branding & sales

What makes brilliant brand guidelines, how to use the trigger technique, and the four W’s of product-led sales.

🦖 Interesting stuff

📣 Ad from the past

💻 Website of the week

🏝 Cool marketing jobs

• Growth Email Marketer @ beehiiv

• Social Media Manager @ EarnIn

• Founding Marketer @ Copilot

• SEO Lead @ Outschool

• Director of Community @ Contentful

Okay, that's it for now 💛. See you next Tuesday!

“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it.” — Daniel Kahneman

Riddle answer: The number 8