Two marketing things have been rattling around in my head this week. I started writing them up as separate emails — then realized they're the same idea wearing two different outfits. So you're getting both, and then the part where they click together. 🤠🫡
One: yapping
There's a trend going around right now called yapping. The premise: you talk to your camera like you're FaceTiming your old college roommate, do basically no editing, and post it. That's the whole thing.
Here's what nobody's saying out loud: there is nothing new about this. Talking to a camera has been a format for years. YouTube, Instagram Stories, Private podcasts, public podcasts, broadcast channels, voice notes — they all trend for the same reason. Talking creates connection. Connection creates trust. And trust is the thing every sale has ever been built on, no matter the format.
What's actually new is the name. "Yapping" handed a very old behavior a cute, low-pressure permission slip — and the permission is the part that's working. When you stop performing and just talk, people feel like they're being let in.
You've seen it work. The unedited "let me tell you about my week" video — filmed in the car, zero b-roll, posted as-is — quietly outperforming the polished tutorial someone spent two hours outlining and recording. The mess is the whole appeal. It feels like a friend turned the camera on, not a brand turning it on you. That intimacy is the entire point.
Which brings me to the only rule that's ever mattered: when you make the right person feel seen, heard, and understood, you've done good marketing. The how is negotiable — blog, postcard, Reel, yap. The feeling is not.
Two: identity hooks
Same move, different angle. I've been studying hooks lately, and the best ones are getting specific about who they're for. Not "small business owners." Not "busy women." I mean: eldest daughter. Primary parent. Type A. Enneagram 3. Millennial mom. Mani Gen.
Case in point: Sunday, at Penn Station catching my train from a Goose show in NYC, I got served an ad for something called "The Wealthy Wook Challenge." If you don't know what a wook is, congratulations — it wasn't for you. But for the festival kids who'd love to stop being broke? That one word did what a full paragraph of demographics couldn't. It didn't describe them. It claimed them.
