541. What people want to read (w/ examples) 👀
The five categories of catchy content and how this applies to digital marketing
Hellooo 👋 So happy to have you here. I’m Kevan. I have spent 15+ years as a head of marketing for some cool tech startups. Now I’ve co-founded a brand storytelling business called Bonfire. We do coaching, advisory, and content. If you identify with creativity and marketing, we’d love for you to join us.
What people want to read
5 types of novel ideas & how to bring them into your digital content
Julian Shapiro, a startup founder and developer, has a deep library of amazing content on his website, and some of his best content is the content about content (very meta, I know).
In particular, one of his essays that I’ve bookmarked is What to Write About, part of his collection of content marketing advice.
His recipe for creating great content is both simple and reassuring (reassuring because it’s simple!). Step one: Find a great idea to write about. Step two: Find the most interesting direction to take that idea. Step three: Write a compelling introduction. When I’ve put this into practice myself, it seems like the hardest place to start is at the beginning with the great idea. Here’s Julian’s advice on finding good ideas:
People read nonfiction to learn and to feel. My framework for ensuring a blog post accomplishes both is to start with a first draft that focuses on "novel" ideas. A novel idea is one that's not just new to the reader, but also significant and not easily intuited. Think of it as new and worthwhile . I've identified five categories:
Counter-intuitive — "Oh, I never realized the world worked that way."
Counter-narrative — "Wow, that's not how I was told the world worked!"
Shock and awe — "That's crazy. I would have never believed it."
Elegant articulations — "Beautiful. I couldn't have said it better myself."
Make someone feel seen — "Yes! That's exactly how I feel!"
Content writing — and substack posting — gets a lot easier when I can hold all my good and bad ideas against these five categories.
With this framework in mind, I thought I’d put it to the test with substack content at large. I’ve looked through a wide swath of recent substack posts from other writers, and I’ve found some really great examples of content that I think fits each of these five categories.
Take a look and see what you think!
And hopefully this might provide some inspiration for your next piece of novel writing.
1 - Counter-intuitive content
“Oh, I never realized the world worked that way.”
The emerging startup playbook by
How to hire and manage people smarter than you by
2 - Counter-narrative
"Wow, that's not how I was told the world worked!"
What does slow AI look like? by
Why most public speaking advice is wrong by
3 - Shock and awe
"That's crazy. I would have never believed it."
How many ways can you say “we fired people”? by
4 - Elegant articulations
"Beautiful. I couldn't have said it better myself."
Your art should reflect your curiosity by
The four words that always work in marketing by
The how and whyyy of unhinged marketing by
5 - Make someone feel seen
"Yes! That's exactly how I feel!"
When you simply cannot “creative” today by
All day I dream about substack by
About this newsletter …
Hi, I’m Kevan, a marketing exec based in Boise, Idaho, who specializes in startup marketing and brand-building. I previously built brands at Oyster, Buffer, and Vox. Now I am cofounder at Bonfire, a brand storytelling company.
Each week on this substack, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world. Not yet subscribed? No worries. You can check out the archive, or sign up below:
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I’m lucky to count folks from great brands like these (and many more) as part of this newsletter community.
