The Most Overlooked Marketing Channel With Maureen Norman

Speaker A: Foreign. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Over a Pint. I'm your host, Pat McGovern, and with me today is the amazing Maureen Norman. That name sounds at all familiar. It should. But, Maureen, do you remember, you were on the show already. Do you remember what number that was?

Speaker B: I don't actually.

Speaker A: Number 65. You're going to be episode 190. So it has been a minute. Yeah, yeah. When I looked at that, too, I'm like, it was that long ago. Damn. Yeah. Uh, Maureen is the president and founder of Stake Media Group. It is a very cool newsletter. We're going to be spending some time talking about newsletters today. Maureen, it's always good to see you. Welcome back to the podcast.

Speaker B: Thank you. Super happy to be here and can't wait to talk all about what's happened since 65. From 65 to 190.

Speaker A: Yeah, let's get into that. Maureen, do me in the people who are listening a favor. Give us a quick background on the Maureen Norman story.

Speaker B: Right, sure. Yeah. Love to. I have been in advertising and media my whole career. I started as a copywriter at J. Walter Thompson. Actually, that's a lie. I started in the traffic and talent department and nudged my way into creative and started my real life as a copywriter and quickly learned that I love the business. So I, I, I bounced around from a lot of shops, uh, big shops, Leo Ogilvy, Cossette here in Canada, a few, uh, bigger shops with. Which is great because you're exposed to big brands. And as I wove my way through my career, dabbled in biz dev, dabbled in strategy, landed in content and loved everything digital and loved everything data. Kind of worked my way into, um, brands making content and real content. And this is probably 10 years before the real sort of thrust in streaming and YouTube and free stuff. So I spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out how to get brands onto real cable and linear television, making content paid for by them. And that was super exciting. And then that, uh, led me into exploring more data stuff. I, uh, worked with a really big media company here in Canada. Uh, vertically integrated, all kinds of touchpoints. And that really got me looking at media in a way that I had never seen it in my whole career, you know, decades, not really understanding who writes the checks. The people buying media write way bigger checks than the people paying for creative at certainly, at least at that time anyway.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And from that, when I left that, uh, media organization, I decided I would focus on a great big opportunity sitting out There, which was, why does everything end at 54? The age of 54. 25 to 54. What, what's happening after that? We didn't disappear, so what the heck? And that, uh, led me to launching Stake Media Group. And that was 2017.

Speaker A: 2017. Oh, wow. Unbelievable. So you've been in the newsletter business since 2017, right?

Speaker B: I actually started in the podcast space. The newsletter didn't come till 2021.

Speaker A: 2021. Okay, so about five years. Ish. I was right then. All right. When I was in my notes, um, Maureen, newsletters have exploded, right? I mean, it is a big. It's a big thing. Substack here is like a big thing, right. It's kind of in some ways where podcasts were a few years ago. Right. Everybody was kind of now every doing a podcast. Now everybody's doing a substack and probably both. You've been in the space, you're intimately involved in it. Give us the 3,000 foot view what's going on with the newsletter space right now, as you see it.

Speaker B: Sure, I'm happy to. It is a mess in the best possible way because it's coming to that point of maturity where we saw that with podcasts. So I mentioned I started in 2017. Stake did a podcast to begin with. At that time there were 750,000 podcasts, which seemed insurmountable to be able to gain traction. Now there's multi millions, right? Just multi millions. And so what happened in the long tail of that evolution is happening now in newsletters where the tool has become more of a. Is it a strategic advantage? Is it an e comm thing? Is it relationship, uh, building? Is it my own personal brand? So now you see this sort of, um, spreading of what is a newsletter and hence all of the activity on Substack, for example, at the same time, the degradation of traditional journalism and you know, various tools and platforms attract different kinds of creators. But anybody who's creating anything is considering a newsletter right now. The issue with that is why are you doing it? You know, not the issue, but the question is why are you doing it? Are you doing it to make money? Are you doing it to grow your audience? Are you doing it to establish subject matter expertise? Are you doing it just for fun? And sometimes those take off and they're huge. So there's. It's myriad opportunity. But what has really clouded the picture is specifically AI, but prior to AI, the aggressive managing of the inbox by all of the big, uh, email clients, you know, the Googles of the world, The Apple mails of the world and then on top of that, the email service providers, those platforms layering in their level of how are we going to safeguard the inbox? How are we going to keep readers safe? How are we going to still get mail out? Because people are paying to be out there. It's pretty convoluted. So if you don't understand what your mission is while you're doing it, you probably will get lost or buried in the inbox. It's, it's coming and it's coming quickly.

Speaker A: Maureen, do again, do us a favor and just kind of give us an update or just not, not an update so much as a. Just an overview of your newsletter, would you please? Because I think it's pretty special. So talk a little bit about that.

Speaker B: Well, thank you. And I take that to heart because we hear all kinds of wonderful stuff, I can honestly tell you. So our newsletter is called Stake youe Day. And it's really about, um, the next wave of retirees. It's nostalgia news and info you can use. And our vision for it is you might be out of the rat race, but you don't want to be out of the loop. But at the same time, you don't want to be immersed in news because news can be pretty challenging psychologically these days for sure. So we keep it short. It's a five to seven minute read. It's a little bit of daily news. It's never going to be breaking news. So we publish, you know, the day of, from the yesterday's news, and then it's tidbits you can use every day. We play trivia. It's beloved, our trivia. And it's a gentle little read for people who don't want to be out of touch and want to be sharing experiences with people their age. So initially we, our, our guardrails were born in the 60s and that allowed us to grow a pretty sizable audience because I felt there was a difference between people who were earlier boomers and later boomers, Gen X, all of those markers that we use. And we've shifted a little bit to simply 55 plus. Because what's happened in the five years since I've been publishing this beautiful little thing is there's now a whole second wave of people coming in who might have been at the later end of my audience but now are, uh, are now fully staring down the face of retirement or what am I going to do next? Because there's been a lot of layoffs. So people are kind of a little bit adrift and it's a great place to build that community and share and that's a unifying factor in our community. When you mentioned you think it's pretty special. We hear that a lot. Only, only really twice did I have an email where I thought, why am I going on? You know, somebody said something really yucky. But, but, but uh, overwhelmingly, by and large we get positive, unsolicited feedback. And if, if we miss something or, you know, we didn't publish on Good Friday, we heard from a number of people, oh, it was the newsletter. And that's a really great signal, especially thinking about the things I mentioned earlier about the interventions in the inbox. You know, you can't rely on open rate anymore, you can't rely on click rate, but you can rely on an email from a real person saying, hey, where's my newsletter today?

Speaker A: Right? Oh, that's uh, very nice. That's very nice. So Marie, you started off in Canada first and then have ran that for 2 ish years before moving into, launching into the states. So you've been doing in the States now for a couple years. I'm really curious as to what are the differences that you see in the audiences.

Speaker B: I love this question because as I mentioned, um, we uh, put our foot forward with how can we attract people who are feeling the same life change at the same stage. We're just going to talk to people. Let's start with trying to interest people born in the 60s. Our, uh, creative that grew, our audience in Canada was exactly beat for beat, the same as in the US and it worked exactly as well. So people responded to the kind of messages we put out about. It was nostalgia based. Maybe it was, you know, one of our best ads ever was did you watch the Flintstones at lunch? You know, come and join us. Because that was this great universal experience. Whether you were in Pittsburgh or Vancouver or uh, you know, um, North Dakota. Like it was just a thing for kids. This era of kids coming home for lunch when there was reruns on tv. So it allowed us to grow that community. Then as we published and we observed engagement and you know, how people were receiving the content and enjoying the content. It was so interesting to see the opening. The days of the week that the highest opens are wildly different. So uh, some of our American readers prefer later in the week. They might just glance early in the week, but later in the week they're reading full on, um, the content itself. They engage differently. They are really, really interested in the trivia. They're interested in our weekly Polls, um, but they're not going to click on a source article in there almost rarely, which tells me we're doing a good enough job giving them everything they need in the, in the digest version of that story. Um, then within the polls themselves, uh, quite shocking. Some weeks I have to run two different results, uh, in each issue because they're like polar opposites. So, for example, I think it was two weeks ago our weekly poll asked about, do you have a financial advisor? And the Canadian audience, 60% said yes. And in the American audience, 60% said no, they did not have a financial advisor. Really interesting when you think about what this cohort is facing and how financial changes are coming at them. Um, so I really was curious about that because there's certainly an onslaught of information in the financial industry categories, right? You see so many different overtures around, um, annuities, huge category spending large, um, reverse mortgages, um, equity release, all of these financial products that there's a massive market there that's not getting advice on these very topics. So it was super interesting to me that those. So, so the general reader findings are interesting that they're different between the two countries. And then with respect to the commercial activities, also different. I should also say our American readers, um, will very happily click on sponsor messages and ads when there's an offer, an offer based. If it's just a general sort of brand thing, very little engagement. But if there's a tangible offer where they can avail themselves of something that's more motivational.

Speaker A: You know, Maureen, uh, you and I have talked about this before, and one of the, One of the things that really appealed to me when I first reached out and we first got to know one another was I thought you were incredibly smart at looking at the market and saying there's a huge opportunity here. It's this group that for m. The most part, a lot of people aren't paying attention to, other than the life insurance, medical, uh, type of thing. You really went after this. Now that you've been publishing for a while, how has that impacted you? Are people coming around and going, are you finding it easier to bring in advertising in general? Just talk a little about that.

Speaker B: This is such an interesting question for me. I have a lot of time now spent on this very challenge. I'm sorry to say I don't know how much the needle has moved and that's puzzled me. But also I found it intriguing and it's led me to really be more, um, investigative in my approach as to what is going on here. So you Cannot, you can't debate the numbers. 12,000 people in North America turning 65 every single day for the next several years. That is a lot of people piling up, waiting to be spoken to, served, you know, marketed to or provided with services and products they need. This is just fascinating to me just as a person who's interested in, you know, interesting data.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And I think what's, what's convoluting the picture though is so many factors. First of all, the economy today isn't what it was five years ago, despite this growing wave of opportunity. But that's, the opportunity is even more um, rich, uh, now because of the implications of the economy. So it's this circuitous challenge we're finding ourselves in where there's more people who are not being marketed to directly or broadly. More broadly, but now they're facing even greater pressures. Uh, but as you said, outside of those typical categories then you have people who are rolling into this era of their life pretty well situated financially. So on the upside, the more positive things, travel, luxury travel, taking intergenerational and multi gen travel, hugely huge. It's sitting right there. So I think what I, what I, what I've deduced to this point is that it's super convoluted. Inertia is always a better path, least resistance. And there's so many forces on people, but also on marketers and brands that to start now, it's, it isn't going to happen. There's, there's, there's too many forces on the industry, personnel, resources. The industry itself is feeling the pressure of AI. How would they even begin to shift to uh, avail themselves of this huge opportunity? I think they're more inclined to dabble. And dabble is okay because we'll see some traction and provided it's um, informed. One of the things I've learned is this idea around we want to be seen as our age. This might be controversial Pat, but it's kind of not playing out. And I've been following it for a long time. It's kind of not playing out. And I think there's some research that says there are other uh, um, factors that are more meaningful to consumers. I think it was Amazon last year did Amazon Science did a really exhaustive look at generational divides and found people are more interested in marketing that recognizes their values, their, their community. Um, and the things I need. My age maybe came in fourth on the list. So there's a lot of conflict here. It's too hard to see the picture.

Speaker A: Okay, so let Me make sure I'm understanding this. So you're saying people don't identify necessarily by an age, but rather by a series of values that may be shifting over time and, or um, uh, services and, or needs that they require that may not be aged related. Am I hearing you correctly?

Speaker B: Yes. And if you think about it, so it's the difference between, you know, what do I need in my life and who am I? Right. So the what do I need would, would certainly be um, informed by what are my values, you know, where do I live, you know, where's my community, how I need them might be modified or modulated by my age. So my 3,000 foot perspective is start with the need, um, in terms of your creative, but in terms of your strategy, start with the brand's values. Does it align with that consumer? Where is the brand servicing and located? Does it align with the community? Can we get there? Um, does it reflect, um, an actual want or need? So I think we're kind of getting closer to figuring out the puzzle. But this, this idea that. And listen, it's an awakening for me too because this is where I put my, you know, faith in the concept of like, okay, there's this huge, not so niche, massive opportunity. Not niche at all. But at the same time, Pat, as we get older, study after study indicates that we actually care less about what people think about us.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You know, we get into who we are and who we've become. And so it's puzzling to me that we have people saying, oh, that, that advertising isn't, uh, me, I don't like it when at the same time we have research that says, um, you know, I'm not really particularly concerned about what other people think of me. So there's this tension there and it's certainly interesting and it doesn't overshadow the fact that there's a huge opportunity. It's just figuring out the opportunity that continues to be the challenge.

Speaker A: Okay, let's just poke on this a little bit more. Maureen. This is super interesting. So what do you think? Give me your thesis then. What do you think the opportunity is?

Speaker B: I think the opportunity is um, one of um, to be able to define it. Right. So apart from the fact that we haven't figured out yet is this next wave of people that are redefining later living. It's all brand new and there for the shaping, I think more engagement, more talking to people this age, getting honest and authentic, um, input. It's very easy to show and I've done it. I've Hosted events where we've presented creative to people in our community, we've done focus groups. It's very easy to solicit an answer that's, oh, I don't see myself in that when you don't see yourself in that. But perhaps that's the wrong question. So I think my thesis is we need to unite uh, as a, as an industry if we're going to avail ourselves of this opportunity. And by the way, it will be the opportunity in short order as we see declining birth rates and less immigration. You know, this will be the market of most, the most substantial market. So I think there's a real opportunity as an industry to put some time and effort into how are we going to figure this out and how are we going to make money from it? You know, it is a business after all.

Speaker A: For sure. For sure. Maureen, you are um, you're very close to the space and you've got a product that caters to this group, um, in a very deliberate, um, way. Uh, I know there's a lot of competition in newsletters in general. I'm not so sure about newsletters that compete with you. But talk about the competitive set that you're seeing that's out there. Are you still first to the, to the high ground? How, how, how busy is this, is this lane getting tough? Just love to get your take on this.

Speaker B: It's another great question. So the lane has gotten busy in terms of competitors that are really affiliate feeding content machines. So their content is really um, provided by or um, backed by particular brands. Um, you know, the Go Bankings of the world, the money.com of the world, a lot of affiliate driven marketing content.

Speaker A: So in just so, so, so just so I'm clear in, in for people who are listening, so there's a brand that is uh, sending out a newsletter that may be, I don't know, whatever, you know, a financial, something regarding finance that really is, it's there to educate but it, it's really the purpose is to get you to click to sell services. Is that, do I have that right? Okay.

Speaker B: Correct. Absolutely. And then additionally there are um,

Speaker A: uh,

Speaker B: consumer facing plays that actually are wrapping in several of those affiliate offers inside their content framework. So it might be, you know, let's make up a name, retirement retirementisgreat.com or retirement as great as the newsletter. But inside that newsletter there might be eight pieces of content. Content seven of which are going to take you to an affiliate partner's website. So it, but to the untrained eye and to the consumer they may or may not know and quite frankly may or may not care if the information is important.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: That's not us. That's not us. So in terms of that lens, not a lot of competition. And in fact, even if you think of the biggest guy in the market, and that's aarp, their dailies, their newsletters, um, they really just channel you back or send you back to their own content. Right. We're trying to give people a bigger worldview and a broader experience. And so that's not our model at all. So there's some of both of those out there and there are people doing substacks, um, that are great around retirement in particular. We use that as our frame of reference, but we really don't. We're not about retirement. We're just for people of a certain age. And what are you, what's happening in your life right now? The most important thing to you right now might be pickleball. It might be, uh, the Masters, it might be, uh, you know, Paul McCartney's last show. Um, it's really about. Centered around focus. Focus and centered on content. That's about where. What's going on in your life right now, not retirement per se. So yeah, I would say we're pretty in the clear, but we're still tiny. You know, there's 48 million of us in North America that are born between, you know, born in the 60s, uh, you know, we're a hundred thousand. So, you know, we're, we're a drop in the ocean really.

Speaker A: Right. And Maureen, in terms of expanding that base, what has been the, what has been the best channel or channels for you? Is it word of mouth? Just people passing that over. Has it been, you know, um, successful, let's say social media campaigns, um, something else? All the above. What give a little bit of breakdown.

Speaker B: Let me ask you, can you guess? It's, it's, it's. I'm gonna guess one channel's been incredibly successful for us.

Speaker A: I'm gonna guess word of mouth and people just passing that along. That would be my guess. So I'm more, if I'm right, I'm more curious than is, is there a close second or it's like. No, there's nothing even close to that.

Speaker B: Sure. So for organic, 100% word of mouth, a lot of referrals. We ran a proper, ah, referral program for a while where, you know, sign up three friends, we'll send you a mug or something. Um, but also we get a. We stopped doing that because we were actually getting Just as many referrals of people just passing along their coffee and people signing up outside of wanting to get a reward. So that's for organic. That's our biggest. But for paid growth, it is by far Facebook. Uh, Instagram would be second there. But by far Facebook. Both our organic posting and our paid program, wildly successful.

Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. And I can want to just emphasize this again. The newsletter is. It's. It's really good for a couple of reasons. It's. There is a bit of nostalgia and trivia that goes into that. Very fun. Very. Just like. It's like. It's like a piece of candy. It's like just. It tastes good and it hits. Then you've got articles in there. And Maureen, you and team do a great job of keeping the news. I, um, would say, because I've been reading it for a while, uh, very, very neutral. I mean, you're. This is not. If you are into politics, and I know everybody is. If you're looking for that, do not come to this, because this isn't it.

Speaker B: This is more of a high praise. Thank you. That's exactly.

Speaker A: This is more of a. Just. Hey, that's an interesting thing. Oh, hey, that's interesting. Like, I could talk to people about what I just read, right? Without. And other people would go, oh, that is interesting. And where'd you see that at? Or Right. It's not like, uh, hey, let me piss you off, Maureen. What about. I'm about to. So I just want to get that across to people because I think that in today's day and age, where it's not an easy task, I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it at that. Cool.

Speaker B: Thank you. And I really, really appreciate that. And I, I'll share an anecdote with you. It has happened too many times to count now, where I have been at, uh, a gathering, an event, a dinner party. So places, you know, groups larger and smaller, where I hear people talking about things we've shared in the newsletter and it's so. They've so internalized it and it's so, uh, appropriate for that group of people who are all there because they're sharing the same time and space and place in life. They're sharing it. And this is the best reaction for me that people don't even realize. And every once in a while they'll look to me and say, did I read that? And stake your day? And I'll just kind of sheepishly acknowledge. But it fills me with joy. And the team just gets such a thrill out of it when we find out people are not just reading, um, you know, they're retaining and wanting to share because that's how valuable it is. We're doing that work for people and getting rid of all the noise, you know, getting rid of the political, getting rid of the opinion. Just bringing them stuff that might brighten your day, might inform your day, might help you make some better decisions, you know, or, uh, help you plan for better decisions. And that's so gratifying. It's so incredibly gratifying. It's what keeps us going.

Speaker A: Um, for those who want to know more about how Maureen and team pull together the newsletter, I'd say go back to episode 65. She goes into a lot more detail about that. But, um, Maureen, I want to kind of pivot over to your, how your, your next step with Stake Media and where you're thinking of going. But before I do, I do want to get, just for the sake, uh, talk about your team. How big of a team is responsible for pulling this together on a daily, again, daily basis. Every day except Saturday and Sunday. Five days a week. Yes. Okay.

Speaker B: Yes, five days a week. Uh, 1200 issues now. 20 million plus emails sent. These numbers are really, uh, exciting to see. Some of the, you know, if you're going to lean into vanity metrics, but that's legitimate performance. 1200 issues and our team is still super tight. We're five and we are, uh, we just brought on someone to help with process and planning for the next moves that we're making in the business. And we're probably going to bring somebody on to do production and that will also support what we're doing next in the business. But we're keeping it pretty tight since we last talked, you know, it was a pretty manual exercise to Manual aided by, you know, technology. But now AI helps information gathering. We are 100% human written and I, we always will be. And you take a bit of a backlash from other people now who are newer to the newsletter space who think that it's uh, a bit of a fool's errand. But for us it's a differentiator and it's proven for me. So we see no reason to replace humans writing for us. But we do use, um, for information gathering for sure. We do. It's a little easier to um, curate our sources and make sure there isn't anything we're missing.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course. Um, and I'm just curious, Maureen, I can't remember, but how far. Obviously it's a daily. So you're responding on a, on a fairly up to date bias. But how far in advance are you, Are you kind of working? So is it a month out? Is it, is it, or is it real close in? I can't talk about that. Would you.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Our, our, our, our, um, things like our daily polls and, or, sorry, our weekly polls and the trivia. We can plan for those weeks in advance and we're usually about two weeks ahead.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: We also if, uh, you know, one of the things I love most about the newsletter is the opener, which is always a taste, like you said, candy. It's a hit of nostalgia, which is um, probably also written at most two weeks ahead. But we like to keep it fairly current, whatever the source article is we're tying nostalgia to. So that's at most a two week, uh, roll. Um, the newsletter is pretty much a day ahead. Um, if we find content that we can put into the next week, we will, but that's about as evergreen as we get. So we are working on a deadline every day for the next day's issue.

Speaker A: Not that producing a daily newsletter isn't enough, but let's pivot a little bit and talk about where Steak Media is going next. Talk about what you're cooking up, what

Speaker B: I'm cooking, and why I think I need to cook some more. Here's the reality. It's a tough business to be in and I'm very proud of our 100,000 subscribers. But at the same time that allows us to have conversations with advertisers who are looking for no waste and who want a real proven product. But there is a lot of movement in the industry now, particularly in the last couple of years with a lot of ad networks now really just bottom of the waterfall looking for impressions. And it's a scale game. And I took a step back and thought, well, I can go one of two ways. I can aggressively scale and I'm still probably not going to get to where I need to to be able to compete with bigger publications with bigger audiences that actually happen to have a big swath of readers, 55 plus. Not that they're marketing, uh, their publications that way, but if I'm a media buyer, I'm looking for those audiences. I'm not looking more for titles. Right. So I decided the other way I could grow my business is to look at what I've learned. So in model A, uh, we both know if you're, if something's free, there's the reader or the users the product. But in model B, I thought what if I apply everything I've learned from this wonderful experience with these readers and sell that knowledge instead of the product itself? And that led me to launch a newsletter studio, helping brands with their inbox relationships. Especially now with all of this technology inserting itself into that relationship, uh, it's hard to keep up. So I'm happy to make that knowledge and expertise available in two ways. One, we know how to run a newsletter. We can do that pretty capably for you. If you're any kind of person who wants to have a relationship, think of brands that have a long life or a sales cycle. Long sales cycle. You can't be just sending a promotional marketing message. There's an advantage to establishing a relationship, and you can do that through content, through the inbox, gaining trust, gaining authority, and building a relationship with the prospect. So that's, that's version one. Version two is if you have the same audience as us and you would like to build the relationship with them, then let's talk about white labeling our content because, as I mentioned, we're a drop in the ocean. The reality of, you know, is there a likelihood that my reader will end up getting the same content from an estate planner? Uh, Will's an estate planner in Idaho who's got 800 clients. Very unlikely. So I'm comfortable doing that and confident that we can get our content out to more people who need to see it and who would value it, making it available as a licensed white label version. So two offerings there are actual content and our expertise producing a, uh, newsletter.

Speaker A: Let's stick with option one for the moment. This is super interesting because again, we started off talking about podcasts and you got into that business and it was individuals mostly a interview type of format or somebody going deep on a specific topic.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Going kind of riffing. Increasingly, brands are getting into that as a, as a delivery system about getting their messaging out as well. Is this something, Maureen? Then you're seeing a similar pattern with newsletters. Are brands. Where are brands at? Are they interested in this or is it still, Are they coming around? Or how would you describe the, uh, their reception to a newsletter idea?

Speaker B: It's been wildly exciting how, um, brands have received it. And it's early days, you know, we officially launched March 6, but I've been having conversations since late last fall. And in particular, anyone who has a long sales cycle is interested because if they're relying on SEO for lead gen. Bye bye. You know, there's so many forces on the model. If you're trying to generate leads and how do you go about it? So there's certainly something interesting in. Well, if I show up every week and it needs to be weekly because if you're monthly, you're going to get buried. The AI sees that you only showed up once a month. Imagine I send you something once a month and my reader doesn't read it. Then it's two months before I'm engaging with them again. I think that's an eternity. So in an inbox that isn't chronological and it's interest based, you really don't show up. So how can we help? You have an open channel of communication. So that is interesting to brands. I think I'm going to really benefit from all of the pressure on SEO. And I understand there's a lot of people trying to figure out, I think it's, what is it Geo, you know, generative. So yeah, there are certainly people and experts taking that on, but it's still early days. But the inbox is proven and if you can work with somebody who understands how to get around the hurdles or how to mitigate those challenges now, then it's a really proven channel. Now I will say for some audiences, I don't know about your kids, but my kids email isn't their first place to go. So if Your prospect is 35 and under, it's a different calculus, but, but if it's interesting enough. So we're pitching a client who's in the food services business. Mostly, uh, equipment, but restaurant supply. Wow. Young people are all about food. Younger people, and it's an interesting way to help them. Not, you know, currently they're sending and emarketing email, hammering people, you know, four or five times a week with the latest thing on offer. And we said, hey, maybe you want to talk about the food scene and maybe you just want to be top of mind instead of hammering people on what's, uh, what, what inventory you're trying to clear out this week. Why don't we talk to people about who's the up and coming chef in this, you know, neighborhood or what's the hottest new place. And that's really interesting to them.

Speaker A: So this is very interesting, your conversations, Maureen. It seems like, um, the natural tendency is to hammer people about the product and not tell compelling stories. Are you running into that? Is that, do you, do you have much of that, Is it easy, easy relatively speaking, to kind of change their headset around that, that topic?

Speaker B: The, the answer to that question is how much stress is that person's business under? If it's under Stress from SEO. They're a willing listener if it's under stress from competitors. So for example, last week we pitched 50, uh, five plus community retirement community. Beautiful. You know, it's, it's higher end. So it's, they know who their audience is and who their prospects are. But now they've got somebody opening a new building, a competitor about three blocks away. So how are they going to differentiate themselves? They're both beautiful spots. They both have a, you know, they both know who their prospect will be. But how do you say, uh, we're different here. So our pitch to them has been really about letting people understand that, you know, this community, you've been in the neighborhood 18 years, you understand how the communities change. You know, where people go for help and advice and really lean into that community knowledge and that, um, sense of familiarity. The other guy's new. He's, he's the new. He just moved into the neighborhood. You know, stuff he doesn't know. So why don't you demonstrate that? And that's been interesting to them. On the flip side of that is we said, look, we can spin up the same newsletter for you that also serves residents who are currently living there, and maybe you have an opportunity to generate some revenue. You've got all kinds of, uh, partner services and people in the neighborhood who want to be the go to. Let's help you generate some revenue. But also let's put some ads in your newsletter. And that's also interesting to them.

Speaker A: So are you. What's your, what's the scope of your services, Maureen? What's up?

Speaker B: We can be as simple, uh, as literally take all of ours, our content, strip out the news, because that's, you know, uh, of value or not. If you're just marketing in a community or a smaller neighborhood and take it, we can either run it for you, start to finish, completely turnkey, or we can hand it over to you as an HTML file and let your team share it to your list. We will do both. We will run your list for you, or we will just give you the content. Secondary to that is if you want to start exploring Revgen, we'll help you with your ad game. You know, we, we won't sell for you. We're not in the business of selling for other people, but we will do production for you. You know, we will give us the ad, we'll make sure it's in the newsletter, we'll monitor performance, we will send you the report after it's run. And, um, you know, we'll take that Hard part of the job, off your hands.

Speaker A: Interesting. Maureen, the thing I admire about you, and this is when we connected many, many moons ago now, is you just don't seem happy just sitting back, in fact, just listening to you. I mean, you're speeding things up. So I'm always curious about you with this. Like, what's driving you? Like, you've done a lot of stuff already. Like, if you said tomorrow, hey, you know what? I had a good run in the biz space. I'm done. See ya. Uh, I'm gonna start traveling. I don't think any. There's anybody who would go, oh, wow, I thought you would do a lot more. You've done a ton. What's. What's the driver for you?

Speaker B: Wow. Nobody's ever asked me that before. Uh, I think I'll know when I know. And for now, I'm just. I've always been a geek about our business and our industry. I'll admit it. You know, I. From very early days, I just was in love with the business and thought it was an interesting way to be creative. I'm not. I'm not a gifted artist. You know, I can't draw, I can't paint, I can't play an instrument. Although it's on my list to learn. But at this point, it's still the thing I love learning about. So it's not. It's not so much do I need to keep working? It's that I. I'm enjoying learning. And this is the thing I enjoy most learning about. So it's never stopped intriguing me. It keeps changing. It, It's. It's, you know, it's a social science. So it's about people. And I am an Aquarius. What can I tell you,

Speaker A: Maureen? Last question for you. What has been. Now that you've been doing this, what have been some of your biggest surprises, both good and bad? Uh,

Speaker B: I think I'm surprised by how quickly nature abhors a vacuum. So when there's an opportunity there and it's. We see things like the morning brew being acquired, um, the hustle. And so this vacuum appeared and it was opportunity. And so, so many people have poured into the space. That's disappointing to me because it's just about opportunity. It's opportunity driven. Not, uh, not result driven or deliverable. Deliverable driven, if that makes sense. So serving a purpose as opposed to chasing an opportunity. And it's made it hard for people whose intentions were otherwise to see the kind of traction they. They may have wanted to see, myself included. But a little less so because I'm pretty focused on, on my people. So that's been a. I wouldn't say a disappointment, but it's been eye opening for me, you know, and then you get stuck in these echo chambers of air quotes. Gurus. And pretty soon the gurus are the information and what they're saying is defining something. And it's really troubling how quickly it happens. And you start to see things like people you follow are following other people on LinkedIn. Everybody's requesting everybody else's content and they're espousing everybody else's input. But then where's the new voice or the different voice? And it's, it's just opportunity. Right? Opportunity. Chaste. And I understand it. It's not where I wanted to be. So what, what was, what's, what's been a really nice thing for me is seeing that we've been able to withstand all of that pressure. We're still here. We're, um, still producing something every day that's valuable and of value. And you don't have to get mixed up in that whirlwind. You can take a minute and step outside and say, well, what did I actually do in the last several years? Oh, I created some expertise. Let's see how I can share that with other people. That, that was eye opening for me because I thought I was all in on, I'm going to build this thing to like a million. And it turns out I don't need to. I don't need to. I don't need to. So that's been a nice surprise. It's also been, uh, I'll admit it, I work with a couple of my kids and I'm so lucky. These, these kids have got skills. Honestly, they are really, really wonderful assets to the business and I'm really lucky, including one who lives in the States. So I get some, um, you know, intel south of the border that's also really helpful. So that's been a really great part of this experience.

Speaker A: That's awesome. Maureen Norman is the president and founder of Stake Media Group. Maureen, thank you for coming back on the pod. You've got the final word. How do people find out more about you, about Stake Media, about anything you want to talk about? Take the mic, it's yours.

Speaker B: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I love the Over a Pint podcast. I'm thrilled to be able to share with your audience what I've learned. Happy to take any kind of inquiry. Uh, you can reach us@stakemediagroup.com lots of ways to contact us over there. You can read about the newsletter studio there you can subscribe to the daily newsletter stakeyourday.com and we will be in your inbox every morning. And if you're just curious about maybe you're just a, uh, interestingly, just a guy who wants to get off LinkedIn and wants to be sending out a newsletter instead to his network, then we can help you with that too. We'd be happy to share our expertise and guide you. So anybody of any size who's interested in inbox relationship with a customer, a uh, contact, a prospect, an organization, association, we're happy to help however we can.

Speaker A: Maureen, thanks again. Mhm. Thanks.