Half a Year of Clear Thinking: What I've Learned Writing This Newsletter
This post originally appeared in my Substack newsletter, The Work Behind the Work. Subscribe here.
This is Week 24; for half a year now, I’ve been posting on Mondays, about marketing that grows on itself. I’ve looked at the four main parts – Clarity, Execution, Momentum, and Outcomes – from as many angles as I could: planning, how things are done, careers, the specific tools, what works and what does not, and what I would do differently, if I could.
It feels like a good time to stop and think back. Not to celebrate, though I am pleased the run hasn’t been broken, but to be frank about what went well, what I’ve taken away, and what I’m still working to understand.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
What I’ve learned about the structure
The Clarity → Execution → Momentum → Outcomes cycle is the core of everything I’ve written, and applying it to certain subjects for six months has made the structure clearer in ways I hadn’t foreseen.
Clarity is more difficult than it seems. I started this newsletter discussing briefs and translating planning, and I still think these are vital. But the further I went, the more I realised clarity isn’t a single action. It’s a continuous habit – something you have to re-establish each time things change. A new quarter, a new product, a new person involved, a new state of the market. Clarity isn’t reached. It’s kept.
Execution is where most groups really have trouble. I thought the planning posts would be the best received. They weren’t. The execution posts – dull execution, getting creative under pressure, making launch plans, giving sales teams what they need – regularly produced the most reaction. I believe this is because most marketing advice leaves out execution. It isn’t showy enough. But that’s where people in the field live, and they’re eager for someone to talk about it seriously.
Momentum is the most difficult idea to make real. Writing about momentum always took more effort than the other parts, as it’s naturally about the long term, and the long term is hard to show in one post. The posts that did best were the ones that made momentum something you could feel: the problem of restarting each quarter, the difference between a system and a campaign, the increasing effect of just turning up. Vague momentum is boring. Solid momentum is convincing.
Outcomes are the part people think they understand, but often do not. Everyone agrees outcomes are important. But the distance between “we ought to measure outcomes” and “here’s how we actually do it, in a way that changes what we decide” is huge. The metrics post and the revenue influence post were the ones that drew the most private messages – people contacting me to say, “This is exactly the problem on my team.” Which tells me there’s more to write on the subject.
What I’ve learned about writing
I’m not a writer by trade. I’m a marketer who started writing because it seemed like the best way to share what I know and build something that grows on its own. Six months in, a few notes:
The habit is the product. People don’t subscribe because of any one post. They subscribe because they trust the next post will be useful. That trust is built entirely on consistency. Missing a week would cost more than writing a poor post, because being reliable is the promise to the brand.
Writing makes thinking clearer in ways that talking does not. I’ve had most of these ideas in some form for years. But writing them down – forcing them into sensible paragraphs with specific examples – showed me gaps in my thinking I hadn’t known were there. A number of the pieces began with a definite idea, yet finished up in a different place, as the act of writing revealed things I hadn’t thought of before.
The best pieces arose from what I had done, not what I knew. The ones people reacted to most weren’t when I was explaining something, but when I was relating something I’d gone through – starting social media from nothing, tracking the incorrect things, promising too much on a schedule. Being precise and truthful was always better than being refined.
What I would do differently with the newsletter itself
Following the ‘What I Would Do Differently’ style I’ve used a few times:
I’d have started the email list earlier. I put too much effort into the website and not nearly enough into getting people to subscribe during the first month. The newsletter is the way to form a connection; all the rest is just how things get shown. I ought to have made gaining subscribers my priority from the beginning.
I’d have worried less about the first posts. I wasted too long on Week 1 – not because it needed it, but because I was anxious. Looking back, that post was alright, and the time I spent worrying about it would have been better spent writing Week 2. You set the level by doing it repeatedly, not by being perfect the first time.
I’d have been more involved on social media between posts. The posts are the main thing, but the talks on LinkedIn, Threads, and Bluesky that happen between posts are what make a group of people. I haven’t been steady at this, and I believe the newsletter would grow quicker if I’d been more intentional about being on social daily, and not only weekly in people’s inboxes.
The questions I’m still trying to resolve
Six months of writing haven’t answered everything. These are the questions in my mind as I make plans for the next three months:
How do you create forward movement in companies that don’t want it? I’ve written about why forward movement is important and what it looks like. But I haven’t really solved the problem of how to create it in companies that are, by their very nature, made to reset every quarter – where the people in charge change what’s important all the time, where plans don’t look very far ahead, and where people are rewarded for new things instead of things they’ve kept going with.
What does good marketing measurement really look like when it’s being done? I’ve written about what is wrong with most ways of measuring, and what I think ought to be measured instead. But I’d like to go further – into the actual displays of information, the actual talks with the people in charge, the actual process of deciding which links data to doing things. This might be a series of multiple posts.
How do you make marketing people who lead, not just people who manage? Several readers have asked about advancing their careers – how to move from doing the work to being in charge of it. This seems a natural addition to the system I’ve been using, and I have firm thoughts about it. But I want to think carefully about how to write about it without falling into giving usual career advice.
How does AI really change the work that’s behind the work? I’ve purposely stayed away from writing about AI trends, because I didn’t want this newsletter to become another voice in the excitement around AI. But the truth is that AI is changing how marketing teams work – mainly in how content is created, how it's measured, and how work is done. I want to deal with it through the system I’ve been using, not because it's new.
What’s next
The newsletter carries on. It’ll be at the same rate, with the same main themes, and the same promise to write regarding things which really do work, rather than things which merely sound good when presented at a conference.
If you’ve read since week one, I’m truly thankful; and not in a showy manner – but in the sense that I know your time is the most precious thing you’re able to offer, and you’ve been giving it to me weekly for half a year. Thanks.
Should you have come across it partway through, you’re welcome. The back catalogue is available should you want a complete overview, though each article is meant to be read independently.
Plus, if there’s a subject you’d like me to investigate – an issue you’re dealing with, a query you return to constantly, or an aspect of the system that isn’t quite finished – then please let me know. The finest posts are those that address the difficulties that actual, working marketers are facing.
Half a year ago, I began writing about marketing that builds over time. It appears the writing does the same.
Until next Monday.
- Dan
