🐇Speeding right past your customers’ pain points?

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Not sure my jug of coffee is gonna be enough this morning. Guess we’re about to find out.

Today’s Feature Story gives advice you don’t want to hear. Slow down. Do the tedious stuff. It’s the only way to get to know your customers and potential customers. I’ve got one proven tactic you can use to give you better insights into your audience than you have right now.

After that, wrap your head around the following sections: 

• The Knowledge Base  

• Self Help (sweet resumes)

• Facts & Stats (thumb reachability)

• Get Hacking (video CTAs)

Ok, let’s peel the cap back on today’s Feature Story…

Feature Story

How to Not Know Your Customers 

Life moves fast in 2025. It’ll be faster in 2026 and so on. 

Makes me 100% sure brands will find it harder to really know their customers’ pain points. 

Sure, it’s easy to know the surface-level problems your audience has. AI tools can spoon-feed you those.

AI can even do sentiment analysis of 500 comments on a YouTube video. You can see the “average” of 500 consumers’ thoughts.

Average won’t cut it, though. Unless you want average sales?

There’s a better way to do sentiment analysis. I didn’t say “faster.” I said “better.” We’ll get to that in a minute. 

First, in case you doubt I’m onto something here…

The Nuance is Gone

Think about the text conversations you have.

How many of them go back and forth more than four replies?

If you’re like me and most people today, your text conversations often hit a brick wall.

What’s the brick wall? 

When one person taps the heart button or the like button instead of replying with their OWN words!

How many conversations die early deaths thanks to Apple’s “awesome” technological advance of “reaction buttons?”

Think about all the nuance that’s disappeared between people texting since then. Not like texting gave us much nuance in the first place compared to talking. 

But it’s eroding further with every “innovation” that speeds up communication. 

Speed does not improve quality, usually. Definitely doesn’t with communication and understanding other humans.

Another example is AI chatbots as counselors. Big Tech is going to know more about America’s young people than their parents or friends do. 

Big Tech aims to remove the middle man — mankind — from the equation. All the equations!

The point is this. 

Use Speedy Innovations at Your Own Risk

I don’t believe businesses can gloss over information about consumers at the speed of light and have a legit understanding of what keeps them up at night.

Speed kills. Nuance is the victim in this case. 

So, my best advice is to watch out for tools that let you “skip the line.” Anything that cuts your time by 80 - 90% is also robbing you of detailed insights.

Now for that one tactic to get to know your customers and potential buyers better.

Warning. It’s slow. And no fun unless you’ve got a screw loose.

Embed Customer Pain Points Into Your Brain

I’ve used this technique as a writer for over a decade. It works.

When I want to get a feel for something. A real FEEL. I hand-write the words already written about the subject. Examples below.

I use this tactic to:

1. Get a feel for a brand’s voice

2. Feel how a best-selling author writes

3. Discover hidden gems on a topic that’s new to me

You can do the same with customer pain points. 

Hop on Reddit and review websites. Grab a pen and notepad. Start hand-writing what people are complaining about that connects to your products / services. 

Copy their words, word-for-word.

I guarantee you’ll walk away from that exercise with thicker knowledge about problems your audience is having.

You might even feel compelled to have a conversation with some of the folks on Reddit. Just remember, tapping the “Upvote” (or Like) button is not a conversation. 

“Handwriting is a “neurobiologically richer process” than typing. It requires the brain to coordinate motor skills, visual processing, and memory formation all at once, creating multiple “footholds” for recalling information.” (NPR)

Now we can crack open The Knowledge Base below…

Make your marketing less boring

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That’s what this newsletter delivers.

The Marketing Millennials is a look inside what’s working right now for other marketers. No theory. No fluff. Just real insights and ideas you can actually use—from marketers who’ve been there, done that, and are sharing the playbook.

Every newsletter is written by Daniel Murray, a marketer obsessed with what goes into great marketing. Expect fresh takes, hot topics, and the kind of stuff you’ll want to steal for your next campaign.

Because marketing shouldn’t feel like guesswork. And you shouldn’t have to dig for the good stuff.

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Self-Help

Young fella snatched a good job using simple donuts.

CNBC story last week.

He was slipping his resume under the donuts he delivered.

Don’t underestimate the power of food for greasing the wheels (especially sweets).

And don’t underestimate how hard landing a job is with bots as gatekeepers. 

This old-timer never even got an interview after applying for 100+ jobs. 

Donuts get your foot in the door. Not just for a job, either.

Facts & Stats

Bonus: How do Bing Ads click-through rates compare to Google Ads? Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

Double your CTA potency on video content.

While you’re asking viewers to take action (e.g., purchase or sign up for a newsletter), have a couple of testimonials pop up on the screen.

And use a graphic pop-up that prompts viewers to take the action. Maybe a button or arrow pointing to the link in description. Or get more creative with simple props like…

…Woody Paige did on ESPN. Dude always worked in some self-promotion using a chalkboard over his shoulder. 

Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with your peeps - it’s sugar-free but stings a bit.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: Bing Ads: 2.80% average CTR vs. Google Ads: 1.90% average CTR (The Ad Spend)

“Speed, quality, price. Pick any two.” ~James M. Wallace