😅Nate Bargatze proves anyone can use humor in their content

Good stuff coming your way, Inbox Hackers. The Feature Story shows the easiest way to add humor to your content and ads. Simply follow Nate Bargatze’s lead (not rocket science). After that, see the following sections, including a new study showing an odd thing that led to a 127% sales boost. 

• The Knowledge Base  

• Self Help (streaks)

• Facts & Stats (short vids problem)

• Get Hacking (speedy authors) 

Appetizer: Congrats to the cloning nerds who brought Dire Wolves back to life… until some Game of Thrones fan buys one and is promptly devoured.

Now, let’s slide into today’s Feature Story…

Adding Humor to Ads and Content Marketing

Caution. Please don’t force humor into your advertising or content if you’re 100% unfunny. 

How do you know for sure? 

1. If your friends tell you you’re not funny

2. If no one laughs out-loud at your jokes (mercy laughs don’t count)

It’s ok. You can hire a funny writer to mix humor into your content. Sorry, I’m unavailable. Too busy with this newsletter. Unless you’re offering a lake house as a bonus, then I’ll listen.

Now, why bother adding a few laughs to your marketing messages?

I’ve got three reasons coming up. But the main one in 2025 is to let your audience know a real live person wrote the ad or sales email or video script. Not an unfunny AI bot with no ridiculous life experiences or a need to spill dark humor into the world.

Knowing a human wrote the copy provides instant authenticity, which helps sales. More reasons to mix in a funny line or two…

• 90% of consumers are more likely to remember a brand associated with a humorous ad, according to Oracle

• Forbes states 48% of consumers don't feel connected to a brand unless it makes them smile or laugh

• About 80% of consumers would buy again from a brand that embraced humor, and 80% were more likely to recommend it to others, according to Spiceworks

Relax

You don’t have to make your audience pee on themselves. Just make them smile or chuckle at an unexpected line or two. A self-deprecating story works wonders too. 

Of course, you don’t wanna overdo humor in marketing material. I love to laugh, but even I get irritated when I’m reading to learn something and too many “funny” lines are forced into the text (happened with a good book on SEO recently).

Even in advertisements that are meant to be hilarious, you still have to connect the humor to the product you’re pushing. Or else, the audience is likely to ONLY remember the funny commercial, NOT the product. 

That won’t help sales.

So find a good balance in your ads and content. And another key to humor is to be relatable. Let stand-up comic Nate Bargatze be your guide.

Nate Bargatze’s Relatable Humor

Some people are super-funny but fail to get all the laughs possible because they choose the wrong topics.

The best story or smartest joke is no good if only a couple of people “get it.”

More people will get it if they can relate to the topic. That’s where Nate Bargatze shines.

If you’ve watched his specials, you know he is not a high-energy guy. No shouting. No wild rants. No theatrics at all, IMO. 

He delivers his stories slow and easy. Almost in slow-motion. But he kills it! Get huge laughs.

It’s because his material is so relatable. See examples…

• Marriage

• Being a parent

• Daily chores like taking the trash out

• Jobs he used to have

• Ordering coffee

None of those topics are hard for his audience to envision and relate to.

Even non-married folks at least know married folks. Non-parents have parents. Everyone has to do household chores. Nearly every American has had a job that had weird quirks. All of us have ordered a coffee.

That common ground sets the stage for getting people to laugh (or at least smile).

People don’t have to have the exact experiences you’ve had to get your humor. They just need to have had similar experiences. Themes if you will…

For example, people my age may’ve never ridden 178 miles in the back of a camper-topped pickup truck and luckily avoided carbon monoxide poisoning. But plenty of them did ride in cars without seatbelts with their mom chain-smoking unfiltered Camels with the windows up!

And if you think that doesn’t happen today, go work a beer store drive-thru for a few hours.

Final Relatable Humor Tips for Marketers

Nate Bargatze is a great example to watch to find relatable topics, but so is Jim Gaffigan. 

He’s put out countless comedy specials and leans heavy into eating. No one is confused by his stories of stuffing his face.

Again, common ground. Gaffigan then makes the common ground funny.

One more comic who notices and uses relatable topics is Brian Regan. Dude’s hilarious and can make a trip to the microwave funny. Even if you’ve heard that joke ten times.

So, the lesson here is to use humor to improve your marketing messages and drive sales. If making your audience smile “only” makes them have good feelings about your brand, take that win.

Just don’t overthink the humor. And no matter how brilliant the joke or story, most people won’t get it if they can’t relate.

Stuck?

Growing your newsletter is nearly impossible with low-quality leads. But where do you find high-quality leads?

TrafficGrid provides you with loyal subscribers specifically interested in your niche topic.

Judge for yourself with 200 free leads just for doing a demo of the platform.

*Most TrafficGrid customers have over 50k active email subscribers, but you can qualify if you have a minimum of 5,000 active subscribers. Schedule your demo.

Self-Help

You’d never have to read another self-help book if you did this one thing.

But 99% of people cannot do this one thing.

The reason? We get complacent. I’m guilty as anybody.

About three years ago, I took down my printout beside my desk that tracked my “Daily Habit Streaks.” 

I figured I’d been doing the key habits for about five years consistently so I no longer needed the reminders. Wrong! 

How wrong? No idea, because I don’t have a printed record now. I do know I can’t run as far as I could three years ago. And my brother pointed to a little excess “belly” on me last month. 

In short, I’m slipping because I stopped tracking my good habits. 

So, if you will print out a sheet of habits you want to do every day, you won’t need any more self-help books. Just be sure to include the habit of “Track these habits daily for the rest of my life.”

Grab a printable tracker here.

Facts & Stats

Bonus: Too many ads on a webpage is the number one UX annoyance for consumers, followed by what 4 aggravations? Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

I don’t have time to get into all the benefits writing a book gives you as a marketer or business owner. 

Trust me. It’s worth the effort (even beyond the beefed-up authority it gives you).

The roadblock that prevents people from writing books is the myth that it takes years to write one.

Ain’t nobody got time for that! 

The good news is you don’t need years. One famous author wrote his first novel in 19 days (while drunk - not kidding). It was a hit. 

So, if you’ve got a book in you, set six months aside to write it. A mere two pages a day means you’ll have a thick book ready to edit in 180 days. 

(I’ll dive deeper into the benefits of writing a book in a future edition of Inbox Hacking)

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:  Too many ads on a webpage is the number one UX issue for consumers, followed by blocked screen content, accidental clicks, slow load speeds, and unstable page content. (The Drum)

P.S. Growing your newsletter is nearly impossible with low-quality leads. But where do you find high-quality leads? TrafficGrid.

The platform provides you with loyal subscribers specifically interested in your niche topic. Judge for yourself with 200 free leads just for doing a demo of the platform. *Most TrafficGrid customers have over 50k active email subscribers, but you can qualify if you have a minimum of 5,000 active subscribers. Schedule your demo.

^{*in partnership with TrafficGrid}