Creative Bulletin n.59 (Jan 27th 2021)

Yep, this is a preview of the Kickstarter page for Fabula for Kids. Matteo “entered the Matrix” (😅) and is working to make it catchy and accessible.

We’ll launch mid February (rumors say it’ll be around the 16th 😂) but we hope we can give you access to a more complete preview in the next bulletin!

🐐🐐🐐 What we’ve been up to this week

We were finally able to work off December’s backed up orders («What? Just now?» «Well, yeah: that’s the magic of Christmas» 😅– that’s why Andrea stresses out during the holidays, when couriers are packed with work!)

Andrea spoke to some warehouses in the United States. To ship from Europe over there is very expensive (and not always reliable) so we decided that if the US won’t go to Sefirot, Sefirot will go to the US 🤟 we’ll also look for a printer and a shipping company over there so we can spare an overseas trip to our products.

We wrote the emails for Fabula for Kids launch’s «funnel». For those who are not familiar with what a funnel is, it’s a very interesting concept and it is essential when launching a new product. It’s so important that Andrea (who will always be a teacher at heart) believes it is necessary to dedicate a insert to the subject 😉

🦋🦋🦋 Cultural Insert n.1: the funnel

When Matteo was an animator in holiday villages (yeah, you read that right 😂) he was let in on the secret of how to guide people during line dancing: «If you lift your arms up ‘till here, those in front of you will lift theirs up ‘till here. You have to lift them way higher, so that people will lift their arms at the right height».

Bottomline, you should exaggerate your movements ’cause those in front of you will imitate you but with a little less energy.

A funnel works in the exact same way: it’s a marketing strategy to lead those who have left their email address (a potential client) to buy the product. We are sure that it has happened to you to sign up on some project’s website landing page and then you started receiving emails more and more detailed (and excited!) to bring you to that magic click. It is the “funnel” strategy: first we tell you who we are, then we tell you about the project, then why we did it and so on, we build a climax until the moment of the launch!

This system is often looked as a sort of «dark side of the force» (Matteo is guilty as charged ) 😂, but from a User Experience point of view the funnel helps users become users, it convinces them to go ahead with the purchase of something they were already interested in. And usually, at the end, the users will thank you, just like the sweaty guests of a holiday village do at the end of the line dancing class!

🧤🧤🧤 Cultural Insert n.2: abused words

We are taking a proofreading class, and besides learning grammatical correctness, we are being pushed to pay more attention to the language.

Last week we talked about «abused words», those tired and old forms that, according to linguists, are impoverishing the language and keep it from evolving. We are talking about convenient choices, abused to the point of becoming meaningless: «building synergies», «to create an ecosystem», «straightforward». According to linguists, every time we use those forms, we are basically saying nothing, we are not specific so we don’t communicate effectively.

But what we came to realize is that, when we use those abused words or sayings in ads — «The Ultimate Tool for…», «A revolutionary product» etc. — these ads work better, they attract a wider audience who, maybe, understand the message better since the archetypes used are more common.

Some studies say that we are happier when, on the radio, we hear a song that we already know. Could it be the same phenomenon? 🎵

🎃🎃🎃 What we’ve learned

You might have felt that this bulletin is all about selling, selling, selling. Yeah, we see it too and we are not that happy about it. Selling is a necessary condition to guarantee our existence — we are reminded every week during our calls with the accountant, when shipping costs rise due to Covid, when Facebook ads are unpredictable — and the risk is to succumb to anxiety and to drown in numbers and stats.

Last night Matteo wanted to write about business plan but he deleted the whole paragraph since it was still numbers he was talking about 😂

🌈 Takeaway: don’t lose sight of the higher goal
To sell is a mean to reach as many people as possible with our products but mostly it is a way to be able to create new ones — when there are four, five not finished projects, creativity dies (and we know it first hand) — but if this means to cheer for numbers and not creativity, then we really must have lost our way 😅

So today we want to remember that, damn, we have created a new product, the prototype is already on our desks and very soon it will be produced and … wow.
Cheers🥂🎉

With ❤️
Matteo and Andrea

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