Marketing is like comedy. It has to be bold, memorable and perfectly timed to hit home.

Great marketing knows how to turn heads, make an impression, and leave the audience wanting more, just like Midge Maisel.

In this episode, we’re taking marketing lessons from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Together, with the help of our special guest, Head of Content & Brand at Close, Chelsea Castle, we’re talking about using niche references, making your audience laugh, and making every word count.

About our guest, Chelsea Castle

Chelsea Castle is Head of Content and Brand at sales productivity platform Close. She joined the company in April 2024 and formerly served as a content leader at Lavender.ai. She is a former journalist who became a content strategist and marketer, and brings with her more than 12 years of experience. She also formerly served as Director of Content Marketing at Chili Piper.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel:

• Use niche references. Don’t be afraid to use obscure or niche references that target your ideal customer. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is so detail-oriented that a general audience will see and hear content that’s true to the era, but people who know the period well will find meaning and humor in the minutest of details. Ian says, “I would rather hit one person in the heartstrings with the arrow and miss a hundred than sort of just hit a lot of people in the shoulder and have them be like, ‘Yeah, you know that I felt it, but, you know, I didn't feel it in my soul.’ And you can do that with every post. If you're going to post, you know, 10 times in a week, then throw some obscure [references] out there, right? 80/20 rule. Have 80 percent of your posts be stuff that is mainstream and 20 percent of your posts be super obscure. And probably the ones that would go viral are the ones that are more obscure anyway.”
• Make ‘em laugh. Humor is not just about getting giggles. Chelsea says, “Humor fast tracks trust, but it also helps [content] stick more.” You’re building a connection with your audience, earning credibility and humanizing your brand by showing that you have a sense of humor - and understand theirs as well. ‍
• Make every word count. Quippy, smart dialogue is a hallmark of Amy Sherman-Palladino who created both The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Gilmore Girls. To the point where there are no throwaway lines - each word is meant to be there, every line counts. Chelsea says, “I think that is probably one of the most valuable marketing lessons I think that could be helpful in this industry right now, where, especially with writing, I teach my team [that] every single word needs to earn its spot on the page. We don't really think a lot about where certain things go, or you just usually throw it up on the blog, where it's like, ‘What if we created an interactive page? What if we created a unique landing page for this one type of content?’ Or thinking too about magazines where you have restricted word count, where every single word needs to be valuable and really earn its spot. And I think we should think about that with everything.”

*”You can't do anything cool without taking some risks along the way. So you kind of just weigh that balance. As marketers, we're so driven to just drive action, to drive a conversion that we kind of miss the opportunity to build some sort of connection with our audience. And that's harder. It takes more time, more thought, more intentionality.  But that's how you get longer-term dividends and payoffs, is building more connection through what you create.”

*”​​I worked in a branding agency, so I cut my teeth there where I was also essentially the content producer and executive producer of websites that I would create. So I feel like I've always had a lot of that in my career in terms of thinking through the whole experience of something with the magazines, I would think about the magazine having a heartbeat. And I apply that to my content now where you kind of want it to like ebb and flow, go up and down. You don't want it flat lined and you don't want it to be like peak the whole time. So I still apply that sort of thinking to how I think about content now, whether it's a virtual event, an in person event, a blog, of thinking about everything as [having] a heartbeat in a way that it's a full experience.”

*”I think curiosity and gut are two of the biggest things to think about as a content leader. You've got to be tenaciously curious, ask all of the questions, dig as deep as you can. It's really hard. But it's also really fun work and you have to really lean into your curiosity and also your gut. Trust your gut. I think we don't talk enough about vibes or instinct in marketing. Like at Chili Piper and Lavender, for example, we had an idea of our brand, but a lot of the success came from just trusting our gut and experimenting and kind of just feeling what felt right. And you can't really put that in like a nice strategy doc, right? Like you kind of just have to go with your gut and your instinct and what feels right.”