#Honestly love the self-awareness on display here :P

[reactionimagesdaily]

[rusty-k]

A Theory About the Saint of Duty

[HTN/TLT SPOILERS]

Hey TLT people--

There was a reddit thread about the Saint of Duty the other day (link), and I commented some G1deon thoughts of mine that’ve been brewing in my head for a while. I figured I’d bring them to the tumblr tag to open up some discussion and see if anyone else buys this theory, or honestly just to spread some G1deon love. (I imprint on minor characters; it’s a curse.)

This is more or less copied from my reddit comment word-for-word, but here’s some general thought on Gideon the First’s personality, and why I have a theory that he might’ve lobotomized himself like Harrow:

G1deon character thoughts

G1deon as we know him in HtN is likely very different from the man he must've been 10,000 years ago. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he changed significantly between the start of the Wake affair and the events of book 2.

More so than any of the other Lyctors, Gideon and Pyrrha seemed to have had this strong synergy going on. Unlike most necros, Gideon is a buff beef jerky man, and we see two rapiers in G&P's room. The winnowing/construct trial is also referred to as "Pyrrha's trial," which has always struck me as a curious detail and suggests to me that Pyrrha knew more about necromancy than cavs generally do. We know that the saintly epithets refer to the cavs, in general, but I don't think that was exactly the case for G&P; based on the previously stated, I believe they were both equally dutiful people, willing to throw themselves into each other's studies and share each other's skills.

Aug and Mercy were forced to rush their Lyctorization process because of their reckless cavs, and G1deon was next, but the fact that Pyrrha compartmentalized suggests they were closer to figuring it out than Aug and Mercy were--which I think is greatly due to the harmony of their relationship.

We know from what the other Lyctors & John have said that Gid loved and respected Pyrrha deeply. I wouldn't be surprised if the ferocity with which he threw himself into his saintly work over the 10,000 years emerged--at least partially, if not primarily--from his devotion to her. There's Pyrrha, the most spectacular cav and an all-around badass, and Gideon--having taken her to fuel his ascension--acting as John's attack dog with an intensity that would make her sacrifice worthwhile.

It's difficult to gauge how much Gideon actually enjoyed any of this; John seems to think he did, but I wouldn’t trust John for shit, and I'm sure John's understanding of G1d is heavily skewed in his own favor.

I think it's also important to consider Pyrrha's side of this story as it relates to G1deon’s current state, as well as the Wake affair. Her actions raise several questions. First of all, how long did it take for her to realize that she could take control of his body? How exactly did it happen, the first time? And how aware is Gideon? Does he have any inkling at all? Is there something more to his forgetfulness, something purposeful?

I have to imagine that in any case, Pyrrha must have gone through a lot over those 10,000 years. 10,000 years of odd sensory deprivation, which was probably hell for a fiery badass like P. 10,000 years of watching Gideon put up with John's bullshit, of watching the other Lyctors die off one-by-one and accumulate a host of mental, physical, and emotional scars. I'm convinced that Pyrrha's relationship with "duty" changed over the course of the years as she watched from this disembodied perspective, and that her "treachery" against John (her affair with Wake & possibly feeding intel to the BoE) was just a natural progression of that change.

When Wake factors in, I'd bet good money that the driving factor in both Pyrrha and Gideon's attraction to her is that she reminds them both of Pyrrha. Hell, Pyrrha even says this outright: "She was the most dangerous woman I'd ever met who wasn't me." I imagine that P's attraction to Wake, beyond this cool display of cockiness, also emerged from a sort of nostalgia--maybe Wake reminds her of what life used to be when she had a body, when she could fight and command, when she had a cause to occupy her energy. On G1d's side, he sees a woman who's dedicated and dutiful, even if it's for an enemy faction, and a woman who would undeniably make one hell of a cavalier (I think someone says this in HtN, although I'm forgetting who, so correct me if I’m wrong). I'm sure there's nostalgia in it for him, too.

Then, there's elephant in the room: Wake's fiery red hair and Pyrrha's name, meaning "flame-colored." I'm convinced that at least some of the similarities were physical. And at the bottom of it all is the inherent sexiness of finding a worthy opponent who's also hot. Lol.

Gideon Prime Lobotomy Time(?)

Here's where things get squirrelly for me, and the main reason why I have a theory that G1d's current state might be partially self-inflicted.

G&P were having discrete affairs with Wake, which inherently brings up logistical questions. First of all, how? And how exactly did Wake come to "kiss" Gideon "before she realized what they were?" How long were the durations of time in which Pyrrha kept his body under her control? In any case, after Wake & Gideon initiated their leg of the affair, it continued throughout the two years up until Gideon Jr.'s birth, which implies that Gideon Prime had some agency and willfulness in all of it. It's difficult to imagine the permanently-spaced-out-thousand-yard-stare man we know in HtN actively participating in such an entanglement.

Of course, I’ll acknowledge that it's entirely possible that I'm wrong, and that Wake just jumps his bones when she feels like it, and he's like "ok I guess," so take this as you will; but I'd like to put forth the suggestion that G1d's memory loss and overall lack of lucidity might be self-inflicted, to the tune of Harrow's lobotomy. We don't know how aware Gideon is of Pyrrha's presence, but it does seem to be the case that Lyctors having an awareness of the cav is dangerous for the cav. Being an accomplished necromancer, I'm sure Gideon was/is a smart man. Pyrrha mentions that she was "able to go underground" from him, but what if Gideon started to catch on to Pyrrha's presence through the double-affair? What if Wake let something slip? What if the thing that Wake didn't realize about them was the fact that Pyrrha's survival depends on Gideon's lack of awareness?

What if he lobotomized himself at some point, after catching onto Pyrrha's presence, at the expense of his sanity?

What really strikes me is the post-incinerator scene (HtN ch.31, pg. 292 in the hardcover):

The Saint of Duty turned his body toward you. He was clutching his rapier; but it was idle ... His eyebrows were very slightly drawn together, a sort of exhausted crinkle. He looked at you, and he said in a voice you had known since you were eight years old: "I sometimes--forget."

It was the tone--clinical, enamelled, half-defensive, half-endangered--the tone of someone admitting a final fraily. It was familiar because you had used it yourself. Understand I am insane.

It's his quiet resolution that does it for me; he knows something's missing, and he's accepted it. He's being set up as a parallel to Harrow in this particular moment, and it just makes me wonder if the parallel goes beyond his understanding of his own “insanity” and extends to the means by which he has become "insane." 

Pyrrha's already being set up as a parallel to Gideon Jr., both in terms of her formerly-skewed sense of duty and her compartmentalization, so I think this sort of dual-parallel between G1d and Harrow would work nicely, if only from a meta perspective.

In short, I think Gideon the First's feelings on everything that happened are complex, fraught. I think "duty" is what defined much of his personality, and I think what we see of him now is the result of split senses of duty having torn him apart:

he's torn between his devotion to Pyrrha (and by extension, ironically, his devotion to John) and his interest in (and perhaps love for) Wake;

torn between John's command to kill Harrow and whatever it is that caused him to pull punches (I'm guessing a combination of basic decency and solidarity); and

at the end of it all, he's quietly accepting of his own "frailty," understanding that the current situation is the shitty result of everything that's happened over the past myriad, and that there's likely no way to set himself straight, even though his shortcomings put him in direct conflict with the man he's "supposed to be," according to this awful religion, and according to what others think of him.

Anyway, for those who’ve stuck around, that’s all I have to say for now! I’m just so fascinated by the Saint of Duty/the Pyrwakeon story that’s going on behind the scenes; there’s such an understated intensity to it, and honestly, it didn’t even hit me until months after my first read-through. 

I’m curious to hear what other people are thinking, too!

[yandere-society]

(ex)fuckboy maknae line hcs trying to convince the reader they're willing to settle down for her but the reader keeps refusing, not believing them.

admin / author: @an-ambivalent

Warning: This post contains yandere themes, abusive relationships, and the characters display other behaviours that can be triggering or uncomfortable to read. This is not for the light-hearted so read at your own risk. I do not believe any of the mentioned members would display any sort of this behaviour in real life and I do not condone this behaviour either. This work is purely fictional. 

A/N: hello, I sort of used your prompt as a loose guideline. I tried to stick to what you asked for but some scenarios differ slightly from specific details of the request just because I think its good to have this scenario lead to various endings through different choices. Nonetheless, I hope you like it! 

Jimin

It began with pleas. 

“[Name] please, just listen to me,” Jimin begged, and he forcefully cornered you to the quieter side of the bar. He calculatedly situated you in between his body, and the wall to make sure you would not be able to get away. 

He hovered over you threateningly, and it was a position you had long forgotten. However, just like unclean wounds that heal on the surface but deteriorate once they get exposed to the right stimulus once more, Jimin had returned in your life as the infection that would worsen the damage. The scars he left behind had not healed and now, would never heal because he was ready to inject the sick in you once again. 

His touch lacked warmth and felt utterly icy – it was like sleeping with someone with hypothermia – he was going to steal your warmth for himself and then leave you shivering with his own coldness. 

The long forgotten memory of his hurt had remained ingrained in your muscle memory. This was because you instinctively flinched as he grabbed your face with both of his hands firmly, and made you look up into his eyes. 

Pathetic and utter desperation clinging onto the last remains of his sanity was strangely lustrous in his eyes. 

“Baby, you haven’t been replying to my messages… That’s… You know I don’t like that,” He started, and as he spoke, his voice gradually lowered and his eyes narrowed into a glare. Momentarily, he ended up applying a bit more pressure on your face, and you visibly winced. Immediately,  Jimin eased the amount of force he was applying on your face that could have potentially injured you. 

“I, I’m a better person now so I’ll look over that this once. But I-I’m here because I’m ready to settle down with you now. I’m a changed man now I-I swear! I won’t exploit your trust ever again and I’m ready to commit myself. So, you’ll give me another chance won’t you [Name]?” He stammered, and although he was not gripping your face like a tyrant anymore, there was a dangerous glint of the devil etched in his eyes. 

You shook your head. 

“Doesn’t matter what promises you make now Jimin, it doesn’t change the toxicity and hurt you left me with. I– I can’t trust you, not after you cheated on me–” 

“I only did that because I loved you too much! Because I was scared that you were so good for me 

and that I was going to lose you!” He proclaimed, and in response, you scoffed. Fear forgotten, and with a new burning fire in your heart, you shoved Jimin off you. 

“Go take that bullshit to someone else who’s stupid enough to believe you!” You snapped, and turned to walk away. However, Jimin grabbed you by the arm, and roughly pulled you back to him. With his warm breath fanning your ear – it was the warmth that he had started to seep off you without your realisation until this very moment when the cold shivers prickled your skin – his whispered threats killed the newfound determination you thought you had discovered within. 

“I warned you I would only overlook you ignoring me that once. Do it again, or disobey me again, and I’ll upload your private little recorded videos from when we used to be together online.”

(Taehyung and Jungkook under the cut!)

Taehyung

The air in the atmosphere was tense, and the fact that Taehyung’ was close to reaching his breaking point, was evident in the way his irises were empty of emotions. 

What was supposed to be a night of fun, something that would help you destress from all of the other ongoing stress in your life, had turned out to be the opposite; the situation was dire, and its’ twisted plot had just manifested the distress you wanted to get rid off in the first place. 

“You thought I was just a fling?” He asked, and the way he spoke it was posed like a usual question, but you knew better. Beneath his seemingly calm state, there was a volcanic fury on the edge of bursting. The lack of emotion in his voice – a rare phenomena for Taehyung, made you gulp in nervousness. And this nervousness only manifested when you abruptly became aware of the fact that you were having this conversation while you were bare. 

Feeling conscious about the physical aspect of your nakedness was never a problem with Taehyung. With his guaranteed experience that came hand-in-hand with his reputation of being a playboy, it never left any room for dissatisfaction. But much more than that, unlike with anyone else you had ever been with, he always took his time to appreciate – almost worship each aspect of your body. The concept of insecurity was nothing but a fleeting dream in the moments you were involved intimately with him. However, that was not the case right now. So, you could not help but pull the sheets around you closer to yourself, hoping they would provide you with some sort of comforting security. 

“I– You can’t blame me for that can you? With your reputation, how am I supposed to think of this as anything else other than a fling?!” You responded, and the unintentional accusatory tone in your voice, caused Taehyung’s fingers to twitch in anticipation. 

He really hoped you wouldn’t test his self-control again because he could only hold himself back for so long. 

“I told you I loved you, and you said it back.” 

“I– I thought it was an on the spur of the moment kind of thing,” You admitted sheepishly, and then all Taehyung started to see in that moment was red. 

However, before he did something that would have worsened the situation for you or even himself, it was fortunate presently that you were willingly and had decided to speak just in the nick of time. 

“I’m not opposed to becoming serious but I– honestly, I still have my doubts so if you’re willing to prove your loyalty and give me the time I need then we can try,” You offered honestly. Although, your suggestion was not his optimum response, it was better than what you said to Jimin in another alternative universe. 

So, knowing that the situation could be better, but also could be worse, Taehyung decided this was okay… For now. In due time, once he proved himself to you, you were going to give him all of you, and nothing less. 

He gave a smile that was strained ever so slightly. 

“Sure, I’ll wait for you and do whatever it takes to gain your trust. I hope you willingly put the same effort that I do too.”

Jungkook

“You don’t really think you can leave without my permission, do you? Tell me you aren’t that stupid [Name],” Jungkook said, sighing. Then, he rubbed his temples as if to say that dealing with your shenanigans again was a headaching chore to deal with. 

You bit your lip and shifted your gaze to the ground. The small packed bag you held in your hands that consisted of your necessities, was close to slipping out of your grip because your arms were trembling. Whether this was due to sorrow, fear, or both – you did not know. 

“I, I don’t want to be with you anymore Jungkook. I can’t be with you! No matter how much I try to move on from what happened, I just, I can’t deal with it, it’s not healthy for me. You’re not healthy for me. P-Please just let me leave,” You pleaded, and the amount of unease you felt while pleading this, made you feel queasy. 

Jungkook raised an eyebrow and scrutinized you with a  judgemental stare, before he scoffed at you. 

“How many times have we done this now? This is the third time you’ve brought it up. I told you I’m sorry for sleeping with others behind your back, and I promise I won’t do it again. What else do you want me to do?! I can’t go back in time and change the past. Get over it already,” He snapped, and you winced at the harsh loudness of his voice. 

“Why are you so awful–” You started, but Jungkook cut you off. 

“Why are you always nagging me about this? Did you ever stop to think that I slept with others out of my respect for your wishes?! You were the one who wanted to wait for your first time, so I respected your wishes and gave you the time until you were ready and fulfilled my own needs with someone else. And it meant nothing! Each time I slept with someone else it was always you I imagined, and after you became ready to sleep with me, I became ready to settle down with  you,” Jungkook stated, and to him, what he said made perfect sense. He could not understand why you kept on bringing this up and not understand it by now. 

And he was right in the way that you truly did not understand the logic behind his absurd reasoning. If anything, his logic left you feeling completely flabbergasted. The fact that he did not see anything wrong with his actions, and simply apologised for the sake of apologising and did not mean a word of it, repulsed you so much that you lost your touch with reality and were unable to grasp it. 

Seeing the frozen look on your face prompted a sigh out of Jungkook, as he walked towards you. He grabbed your bag out of your hands with one hand, and one of your now free hands with his other. 

He guided you back into your shared abode, reminding himself to arrange something that would prevent your attempts of escape permanently. 

“It’s late at night, let’s sleep on this and talk about it tomorrow,” He said. 

Jungkook decided he either had to lock you up so you could not  get access to your belongings or any money to escape in the first place. Or he would need to induce memory loss to make you forget about the whole sleeping thing so you would stop bringing it up and live together with him in peace. 

—-

I sort of associated fuck boy thing = cheating in this ;;

I sort of wrote and edited this (both) while being half-asleep so that may have contributed to some of the poorer writing ;_; I hope you enjoyed reading it nonetheless! 

[arigatouiris]

daughter of artemis // p.p — [12]

c h a p t e r  t w e l v e

Pairing: Peter Parker x Demigod! Reader [Female pronouns]

Warnings: swearing; angst [a lot of it]; greek mythology rewritten [completely my interpretation of it, oops]; slightly based off the games god of war and assassin’s creed odyssey; hurt/comfort; cliche; fluff [on later chapters sometimes]; mentions of sex and gore; slight alternate universe

Follows events after Endgame, but Tony, Natasha, Steve, Loki are alive in this universe.

Author’s Note: OKAY THIS CHAPTER WAS WHAT STARTED DAUGHTER OF ARTEMIS GUYS. Okay so this is the chapter I pictured first, because my mind strangely never works chronologically. So there’s a lot of Greek mythology here, which is all my personal interpretation, and forgive me if I’ve made some errors, it’s all fiction and in good fun! There’s mentions of abuse in this chapter, so please please discretion advised. 

Word count: 5469

12 // δειλός coward

❅

(y/n) had always been curious about her father. Artemis never told her much, and even when she was a child, her mother would brush off topics about her father as quickly as they came. Now, (y/n) understood that this was because Artemis was trying to protect Tony and Pepper from Zeus because Zeus had always been angry about Artemis having broken her vow. However, what she didn’t understand was why her mother even slept with Tony in the first place? Especially if she didn’t love him.

    “Why you?” (y/n) asked, narrowing her eyes, witnessing Tony’s suit turn into a small cube.

Tony then turned to her, blinked at her question and gave her a shrug. He had no idea, and was as clueless as she was. It was as if her mother had played a game neither of them knew anything about, and here was Tony and his biological daughter, coming face to face with nothing to say. Seeing her sit on the ground, Tony nodded to himself once before sitting himself down next to her, sucking it up and knowing a conversation was due.

    “Your mother never told me about you. We never met after… after the art gala.” Tony placed his arms on his knees, looking down on the ground between his legs.

    “I know,” (y/n) said, but since her voice was dry, she almost choked. “It was to protect you.”

    “Wow. At least someone was thinking of doing the protecting for once.” Tony mumbled, sarcastically.

(y/n) narrowed her eyes at him, and the two met each other’s gazes once more. Tony observed her, noticing how similar her features were to her mother, but there was a distinguishing feature that no one could mistake. Her eyes. She had his eyes. Tony immediately looked away at the realisation.

    “Do you always joke around about everything?”

Tony chuckled, finally understanding the situation. This girl, if he had met her when she was 13, would have been a child with no parent, no motive, all the confusion and anger of losing her mother, desperately in search of a parental figure because that’s what children do. If a child got lost in a supermarket, they look for the parent. It was everywhere in nature, and she was Artemis’ daughter, nature personified. Tony was guilty, but he was also genuinely sad; sad that he had no part of her childhood, and met her when she was clearly rejecting him, not wanting him around because he was a dead weight to her, a null void in her struggle for her own version of justice and purpose.

Now that he was a father to Morgan, a child he was completely aware of, Tony understood how painful her childhood might have been—after losing her mother and before. From what he had heard from her uncle, and Natasha, she was never really loved in Olympus, and losing the only beacon of hope in her life, she came searching for another. And then the blip happened. And then this prophecy.

    “It’s a bad trait, glad you don’t have it.” He finally said, bringing himself out of his reverie.

Tony looked at her for a long second, his eyes scanning every part of her face. He wanted to hold her right then, and even if his arm stung, he ignored the pain. Whether he knew it or not, his heart knew about her; this, he was sure about. Maybe, Artemis had slept with him because she knew it would be (y/n)’s face he would see after snapping Thanos off the face of the universe. Maybe, (y/n) was there for a reason and even if she was not, Tony wanted nothing more than for her to be part of his life now that she was there.

    “How do you know what traits I have and don’t?” Tony heard her respond to his question, cocking her eyebrow, and in the meanwhile, watching her lovingly.

She might be 18 years old, but she was definitely his child. The way he was feeling right then proved it; her fingers looked small all of a sudden, fingers that were supposed to wrap around his own as he guided her through a zoo or a park. Her hair was wild but it suited her, and he couldn’t admit how similar in feature it was to his own. She had his jawline, she had his eyes, and he couldn’t tell if he was pushing it, but based on the memory of her in the place he went to after the snap, he could tell that she had his smile.

    “Good point,” He said, now looking at her curiously. “Then tell me what they are.”

(y/n) shook her head like it was a defense mechanism. He was trying, she admitted that. He tried to get to know her and be there now that he knew about her; he was trying right now. He had been looking for her ever since he heard the news that he might be a father to her. Artemis may have wanted that, but she had started this path when he was not in his life; and even if she doesn’t blame him, she knew he was too late.

When she becomes a goddess, there would be no use for Tony Stark in her life.

    “Natasha must have told you everything, right?”

Her pressed her hands together to prevent them from shaking. Her heart was beating rapidly, and her stomach flipped with every breath she took. Her anxiety levels were off the charts, and her eyes watered with every blink. (y/n) had never felt this sort of fear, the fear that doesn’t claw at your skins but wants you to drop everything and not hide. The fear that tells you that everything you’re doing and have been doing was for naught, because the reason you came to this place is sitting right next to you.

The fear that didn’t allow her to embrace her father.

However, Tony noticed her fingers when they shook. Tony noticed several things about her that he probably would never have noticed in a person before. He had always been observant, but this was his daughter! Her fingers were shaking, she was avoiding eye-contact, she was sitting in a crouching position, trying to hide her physical self from him; all of the signs that displayed that she was nervous sitting there with him, nervous for the first time not because he was a genius, playboy, millionnaire, philanthropist, but merely because he was her dad.

    “You can come live with me, (y/n). We can figure everything out. We’re family.”

    “How is that possible?” (y/n) frowned. “So, you find out that you have a kid who’s like 18 years old, and you don’t care who they are? You want them to live with you despite everything?”

This time, she was looking at him. Tony also observed something; that moment before tears formed in your eyes, she was going through that.

    “I missed those years in your life, kid. And I never knew about you. If I did, I’d have done things differently, you’d have done things differently—”

(y/n) shook her head, interrupting him. She licked her lips and stared at the ground, hanging her head low.

    “What’s stopping you?”

    “Everything.” (y/n) said, but not entirely honestly. She was thinking of the little girl that introduced herself as Ironman’s daughter. She was thinking about how happy Tony was that Morgan was safe.

Tony had a daughter. Tony had a beautiful wife. Everything in his life was perfect as it is, and what she was, was an unwelcome burden banging on his door. She wasn’t something he wanted, she wasn’t something he was even prepared for. And it wasn’t a choice. He was merely surprised with her as a daughter, and being the amazing person he was, he accepted her; but it wasn’t entirely his call to make.

Even if Tony’s gesture of accepting her was noble, she couldn’t accept his gesture. Pepper had asked her to come home as well, but there was nothing she could say that Pepper would understand. Tony was strangely flesh and blood; and was in threat at the moment, because Zeus could attack him at any given moment.

Staying with him, living a life as his daughter—this would only cause more harm. Zeus had made sure (y/n) lost everything. She never had a life in Olympus to begin with, and with the death of her mother, she was quite literally nobody. She was a demigod in a world where Gods declined. She was less than human.

Zeus had always played a major part in her life—the reason she lost her mother, and why her uncle left even if she did yell at him, and in many ways, she had lost her own life because of Zeus.

When she was wallowing in self-pity, she almost didn’t hear Tony say, “I might not know your traits, but this one’s mine.”

(y/n) blinked confusedly and looked at him. Tony smiled at her before continuing, “That stubbornness that you’ll do what you think is right.”

Her heart began to beat so rapidly that it began to hurt her chest. (y/n)’s lips quivered and a weak ‘Go away’ came out of her throat. Tony placed his hand on her shoulder and brought himself close. He could see how the tears were forming in her eyes now, how her lip quivered, how she was struggling to not accept him back even if she wanted to. Tony saw all this but also knew that it was still her call to make.

    “You’re my daughter. And, (y/n), you might not know this but,” Tony sucked in a breath of air and blinked a couple of times, “After I snapped Thanos off the face of the universe, I should have died. And I would have, if not for you.”

Her eyes widened. She was confused.

    “I saw you. I was in a weird field, there was nobody there. I saw no one. Not Pepper, not Morgan, not fucking Cap, or Peter, but you. I didn’t even know you at the time, but the sight of you, God… It made everything alright. You looked up at me, wearing this… this black jacket, your hair all over the place… You looked up at me and smiled. And that kept me alive, (y/n). You kept me alive.”

Maybe that’s why he looked like he had seen me before when I first saw him, she thought before blinking her tears away. She couldn’t tell him this but she also had a vision of him just as she came into New York. Of him and Pepper and Natasha and Peter.

Tony let go of her shoulder and pulled back, and stood up. He gave her one last look before getting into his suit wordlessly. He had said everything that he had to say.

And he really, really hoped she made the right decision.

❅

Apollo had never imagined that walking the halls of the palace of the Gods in Olympus would make him nauseous. He had been feeling gassy all day, he blamed the takeaway from the other night. It was a strange nuisance for a God, to be given the same mediocre ailments that men had.

He noticed how the walls were bizarrely empty. He had hoped to find any of the Gods out, doing their thing, enjoying their luxuries or trying to woo his sister Aphrodite. However, there was something morbid in the air that made Apollo understand that Olympus was not just empty, but in a phase of collateral shutdown. He rushed to the main hall and saw screaming Gods, one after the other, demanding Zeus’ presence.

Apollo noticed a drunk Dionysus and waltzed over to the ex-demigod for answers.

    “Where’s Zeus?”

Dionysus laughed before shrugging. His hair had a wreath that needed to be changed, and his white flowy outfit had stains of wine. He was not always a drunk person when Apollo met him, but the Sun God knew Dionysus’ habit of drinking when he was stressed.

    “We don’t know,” He said in a singsong voice. “That’s the reason for the commotion!”

Apollo turned to spot Demeter, throwing Zeus’ vases to the ground, screaming with each throw.

    “Demeter!” Apollo exclaimed before heading to her, “What happened?”

    “Zeus happened,” Demeter said, throwing another vase to the ground. Zeus had plenty, all stacked up from era to era, in a nice big shelf that was showcased at the exit of the main hall. “My stupid brother is a bloody coward of a King, hiding away when the prophecy draws near.”

Apollo blinked a couple of times before putting the pieces together. However, Demeter turned to him suddenly and blinked. She was a beautiful goddess, with radiant dark skin and flowy curly hair. Her eyes were amber, like honey, and freckles adorned her face.

    “You had nothing to do with the demigod child, right?” Demeter asked, stunning Apollo.

    “Uh,” He gulped before backtracking. “No. Of course not. That was my sister’s doing, not mine.”

He hated lying to Gods. They always figured it out. A moment later, he felt a soft hand on his shoulder. Turning around, he spotted Athena, his heart fell to his feet because there was no hiding things from her.

    “My lady, if I may borrow the Lord of the Sun for a moment?” Athena asked, smiling sweetly.

Demeter shrugged before getting back to breaking vases.

    “Athena, I—”

    “How is (y/n)?” Athena asked, when the two of them were a bit distant from the rest.

    “She’s… She’s—”

    “Let me guess, she wants to end Zeus’ life?” Athena asked, cocking her eyebrow.

    “Yes! Yes, I mean, thank goodness someone understands—”

    “Apollo, focus.” Athena said, standing up straight, folding her arms in front of her chest.

    “Right.” Apollo said, nodding once.

Athena wasn’t considered a beauty, but Apollo always found people who didn’t think she was beautiful were odd. In his eyes, Athena’s beauty rivalled his sister’s, brown eyes, brown skin and brown hair—which most people considered were plain, but in his eyes, they were gorgeous.

    “Speak to Hera,” Athena said, “Zeus hides because two of his henchmen have died at (y/n)’s hands. The last one still stands. I’m sure you know why Zeus made them in the first place?”

    “To serve as his guards?”

    “Apollo, I believed you were much smarter than that. He made them because he runs from fights. Zeus is no warrior. Ares, before he was banished, was his right hand man. Hades went against him because he knew of Zeus’ truth. Zeus has immense power, but no wit to contain it or use them.”

Apollo didn’t know if he had to feel offended, but what Athena said made sense. But, he didn’t know how this would help his niece. A hand fell on his shoulder, and Apollo turned to Athena’s determined expression.

    “Find Hera. Now is the best time to speak to her. After that, you will know what to do.”

Nodding, Apollo headed over to Hera’s chambers; he knew she wouldn’t come out if Zeus’ name was being chanted for his disgrace. She would lock herself in, as she always did, staying away from every God and Goddess who had anything to do with her husband. A husband, Apollo wondered who definitely didn’t treat her right.

She didn’t open the door when he knocked, but Apollo could feel her in there. With a little force, the door budged on its own, and the Sun god went inside to find Hera’s back facing him, herself seated on her bed. Just as he was about to call out to her, she turned to face him from the side and Apollo stilled. His eyes widened slowly, and his heart fell to his feet. Hera’s usually clear skin was adorned with bruises, and she had a black eye on her right eye. Her lip was bruised and bleeding, which indicated that this wound was fresh, and her luxurious gown was torn in places near her shoulders and hips.

    “Queen Mother—”

    “You dare walk into your Queen’s chambers without announcement?” Hera snapped, not frowning too much because Apollo figured it hurt her.

Her expression softened when Apollo knelt beside her, his gaze fixed at her eyes. Hera looked like she was crying, her expression hiding a thousand battles, battles from so long ago. Zeus had done this, this much he was sure of. Tears slid down Apollo’s cheek and he felt Hera wipe them away.

    “You’re too old to cry, silly boy.” Hera’s low voice stated.

    “Mother.”

It was customary for every child of Zeus to address Hera as ‘Mother’. It was easy for everyone to despise Hera for her power obsession, for the way she got jealous over Zeus’ lovers and killed the mortal lovers that he had slept with. Hera certainly had terrible traits that made everyone believe she must not be a Goddess, but as a Queen? As a Queen, Hera was the best option out there. She was judicious where she had to be, she was righteous and proud, and even if Apollo and Artemis were not her children, even if most of the Gods in Olympus were not her own, Hera never did them wrong. She treated them coldly, she would brush off their advances, but she would commit no crime to hurt them or wrong them, unless asked.

    “Freedom is more important, is it not, mother? Forget being Queen—”

    “What Queen am I?” She let out, looking away. Her voice broken and low. “Queens are merely wives of Kings, and Zeus is no King. Zeus is a pathetic man-whore, irresponsible overgrown child.”

Apollo shook his head and spoke, “You are Queen of Olympus, now and forever, Queen Mother. Many disagree with you, but you have never backed down as a ruler. But, the way Olympus has been running is unfair.”

Hera did not meet Apollo’s gaze. There’s nothing I can do, she thought, brushing away every bit of hope that she may have had left.

Apollo on the other hand, finally understood what Athena meant. Zeus has immense power, but no wit to contain it or use them. The only thing left was for him to translate this to his niece.

❅

Apollo visited his niece that evening, just as the sun set. He found her where she would usually be, at her rooftop, sitting by the edge. It was as if she was almost expecting him, when she didn’t seem too surprised by his appearance.

    “I’m very sorry—”

    “What do you plan on doing to Zeus?”

It felt strange for him to address his father by his first name, but what he had learned changed things and put them into perspective. His gaze was narrow but sharp, and (y/n) merely blinked at his random question.

    “I’ll kill him.”

This answer’s wrong, he thinks before speaking, “The prophecy doesn’t say you’ll kill him. It said you’d dethrone him.”

    “It didn’t say that dethrone didn’t mean killing.”

    “Hera. We were wrong about her. I was wrong about her. She was forced to send her henchmen after you, she was forced to do a great many things because Zeus cannot do it himself. Zeus constantly abuses her, commands his power over her, and it is Hera who—”

    “She tried to kill me, and it seemed like it was on her own accord, uncle.” (y/n) interrupted, scoffing.

    “She is who she is because of Zeus.”

    “Do not justify her behavior because of the abuse she went through. What about me? What about my mother and the things she said? Hera is the reason my mother didn’t go to Zeus!”

    “Hera is the reason the prophecy is still intact! Zeus would have killed Artemis—”

    “Uncle, what are you on?” (y/n) asked, her eyes widening.

Apollo stopped abruptly. He looked at his niece disbelievingly, almost as if he didn’t even recognize her. Here was a standing, living, breathing embodiment of rage and pain gone wrong; manifested in ways that it shouldn’t have. Zeus was primarily responsible for this, too. And by behaving this way, she was playing into his game. However, there was no way she would listen to Apollo with the way she is now.

Taking a deep breath, he did the one thing he thought would help.

    “The Boar is with Zeus. And Zeus is nowhere in sight. He abandoned Olympus, (y/n). All the gods are raging because they demand an explanation and as King, he is not there. Can you see why?”

(y/n)’s eyes widen at her uncle’s words. Those actions sound like the actions of a… She couldn’t even think it.

Those actions are that of a coward.

❅

Peter Parker normally didn’t have to worry about crashing into things because his spider senses kept him just that aware. However, when something crashed into him that day, while he was on his way to see (y/n), he was sure that it was not his fault. Whatever had crashed into him, had crashed into him intentionally. There was no coincidence.

Landing on the top of a roof, a few roofs away from (y/n)’s, Peter got up on his feet and saw a large man, holding what looked like an Olympic pole.

    “Who’re you?” Peter asked, the voice through his mask vibrating.

The large man ran to Peter without warning, and just as Peter jumped in the air to avoid being hit, the man hit Peter with his pole and brought him to the ground. He then hit Spiderman once again with the side of his pole, before Peter webbed away. Landing a few feet away from the man, Peter noticed the sign on the pole.

That… Peter’s eyes widened. That looks like a javelin.

The large man threw the javelin at where Peter was standing, and Peter barely dodged it. Jumping to another roof, Peter rushed to (y/n)’s, knowing her dagger was the only thing that could bring this monster down. After hearing the warning that Zeus would go after Mr. Stark, Peter was slightly confused as to why this creature was attacking him instead. Was it because Zeus witnessed him standing alongside (y/n), when she killed the second henchman?

That must be it, he thought before landing on her roof, her uncle and (y/n) right there. (y/n)’s eyes widened when she saw Peter, but before he could say anything, a javelin landed to where he was, Peter having dodged again, but barely.

    “The Boar?” (y/n) said, gasping, coming into her stance.

A moment later, just as Apollo was about to say something, the Boar’s javelin lodged itself into him, pinning him to the wall. Light escaped from Apollo’s wounds, with him screaming in pain. (y/n) yelled before running to him, but another javelin prevented her from moving from the spot.

He’s creating javelins from thin air? She thought before noticing the Boar land on her roof. It was the same creature that had hit her with the javelin, the scar for which she still had. Her hand unconsciously brushed against her wound before she grabbed her dagger with her right hand. Let’s finish this once and for all, she thought before running to him. The Boar used his javelin to beat her to the ground, but (y/n) hopped into the air and dodged the attack, only to be brought down with a smack from the Boar’s left hand.

Peter immediately sent a signal to Tony, not wanting to let this fight escalate. For some reason, he knew that this would be a difficult fight, the Boar seemed formidable, and strangely, (y/n) seemed a bit sloppy. It was as if she was attacking in anger, and attacking blindly, which caused her movements to slow.

Getting back on her feet immediately, (y/n) jumped onto the Boar and wrapped her legs around his arm and bends it, however, her knife fell to the ground as she did so. Peter immediately uses his webs and grabs the knife, before throwing it back to her, as she jumped down and caught the knife. Turning to the Boar, she tried to attack him, underestimating his speed, as the Boar brought her down to the ground, and kicked her in the chest, shattering a couple of her ribs with just one kick.

He kicked her again, earning a loud scream from her, but he felt Peter jump at him, punching his face. Peter shook his hand after punching him once, it was as if he was punching stone. The Boar grabbed Peter by the back of his neck and threw him to the ground, before trying to kick him. Peter moved aside, shot a web at the Boar’s face, and tried to slide him to the ground by kicking his legs, but that didn’t work. Peter turned to (y/n) and noticed she was unconscious now, after having taken direct damage from the large creature.

Turning to the Boar, who was struggling to get the webs off his face, Peter tried to think of what could be done. Just before making a final move, a large energy beam shot from behind him, directly to the Boar, sending him flying backwards. Peter noticed Tony there, wearing half his suit, as he directed Peter to an almost unconscious Apollo. Peter ran to where Apollo was, before pulling out the dagger using his webs.

Apollo instantly rushed to the Boar, and teleported away from there, without another word.

❅

When (y/n) came to, her first thought was Peter Parker. Opening her eyes felt like a task, and when her vision became clear she noticed Morgan staring at her intently. The child’s face was inches away from hers, and (y/n) groaned once earning a giggle from the girl.

    “Hi… Morgan.”

Morgan smiled before saying, “(y/n). You’ve been sleeping for four days now.”

    “It’s been four days?” She said, wincing when she tried to move.

Morgan moved back and stood by her bed, smiling at her. (y/n) smiled back weakly before falling back to her bed, unable to move. Her chest hurt and burned, she was sure she had broken several ribs from the impact of the Boar’s kick. She couldn’t remember anything after that, but she assumed that Peter must have brought her to Tony’s, since he was her living family. She wondered if her uncle was alright, after being impaled by the Boar. But, if she was here and the sun was shining, Apollo must be okay.

    “It’s been pouring for four days.”

So the sun isn’t shining, she thought before wincing once more. If it was raining then Zeus was trying to find her. Looking around, she saw the white walled rooms, resembling a hospital room, with the right equipment fit everywhere. If she didn’t feel like she was dying, she knew she’d have tried walking around.

What she didn’t know was how Apollo returned and let Tony know a few things. For a brief second, Apollo told Tony to keep her away from the rains.

After struggling for a bit, (y/n) sat up, winced for a whole second before earning a click of the tongue from Morgan.

    “You’re not supposed to be moving.” She said, folding her arms in front of her chest.

    “They told you to watch me?”

Morgan smirked before saying, “I’m not supposed to be here.”

(y/n) chuckled before rolling her eyes, “Two of a kind.”

Getting out of bed took the life out of her, as she walked to the door of her room, which overlooked the living room. She could see the windows and the rain on the outside, and she could see the people gathered at the living room. Natasha, Tony and Pepper sat there, apparently talking. Making her way to them, to at least demand an explanation as to what she was doing there, she noticed Pepper freeze.

    “Morgan! Did you wake her?”

Pepper rushed to (y/n) and made her sit on the couch immediately, earning a couple of coughs from the girl. Everything hurt, her feet, her stomach, her chest and she was starting to have a headache.

    “You’re supposed to be sleeping.” Pepper said, almost as if she was scolding her.

    “What am I doing here?”

    “You were resting after being beat up, kid. That’s what.” Tony said, seriously.

He wasn’t adorning the usual sarcastic tone like before. Something had changed.

    “Your uncle asked us to keep you away from the rain.” Natasha said, looking at her.

    “That’s none of your—”

    “You fight now, you die anyway.” Tony said, snapping.

    “When did he…?” (y/n) asked, about her uncle.

Pepper sat beside her and said, “It was after we got you. Peter sent us a signal indicating you were under attack, and after Tony came, Peter and Tony got you here. Your uncle seemed fine, and took that creature away somewhere.”

    “Back to Olympus.” (y/n) said, raspily.

    “You’re in no state to travel.” Tony said, glaring at her.

(y/n) wasn’t about to argue. She knew how weak she felt. Leaning back against the couch, she felt Pepper place a hand on her forehead to check for a fever.

    “The fever’s lifted, but you’re in a lot of pain.”

    “No kidding.” (y/n) said, chuckling dryly.

    “Who said she didn’t have my sarcasm?” Tony said, spreading his hands at his side.

Natasha glared at him. Pepper looked at the girl before saying, “Peter came here everyday, (y/n).”

Her heart flipped at the mention of Peter. He had saved her life twice already, a lot more than that if she included how he had always helped her, ever since she had set foot into New York. And his brown eyes dragged her to every corner that screamed that she was making a mistake.

    “Peter came and saw you every single day, funny because I thought he said he didn’t know you that well.” Tony spoke, looking at her.

A moment later, “She kicked that lady’s ass!” Morgan’s voice screamed, earning a laugh from (y/n).

    “Morgan!” Pepper scolded instantly.

    “She did not learn that from me.” Tony defended.

A while after, (y/n) went back to her bed and lay down. There was very little she could do at the moment, but the best thing would be to heal as fast as she could. Closing her eyes, she thought of Peter and how helpless she must have seemed. She hoped things would have been different; she dreamed that she was a human girl and could finally tell Peter that she liked him. She wondered how different her life would have been if not for this prophecy.

When she was about to fall asleep, Peter walked into the room. He stood by the door, his mask not on his face, and gave her the look she had always seen on him, even before meeting him. It was the same look, the look that screamed at her to not go, the look that had started her obsession with him.

    “Peter—”

She didn’t notice him run to her. What she noticed was how all of a sudden, his hands were caging her cheeks and his lips were pressed to hers. Her eyes widened, her heart jumped out of her chest, and she could feel Peter’s hands shaking as he held her. But, just before she was about to kiss him back, Peter pulled away.

    “I’m sorry.” (y/n) looked at him, confused. Her face felt like it was on fire, but she ignored the feeling for now. “I was… I was so, so scared. When that thing was beating you, and I couldn’t do anything, I thought… I thought…” His voice broke, and Peter’s hands were shaking at her cheeks.

Pulling back, with Peter’s hands still on either side of her cheek, “Please, don’t leave, (y/n). Stay here, with me.”

At that second, it made sense. She wondered from five years what that look meant—what it meant when Peter’s eyes told her not to go. It was not telling her not to go, Peter’s eyes, from the very second she had seen them in her vision, were begging her to stay.

Suddenly, she remembered funny details that she thought didn’t make sense. She remembered Peter saying a name after hearing her hum a song her mother used to hum. Peter had called out the name of the song, and had promised to make her listen to it someday.

And right then, staring into Peter’s eyes, she heard her mother sing it.

If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me.

Time after time.

❅

series taglist:

Those I could not tag, I’ve added your urls here!

@maddie-laufeyson​, @mscoloneldanvers​, @https://dancing-flame.tumblr.com, @daughter-of-stark​, @spider-mendes​, @nerdyandproudofitsstuff​, @someonekeepstakingmyusernames​, @alina-margaret​, @yourwonderbelle​, @viarogers​​, @https://huangsushii.tumblr.com, @eridanuswave​ @oliviaisnotlistening​ @mizpotatobiscuits​ @editsbyjenny​ @abbieroseb​ @justtrynagetthroughlife​ @secretlittlewonders​​ @missmulti​ @shallowshawnshallowshawn.tumblr.com  @eunoiametonia​ @adistiany​ @justletmesleeptillidie​ @ppunderoos​ @myheartonthemove​ @heir2chaos​ @honeybutterparker @truthdaze @mvmakki @-thatgirloverthere-@growingthornz @freddies-fried-chicken @jinxedleohttps://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/wrongyuckie @gogoca @kewl-r​ @death-by-viola​ @losersunitetonight​ @hungoverhellhound@ro2424@https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/blackkookiebunn @absmiles123@fxckingfat @ludwigvonbaethoven @xbabykookiix @madds-lolo @uwukinawa @sunflowernightss​ @diamonddia-mond @5knee​ @imsuperawkward @smileyishere92 @awkward-youtube-trash @spiderbabyx @theshortegg @samthesnoop 

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Two Hundred Sixty-Two: Your Policy ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uchiha Fugaku ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

He knows it’s going to be one of those days when the first thing he hears upon arriving at work is his father saying, “Sasuke, a word.”

...wonderful. What has he managed to do wrong this time? Sighing and putting his things down at his desk, Sasuke follows Fugaku into his office, closing the door behind him in preparation of a beratement.

The patriarch takes his time, making his way around his desk before taking a seat, leaning back with steepled fingers. “I just wanted to give you a little...warning.”

Dark brows furrow. “...warning? About what?”

“As I’m sure you know, we’re been doing performance reviews the last few weeks. And a few people are, unfortunately, going to have to be let go.”

For a moment, fear flickers in his gut. He...he can’t be one of them, can he?

After a brief pause, his father offers, “...I’m afraid your secretary is one on the list of those we’ll have to let go.”

Sasuke...blinks. Blinks again. “...you’re joking.”

“I’m not. She hasn’t been performing up to our standards, my son. Now,” he goes on, holding up a hand to stop his son’s rebuttal. “I know that the two of you have a rather...complicated relationship…”

Sasuke can’t help an outright snort. Complicated, huh? Yeah, sure. If you want to call a woman desperate for both attention and social standing badgering him into sleeping with her a time or two complicated. They aren’t dating. In fact, in a lot of ways, he’s become less and less able to stand her the last few months. Her attempts to wriggle her way into his social circle (and likely leech off of him, maybe for a promotion) have largely failed, and after indulging her out of a mixture of curiosity and pity...he finds her obnoxious, self-centered, and a nuisance.

So in truth? He’s glad. But he also knows this will rock the boat. Hence the warning.

“So, I just wanted you to be aware that I will be serving her her notice this morning. And I expect a rather brilliant fireworks display,” Fugaku mutters.

“Right...you don’t happen to need any errands run this morning, do you?”

Fugaku snorts, a hint of a grin curling his lips. “No, I’m afraid not. But, Sasuke…” Leaning forward, he braces arms atop his desk. “You might want to...reconsider your policy when it comes to the people you become involved with. Secretaries are just...a recipe for disaster. If you really have to date someone in our company, try another department, will you? Give us all a little breathing room?”

“I’m not dating her,” Sasuke retorts, nose wrinkling.

“Well, whatever it is...it’s going to make this all the messier than it would have been if you’d just kept your business relationships professional,” his father bats back. “Now, you’ve got work to do.”

“So...what am I supposed to do about a secretary in the meantime?”

“I’ll have one of the girls from billing step in for a bit - then we’ll see about hiring someone full time. I’ve already started going through a few applications.”

“Do I get any say? They’ll be my secretary, after all.”

“I think this is something best left to me,” Fugaku replies dryly. “You just...worry about today for now. The rest will follow in due time.”

...maybe he has a point. “All right...thanks for the warning.”

“Figured it was only fair.”

With that grim tiding, Sasuke retreats from the office and instead heads toward his own. Maybe he can position a file cabinet against his door to bar it shut in case she tries to come in and strangle him. He might not be the reason she’s getting fired - it’s rather clear it’s her own fault - but he can picture now how she’ll be trying to spin this to make him the bad guy. Because surely she knows that the end of her career also means the end of this...whatever the hell they’ve got going on. And given how clingy she’s been...he’s really not sure what she’ll be more angry about.

All he knows is...she’ll be very, very angry. Sweet facade aside, that woman has a temper…

Closing his door and attempting to make himself look small behind his desk, he just...gets to work, occasionally glancing up to see if she’s arrived yet.

Five minutes before the day officially begins, she shows up, going about her morning routine...only to pause at an intercom from her phone he can’t hear with the door closed. Pointedly looking at his monitor, he can still feel her eyes boring through the window at him.

Here we go…

While Sasuke is sure his father will be as cordial as he can be (though his base nature is rather...gruff and unyielding), he knows there’s no avoiding the blowup. So when he swears he can feel stomping footsteps, he peers warily around the edge of his screen.

To his honest surprise, there’s no yelling, or screaming. Just a very red, purse-lipped woman collecting her things (very angrily) from her desk, shoving them into a box before making her way to the elevator.

It’s then she yells. Just a few words. Very...vulgar words that make even Sasuke flinch, the rest of the floor surely hearing it (and maybe even the entire building).

Risking a glance back up, he looks to his phone at an incoming comm. “Well...it could have been worse,” Fugaku sighs through the speaker.

“True…”

“Your temporary gal will be here in a few minutes - just give her a rundown, and she’ll be fine.”

“All right, will do.” Letting the ‘call’ end with a long sigh, Sasuke doesn’t bother to get back to work until she arrives - he’ll only have to stop and start again. Instead, he watches the window, only standing when a figure hesitantly steps up to the desk, glancing around as if in search of help.

Opening the door, he takes a moment to look her over.

She’s a bit shorter than his previous partner, and entirely different in build. Whereas the former had been rather lean and almost flat (in most regards), this one is...more rounded, with long dark hair and a heart-shaped face. Her outfit is mostly dark purples and soft blues, and he swears her eyes are huge! It’s like she looks right through him, like a doe in headlights. And unlike her predecessor, who was all edges, attitude, and temper, this one seems...soft, receptive, and attentive.

...she’s adorable.

Blinking, Sasuke balks for a moment. “You’re, uh...the temp?”

“Yes, sir. Hinata Hyūga. I’m, um...I’m from over in billing…? Mr. Uchiha asked if I could cover in light of you...losing your secretary. I hope I can be of help…!”

“I’m sure you will.” Doing his best to smooth out his facade, Sasuke puts hands in his slacks pockets, trying to look nonchalant. “All you really need to worry about is phone calls, and my schedule. Think of yourself as like...my day planner, but in person form. In all honesty, I’m not that busy - my brother’s the one who gets run more ragged. You’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

“O-okay. I’ll do my best!”

“If you need any help with the software or anything, you can ping my brother’s secretary - she’ll walk you through it. She’s an old pro, so any questions you’ve got, she can handle. And she’s super friendly, so don’t sweat it.”

“Oh, I see...thank you! I’ll do my best!”

“Hopefully we’ll get someone new in here quick so you can get back to your right department, huh?” he asks, giving a hint of a grin.

“That would be nice, yes...n-not that it’s a problem being here! In fact, I...I volunteered for it. I’ve never been in this p-part of of the building. And I thought it would be a good learning experience - to, um...to work with one of the higher ups!”

...she really needs to stop being so stupidly cute. She just...oozes charm and sweetness! It’s not fair! “Yeah, uh...well, I guess you can give it a shot and see how you like it. Guess if it’s a good fit, you could always apply for it yourself, if you wanted..”

“Oh, I...I don’t know about that.” Hinata gives a nervous giggle. “But, um...I guess we’ll see! I b-better get started. If I need anything, I’ll...I’ll ping the other secretary.”

“Or you can ask me. I dunno much about the program they use, but anything else I can probably answer if she’s busy.”

“O-okay! Thank you, sir.”

“Please, just Sasuke - sir or Mr. Uchiha are too much like my dad,” Sasuke offers, grimacing slightly.

“Oh, right! I’ll...I’ll keep that in mind. So sorry, I -”

“Nothing to apologize for, Hinata. Don’t worry so much - it’s just a temporary thing. We’ll help you get through it. Besides, we’re the ones who owe you for stepping up to the plate.”

Her cheeks flush a delicate shade of pink. “R...right. Um...okay. Well, I...I’ll see what I can get started doing!”

Sasuke gives a slight smile. “Sounds good. I better get to it, too. Holler if you need anything.”

“I-I will!”

Retreating back to his office, Sasuke sits...and buries his face in his hands with a gusty sigh. Didn’t he just get lectured about this? Why the hell did the person who showed up have to be so...so…?

...well, at least she’s only here temporarily. Knowing that tone his father used, his next assistant won’t be anyone he’ll be likely to shack up with. And...now that he thinks about it...it was Fugaku himself who suggested someone in another department, right…?

For now, though...he’s going to have to grin and bear it. The poor thing’s going to be nervous and behind enough with her new learning curve without him trying to cozy up to her and being distracting.

That’ll just...have to wait.

                                                            .oOo.

     ...I feel like I wrote something similar to this before, but...I'm getting to the point where I can't tell what's been done in this challenge, or maybe things from past events, so...if it's a bit repetitive, my bad xD But I'm exhausted and in a bit of a rush, so...this is what my brain gave me!      ...I love this trope, honestly - it's SO cliche, but...I'm a sucker for cliches, haha~ I'd like to do more if I get the chance, but y'all know how that goes by now lol      Anywho, it's late and I've got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow, so best to call it a night! Thanks for reading~

[rickssugarplum]

Singing Him to Sleep

Alright! Let’s try a kinda angsty yet still super fluffy songfic! The song in the fic is Pale September by Fiona Apple. It is such a beautiful song and I highly recommend you check it out! ❤

(Rick C-137 x Reader) SFW, Music, Songfic, Swearing, Angst, Hints of depression, Existential crisis, Fluff

You are singing alone, and Rick comes by and overhears you.

Pale September...

I wore the time like a dress that year...

In a pitch-black evening, your home was filled with your voice as you were harmonizing with the keys of the piano you were currently tapping on your fingertips. 

The autumn days swung soft around me like cotton on my skin...

You loved to sing. It was a passion of yours for as long as you can remember. Music was your first love. As a young child, you would hear songs you loved and would memorize all the words within mere hours. You felt a sense of freedom and purpose when you sang out loud, never caring who would hear. Those that did, often praised the sound you would make with your vocals. It made you feel good that you were at least decent at something that you loved to do. Singing your heart out gave you a sense of euphoria. There was nothing else you had really needed.

But as the embers of the summer lost their breath and disappeared...

My heart went cold and only hollow rhythms resounded from within...

As years went by, you started to grow wiser and no longer oblivious to the hardships of life around you. You no longer saw your family as the security you sought as a child, and people you knew suddenly went away. You had mainly kept to yourself as you started to grow, not talking to anyone, with really no desire to. At school, you had become the outcast, making you feel hurt and lonely. Certain challenges were harder to face, usually ending up as you being the receiving end of anger, leaving you with a broken heart. Time went by with experiencing many losses, from loved ones, the sense of wonder you used to have, to even your own self-worth. You were aware of the truth. The world wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. It was filled with suffering and undeserved pain, not just for you of course, but also for people you would never even meet and know you couldn’t help. You felt useless, with no real purpose to exist.

So, you stopped singing. While it made you happy, your mind told you that you didn’t deserve happiness, no matter how small. You didn’t earn it. Why would you feel you have to right to be happy when you made so many people angry with your mere presence? When you finally became an adult, while you still had your insecurities, you had started to make decisions that you knew were important for you to function if you were going to continue on...with what, you weren’t sure. But, there was always one thing that always kept you focused and in the moment, that you had for awhile abandoned. One day, you decided to return to that place, where you were once that happy child, whose innocence still brightened the outlook on life around you. Little by little, whenever you felt you had needed to let yourself go, you would just sing. Every aspect of your life was in your mind as you vocalized the notes.

But then he rose, brilliant as the moon in full...

And sank in the burrows of my keep...

You thought of him; of Rick. Many people would insist that you’re crazy. And maybe you were, but you were certainly not naive. You knew he wasn’t the kindest man in the universe, but he was certainly experienced enough to not sugarcoat much, if anything at all. He was bold, upfront, infectious, brutal, and above all else; passionate. When a certain situation called for it, he could be anything he wanted. The thought of how he had brought you so much more out of life you hadn’t known, made your heart speed up with exhilaration. 

You were so enwrapped in your own world in that moment, you didn’t hear the typical rippling of a swirling, green portal warping from another room. Nor did you hear Rick call out your name as the piano’s sound had drowned everything else out. You just kept singing, unaware that the scientist had started to make his way through your home to find the source of the music. When he found it was you he was...surprised. You had never sang for him, thinking he had no interest in your little hobby. There was no real reason to tell him. “Why would he care?”, you'd scoff to yourself. Little did you know, he was now lingering outside your doorway, just listening.

And all my armor falling down...

In a pile at my feet...

And my winter giving way to warm...

As I'm singing him to sleep...

You stopped, satisfied that you got a little steam out of your system. It was late, and time for you to call it a day.Turning around to leave, you froze when you saw Rick standing there looking at you, stunned. 

“Oh! Uhhh...Hi Rick.” you spit out nervously. Now, you were used to him stopping by unannounced, but this is the first time he had been present as you were singing and you had no idea how much he heard.

“Wow.” he said, surprised, with a pretty rare smile on his face. “I didn’t know that you could sing.” he exclaimed enthusiastically.

You shrugged.“I don’t do it as much as I used to. Actually just getting back into it,” you confessed to him.

“You have a pretty voice.” he told you sincerely.

You felt your cheeks warm up. Hearing him say that, gave you butterflies.

“Thanks.” you finally responded, shyly.

“Y’know uhh, I dabble in music too.” he admitted. You were kinda shocked at that. You couldn’t see this man of science as a musician.

“Really?” you asked, intrigued. You moved on the piano bench to make room. Rick sat down beside you as he elaborated.

“Oh yeahh, W-w-we had a band, me, Birdperson and Squanchy. I-I was the guitarist. Don’t remember most of it though cause I was p-p-pretty fucked up on K-Lax.” he laughed, reminiscing about the old days. “I actually s-still strum up some shit from time to time. 'Fact, me and Morty had saved the planet thanks to our hot beats.” He admitted proudly. You weren’t surprised at that honestly. With all the crazy adventures he and his grandson had endured, they would be able to have the fate of the world in the hands of their ability to compose anything.

What did surprise you however, was that a man who was aware about the cold, heartless universe, was still able to get a thrill in making music, one way or another. When that was the reason you had stopped for such a long time. It made you wonder about Rick a little more, if music made him, dare you say it; happy.

“It used to bring me such joy, gave me purpose y’know? Like I could help people even in the smallest way. But, I don’t know..” You wallowed, struggling to find the words to tell him how you had really felt. “I felt like, I didn’t deserve to do what I loved cause, I didn’t deserve any happiness.” you finally admitted.

“Hmm..” he responded, seeming to understand where you were coming from. He was no stranger to mental battles within himself. With his gift of brilliance, he had also had his share of anguish and self-hatred, more so than he would like to admit, but he knew it was there, you knew it was there. That was when you would try to support him as much as you could.

“Well, the universe is hard and unforgiving, any idiot can see that. The ones that h-have their head so far up their asses pretend that everything is all hunky-dory. Everyone has a problem with themselves, not matter how unimportant it really is. There’s plenty of misery to go around.” He said as he twisted the cap off his flask to take a swig out of it. You just watched him sip, waiting for him to continue.

“Sometimes, you have to just not give a shit...because the more you care, the more chances life has to take you down. Fact is, w-we’re all gonna die and we’ll end up leaving no real impact in the end.” he stated boldly.

You knew he was right. If anyone knew the reality of the universe, it was Rick. He had seen so many different planets and dimensions where the impossible became possible.  Therefore, you couldn’t really argue with his point. However, he had another point to add that gave you a bit of an uplift.

“So, why not do whatever the fuck we want in the meantime?” he simply asked, so matter of fact.

A very slight curl to your mouth appeared as you look deep into his sunken eyes, placing your hand on his wrinkled skin. He simply closed his eyes, letting you caress his cheek. Your other hand explored his icy blue hair, always surprising you with how soft to the touch it was. Taking a closer look, you noticed another look he displayed. In his features and his body language, you noticed he looked...tired.

“And hey,” He opened his eyes half-lidded, to look into yours. “May-maybe I can bring my guitar over, and we can make music together sometime...share our misery.” he suggested with a smirk.

With a titter, you leaned in to press your lips softly to his, keeping the kiss gentle and light. You felt his thin lips returning your sentiment, not going any rougher than he usually would. His usual kisses were lustful and filled with need. This one felt, almost vulnerable... You both stopped to breathe, eyes locked, He leaned his forehead against yours. You were the first to speak up.

“I never asked you what you were doing here tonight.” You muttered.

“I had a looong adventure today and couldn’t sleep with Beth and her idiot fighting.” he explained, annoyed. Laughing, you understood. He was always welcome into your place whenever he just needed a break.

“Well, I was just getting ready to go to bed myself.” you led him to your bedroom, like you had many times before. He took off layers of clothing until he was left in a simple, white tank top and boxers. As soon as he did that, he climbed straight to your bed to relax as you put yourself in pajamas to get cozy, and then finally settled under the sheets, beside him. Rick then reached out to secure you in his arms. He always made you feel safe.The atmosphere in the room was perfect to fall asleep. However, Rick seemed to need one more thing tonight.

“Baby?” he muttered with his face in your hair.

“Mmm?” you responded.

“Can y-can you sing that song from earlier...?” he requested.

Your heart felt such a burst of joy, you were almost fully awake again. There was no way you would refuse him.

“Sure, Rick.” you answered sweetly, as you leaned in to kiss his forehead. Your fingers reached into his hair once again, lightly stroking his head as you started to sing.

He goes along just as a water lily...

Gentle on the surface of his thoughts his body floats...

Unweighed down by passion or intensity...

Yet unaware of the depth upon which he coasts...

And he finds a home in me...

For what misfortune sows, he knows my touch will reap...

It was a moment you’d never trade for anything else in the world. You thought back to all the pain you had endured in your life. All those years you wished to just disappear, the heartache you had felt for so long, was worth it in the end, if it meant you got to sing to someone you loved as you felt him drift off.

All my armor falling down...

In a pile at my feet...

And my winter giving way to warm...

As I'm singing him to sleep...

[bffhreprise]

Entry 294

 I took a deep breath to try to calm my nerves as I drove up the incredibly long driveway of Somerset Estate.  The gate had opened for me, which had been amazing by itself.  No.  I was supposed to be here.  Today, I would have an interview for Best Friend For Hire.  No sweat.  I was going to meet someone to give me my interview, I’d dazzle them, and thank them for hiring me.  My heart was pounding even harder.  How was I going to do this!?

 “I’m sorry, Kayla, but you got the…” I started mumbling to myself before stopping.  “You got the right brother for the job.  I’m not going to let you down.” I finished, promising myself as much as my kid sister.

 This was just another interview.  Nothing crazy about showing up to sweet talk someone into giving you a good job.  At least, that was what I was trying to believe as the mansion grew larger and larger at my approach.  The center and one of the wings was three stories tall.  The other was two stories and still imposing in its length.  Then there was the yard…

 Immaculately shaped bushes saluted me with green swords held high on each side of the driveway.  More fantastical shapes spotted the enormous front yard.  The place was the size of a large park, even having a forested section in the distance.  At least, I was assuming the forest was part of this place.  I had seen the same fence over there from the road.  Once I was close enough to realize that the driveway’s fountain is larger than my car, I could see the intricate carvings all around it as if there was an entire story just in that piece.

 I cursed and swerve, having nearly hit a girl.  Where did she come from?  Slamming on my breaks, I quickly slammed the car in park, unfastened my seatbelt, and got out, almost walking into a very short maid with extremely long, reddish hair.

 “I’m so sorry!  Are you okay!?” I asked, trying to see if she looked injured.

 The pristine maid smiled and said, “Welcome to our humble abode, Jemal Castello.  Please, follow me.”

 “B-But… my car…?” I started as she walked away.

 “No one will disturb it, and we don’t care where you’re parked.  You are the only interview today.” she assured me without even glancing back.

 I jogged a few steps to catch up, feeling like a giant next to the short girl.  At six-foot-one, I was a reasonably large man, but I didn’t typically tower over someone by so much.  “S-Sorry.  What’s your name?”

 “You may call me ‘Mila’.  Though I bear a striking resemblance to the master’s fiancée, please try not to confuse us for one another.  The maid uniform should be a hint to who is who.” she replied as the two sets of double doors opened one after the other of their own accord to let us into the house.

 “I’ll do my best.” I promised.  My eyes were drawn to the twin stairs leading up to a balcony where I half-expected James to be standing.  He wasn’t.  The place reminded me of castles in movies with the lavish adornments everywhere.

 As we walked, Mila expounded on the estate’s history as well as the history of various pieces of art that caught my attention.  Her casual manner was relaxing.  We didn’t seem rushed for time, and I had shown up a bit earlier than I meant.

 Surprisingly, she took me all the way up the large flight of stairs at the end of the hall.  Was I going to meet someone important to the company?  The lavishness certainly didn’t cease.  Where the art downstairs had looked expensive, the stuff up here struck me as priceless.  At very least, the displays were embedded into the walls with protective glass guarding each painting.  A large vase was cordoned off as if we were in a museum.

 Mila motioned to a large, wooden door, and it opened for me to enter.  Inside James Michael Somerset III strode toward me, and I found myself staring up when he reached me.

 “W-Wow.” I muttered as I accepted his handshake, embarrassed a second later as what I said registered.

 “Yes?” questioned James, smiling and releasing my hand.

 “Nothing.  Sorry.” I told him.

 “Take a deep breath, have a seat, and relax.” he told me, motioning to one of the chairs in front of the desk as he walked around it.

 I did as he said, shocked by the feel of the seat the moment I touched it.  “Whoa.”  Despite looking like leather, this wasn’t.  Something soft as a baby’s bottom coated the chair, but I didn’t completely sink into it either.  There was just enough firmness that I didn’t have to fight to remain upright.

 “The seats feel a little different than they look.” acknowledge James with a knowing smile.

 “No kidding, but they’re really soft.  What is this?” I questioned.

 Now seated and still smiling, he said, “It’s complicated.  Why do you feel you’d be an excellent addition to Best Friend For Hire?”

 The question jarred me out of this quasi-fantasy and back to the game ahead.  I needed this job for Kayla’s sake.  “Oh.  Right.  Sorry.  Well… ummm..” I started, but my mind was blank.  “I-I’m a hard worker, fast learner, and I won’t let you down.” I blurted, the words rushing out after my brain finally started moving again.

 “What if I ask the impossible of you?” he questioned, looking serious.

 “P-Pardon?” I asked, not sure what to think of the question.

 “What if I ask you to do something beyond your limits?” he inquired, smiling slightly.

 “I dunno.  I mean… well, I-I’ll try anything you say.” I assured him, realizing I didn’t honestly know the limits to what all this job entailed.  “That’s what we do here, right?  Try to please people no matter their request?”

 James’ smile grew, but he said, “No, actually.  We try to act as a best friend for our clients, always pursuing their best interests but never being afraid to tell them if they’re in the wrong.  Part of your schedule as an employee here will be training in numerous things, such as martial arts.  I would want you to be the type of best friend who can protect yourself as well as those around you, but I never want you to feel you have to be a hero, just the best possible friend you can be.  The skills of those here vary greatly.  Aaliyah, my secretary, is the president of Global Princess Entertainment, which made Ancient Tribes of Earth, currently the most successful video game on the market.  Emma is the best gardener you’ll ever meet.  Our chef, Marco, has yet to make a meal that is less than exceptional.  Jarod is a self-made millionaire due to his engineering prowess.  Mila is a self-aware Artificial Intelligence capable of tending to everyone’s needs with exceptional skill and care, often foreseeing a need before it even arises.  What can you bring to the team?”

 My heart was sinking as he spoke.  I knew I couldn’t compete with any of that, not yet at least.  I could tell that he was a great guy, and he obviously had amazing people… Did he say Mila was an A.I.?  Was that a joke?  What if she was?  I needed to respond…  “Umm… uh… P-perseverance.  I don’t have any skills as incredible as those sound, but I will stick to the task at hand until I see the job done right.  You’ll never find anyone with more determination than me.”

 “You might be surprised.” he stated, still smiling.  “Can you juggle?”

 I stared at him uncomprehendingly.  “What?  No.  Sorry.  Is that something I’ll be doing?  I’m sure I can learn.”

 He shrugged and said, “Sorry.  I really need to work on my skills as an interviewer, having never needed to be interviewed for a job myself.  I wasn’t inclined to get a more typical job, so I made this company.”

 “I know, sir.  Er… umm… I read about you founding the company on the site when I applied, not about your interview skills.  T-those seem fine.” I assured him, not willing to argue.  He certainly knew how to make a person nervous… but there was something relaxing about him too.  He seemed so self-assured, even while admitting to being a lousy interviewer.

 “You failed to place an emergency contact on your application, and your résumé could use some work on the formatting.  We can help you on both accounts.  I’m sure you’ll fit in here just fine.” he stated, holding out his hand across the desk.

 I stared in shock at his hand, not remembering what to do as I struggled to comprehend his words.  “Y-You’re hiring me?”

 He nodded, and I grasped his hands with both of mine as if he were pulling me from the lake.

 “Thank you, sir.  Thank you!  I won’t let you down!” I assured him.  My heart was racing, and I was sweating.  I quickly let go of his hands, hardly believing what just happened.

 As he walked around the desk, he said, “Please, just call me ‘James’.  Everyone does.  Well, not everyone, but there’s no need to call me ‘sir’ all the time.”

 “But Master, Mother loves calling you ‘sir’.” asserted Mila.

 I spun around, looking for her.  Where was she?

 “As I told you, Mila’s a sophisticated A.I.  She’s integrated throughout the house, many of the vehicles, and phones as well as the body who greeted you at the door.” he explained nonchalantly.

 “Welcome to Best Friend For Hire, Jemal.” she stated, her voice coming from hidden speakers in the room.

 “T-That’ll take some getting used to.” I admitted, still trying to make myself believe the words.  I couldn’t see any reason James would be lying, but… wow.  She had seemed so lifelike.  “When do I start?”

  “After you move in, assuming you will want to live here.  I suppose you could start immediately if you don’t.  There’s a wing dedicated to employee housing, and Marco provides exceptional meals.” explained James, looking as if he had no doubt what I’d choose.

 “Oh… umm...  How do you feel about kids?  Ya see, I’ve got a kid sister whom I need to look after.” I replied, hoping against hope that we could live here together.  I was already behind on rent, and our meals had been… frugal… since her mom left.

 Nodding, James said, “Kayla can live here too.  The second floor of the employee wing has some accommodations for families.  They’re not large, but the entire first floor of the main building is open for everyone’s use.  There’s also the employee rec center where you can get some exercise if you feel like a swim, lifting weights, or anything of that nature.  If you have any questions, Mila’s always available to help out.”

 “What… umm...  How did you know my sister’s name?” I asked, certain that I hadn’t told him.

 “Aaliyah does a thorough background check on everyone who applies.  Though use of magic on these grounds is encouraged, I do ask that you don’t ever use magic in front our clients, save as a last resort to protect someone.” stated James as if he were just making conversation.  “Come along.  I’ll give you a tour.”

 “Magic!?  What?” I asked, staring at his back.

 Glancing back, he said, “Yes, you’re able to create telekinetic effects whenever you’re emotional or really focused.  That’s a result of inborn magical ability.  Such things are perfectly normal here.”

 Nothing he said was normal, but he knew.  I quickly walked after to catch up to him, staring hard at Mila, who was waiting for us in the hall.  She looked human.  Beautiful, maybe a bit exotic, but she was obviously human.  Having caught James, I still wasn’t letting go of his comment on magic.  “You’re joking.” I asserted, staring as a light appeared over his hand… just floating there.  Magic light.

 “Though not a requirement, most people here have ‘gifts’ of this nature.  My fiancée can create enormous amounts of heat, enough to vaporize a city from what I’ve heard.  Emma’s skill with gardening is aided by her ability to manipulate plants in a very large area, causing them to grow and flourish or even revert to seeds at her whim.  You’ll see.” he claimed.  “Along with lessons in martial arts, I give lessons in magic every morning.  Your sister’s welcome to join us.  I understand she has similar abilities to your own, though slightly stronger.”

 “What kind of background service did you use!?” I exclaimed, realizing I was practically yelling at my boss just after the words left my mouth.  “Sorry, sir… er… James.  T-That’s just not the type of stuff on public record.”

 He came to a stop again and looked into my eyes with a soul-piercing gaze.  “Trust me on this: Aaliyah’s explanations are so incredibly thorough that everyone will question your sanity if you attempt to even read your employment contract in full.  I can only imagine the weeks you’d spend listening if she were to explain her background check process.”

 “Oh, Master, you’ll spoil all of Mother’s fun!” exclaimed Mila from behind me.  She was smiling, but looked just like I’d expect a proper maid to be…. so human.

 Looking back to James, I nodded, following him as he walked down the stairs.

 After the first flight, he asked “Is Cosette in?”

 “She’s currently on a job, Master.” replied Mila.

 He nodded and continued on ward.  He casually waved to rooms as we passed, stating their purpose all the way down the hall where we stepped into a very large kitchen.  “Jemal, this is Marco.  Marco, Jemal.”

 “Piacere di conoscerti.” stated Marco as he shook my hand.

 I replied in Italian, telling him I was pleased to meet him as well.  After he asked, I explained that I learned Italian from my father, who had lived in Italy as a boy.  Marco insisted that we have a good talk sometime, but encouraged me to go onward, after having James and I taste his stracciatella semifreddo that was to be for tonight’s dessert.  I had no words for how incredible it tasted.

 The tour continued and I met more of my coworkers up until Mila said I needed to pick Kayla up from school.  They knew everything here.  Before I left, James insisted that I let him and company help me with the move as soon as I was ready.  I was so thankful that I nearly cried.  Life really was getting better.

[coalessscence]

The Big Mun Questionnaire Thingamajig— answer these questions then tag 20 blogs you’d like to know better!

tagged by: @patiencetaught !! thank u sm my babe! tagging: UHHH ok imma try my best here, @zerotoherc, @gentlegently, @dvstv, @infcrtunii, @gvtshct, @skepticspooked, @skepticreal, @kradljivac, @bruadcr, @prctextlve, @amourfugitif, @keepgcing, @17escapes, @scaredvicious, @surrepo-iuvenisdomina, @withhclding, @femmeveined, @dyingthing, @thriceflamed, @axisii I THINK THATS 2O OF U and uhhhh whoever else wants to ???

nicknames: none that i know of?

zodiac: libra

height: 5′ 2

time: 9:24 a.m.

favourite band / artist: it’s hard for me to have just One (1) fave but if forced to arbitrarily make a choice i will say currently working fave is a toss up between panic! at the disco and marina & the diamonds, all time fave regardless of the fact that they are not together anymore is triumph, and/or rik emmet as a solo artist after triumph broke up, even though he’s now getting ready to retire

song stuck in my head: literally was humming “fuck up” by shane dawson all last night and this morning. i am currently listening to twtltrtd (its a panic album that has a long ass name dw abt it lol) so technically its not in my head rn but im sure it will be later.

last movie i saw: in my psych class we had to watch that movie with all the emotions in the girl’s head that the “do you ever wonder what is going on inside someone’s head” meme is from what is it called akdhffhg UPDATE: after much meme googling the last movie i saw is called inside out

last thing i googled: literally the entire text of the what is going on inside their head meme to find the name of that movie lol but before that, it was ‘sniper elite 3 siwa oasis’ bc i was looking smth up for my dad who was stuck on a level in a video game lol

other blogs: i no longer have any other rp blogs, just this one!

do i get asks: sometimes i do get memes and sometimes i even get those kindness campaign or similar messages which is hella rad and y’all are a buncha babes ok ily

why did i choose this username: uuuuh so basically i had like, a LOT of single muse blogs and brought them all together to this multi. so the word coalesce was relevant bc to coalesce means “to come together, to form one mass or a whole”. coalescence is like, the verb?? version of that word ??? idk how grammar works but basically thats the other tense of coalesce and it looked pretty so i chose it. then i just added S’s until the url wasn’t taken and here we are lol

following: 709 i need 2 stop

average amount of sleep: like, 5-6????

what i’m wearing: normally i make an effort to display Style and Fashion (tm) but atm i’m in pajamas lol rip i guess

dream job: i rly want to be an entertainer ???? like idk. i wanna have a youtube channel. i wanna get to work on tv somehow, i wanna be on a radio show or podcast, i wanna write a book,  i wanna put out an album and tour on it, i wanna be a model. i wanna build my own career based on doing a lot of different kinds of things that are fun for me to do and even more fun for other people to consume as content/media, but find the common thread in all of those things being my brand??? which sounds literally crazy i know but idk. with the internet doing what the internet has done for everyone i think its more possible now than ever so who knows. but i’m going to school for computer science so idk if that will EVER happen lol

dream trip: i honestly don’t know.... there are places i wanna go, like japan, but idk. i RLY wanna do that thing where you go from one end of the US to the other on the amtrak train with a good friend ??? and just see my own country and stop off in stations in little towns and see what people’s lives there are like ??? i just think that would be really neat. i’d make a video series about it.

favourite food: nearest food. nearest food is favorite food.

play any instruments: kind of sort of guitar/ukulele/piano also does singing count as an instrument? but at the same time god help me i probably sound terrible at all of them in reality so dont bet on it

eye colour: brown

hair colour: just as brown

languages you speak: english, know some very basic basic spanish and i barely know like five words and 2 of the 3 alphabets in japanese (one day when i have time to do things and can spend less time being Stressed & Depressed (tm)  i would like to be halfway fluent in spanish, japanese, korean, and hawaiian. if the resources become available to do so i would love to learn pottawatomie as well, which is the native language of the tribes where i am from, which is a big part of the culture there still (tho there are dwindling native speakers of the language itself and not a lot of resources atm, altho conservation efforts are being made).

most iconic song: im gonna be honest with you, the first thought i had upon reading this was all star, and i cant say im fully committed but im not gonna sit here for twenty minutes analyzing this answer so ????? its all star fight me

random fact: i need to wash my heckin makeup brushes more often bc damn im a Mess

describe yourself as aesthetic things: a pastel pink shirt that reads ‘empty inside’ in fanciful cursive. bright 80s colorblocking covering the void in your soul. white and gold christmas decor that’s still up mid january. a bed that used to be made but was rumpled by sitting on it. getting a hand cramp from taking notes with a glitter gel pen. a collection of handcreams in various airy scents. a heaviness in your bones that you can’t escape from. the fallout from rainbows of makeup smeared onto a desk. paint chipping off where your wrists touch a laptop from overuse. an adorable hair ribbon paired with a leather jacket. the tragedy of emotion. self deprecation that edges into mirth. being self aware of an unhealthy nature. kawaii smeared by the remains of an emo phase that never happened and invaded by the jewel toned velours of modern day culture.

[tulpacest]

Repost, don’t reblog.

Tagged by: @ahogedetective​ , thank you so much!

Tagging: @luminaryblood​ if u haven’t! And if u have... pls link me this is my fav kind of quiz. Otherwise!! Please steal! 

Name: K/orekiyo Shing.uuji. (Sorry but,,, I’m going to be talking about some uncomfy stuff and I’d really rather it not go in the tag riuguir). 

Nicknames: Sweet/Gentle Korekiyo, Kiyo, Korey (Hagakure why...), Shitguuji, ‘shit eating worm’, ‘slug’, ‘creep show’ (I love you Miu). 

Orientation: Pansexual Panromantic (No preference.) 

Preferred pet names: I think Korekiyo would find petnames to be interesting. I... actually like that he offers the name ‘Kiyo’ on first meeting, it creates a sense of immediate familiarity between himself and his peers - exactly what he wants as an anthropologist, after all. Additionally, it means ‘Korekiyo’ is a name reserved only for his Sister - which we’ll get into later. Obviously, he doesn’t particularly like being compared to an insect or dung, and would prefer only beautiful things be associated with him. 

Relationship status: He’s currently in a fully committed romantic relationship with his own tulpa. He truly believes that his dead Sister’s spirit rests inside of him and they are continuing the loving partnership they had in life - but she does not. This is a coping mechanism born out  of impossible grief, and he does have brief moments of self-awareness. In those moments, the world feels sterile and empty. This is his reality.   

Favorite canon ship:  H E  I S  T H E  C A N O N  S H I P.   In all seriousness, I do find the relationship he has with the tulpa to be incredibly fascinating, fucked up and inherently unhealthy. The tulpa is simultaneously the only thing keeping him alive, and simultaneously destroying any development he could possibly have. He cannot overcome grief without it, he cannot overcome grief with it.  And if he just didn’t ... you know... kill people because of it, I feel that the tulpa perfectly embodies the theme of the game. A lie can sometimes be good, can sometimes even save lives - and that is what his coping mechanism is -  simply an incredibly well-fabricated lie. He’s such a fascinating and... oddly tragic character because of it. 

Favorite non-canon ships: I really like Korekiyo/Rantaro! Their interactions in the board game were incredibly sweet... Korekiyo is actually concerned with his health! He asks after him! They visit each other inbetween trips! K O R E K I Y O  H A S  A  F R I E N D ??? And I know you could read that he’s just getting close to him in order to kill his sisters... but? He was doing all of those things before he even knew Amami had sisters! 

I really... really feel like Amami is one of the very few people who would have the patience and the kindness to help Korekiyo work through the whole tulpacest situation. I... Idk, I just have this really profound image of Kiyo finally asking Rantaro if he wants to meet his Sister, and Amami is hesitant at first - like, he knows by now that... something weird is going on, but it’s okay, he trusts his friend enough to see where this is going...  And then Kiyo takes the mask down, and Amami’s heart just. Breaks as Sister says ‘hello’ to him, her lip trembling - and he finally clicks it all together and he understands. And then he rushes forwards and just wraps her in the tightest embrace, and her eyes immediately turn to glass and she just sobs because this is the first time he’s been hugged properly in years, and suddenly all that time spent hugging himself is... not enough. Bluuhhh and that’s my sickly-sweet power fantasy, eventually Amami helps Korekiyo get over the tulpa and accept death (or he supports his friend’s coping mechanism and they enter into a more complicated relationship) - either way, GOD. That’s the healthiest Kiyo ship I can think of and I Am Here For It. 

A quick note on shipping: Korekiyo is really... really difficult to ship. He firmly believes his one true love is inside of him, and he has sacrificed everything to fulfil that delusion. Unpicking it would be a long and hard process, and cheating on her is not going to be an option unless it’s like. a very very very clear one-time affair. Even then, he’s... unlikely to get completely physical with you - and falling in love is simply not an option........ at least, not right away. Any shipping I did with Kiyo would have to be delicately paced and involve a lot of plotting/threading. 

Opinion on true love: He firmly believes in it, and it is one of the only matters (asides from death) where he will suddenly start acting illogical. Anything concerning love makes him highly emotional, but he would also expose that ‘real’ love is not a physical connection, it is something that is worked on and reshaped and kneaded over time. He is extremely romantic,  to say the least, and believes that you should do anything for the one you love. 

Opinion on love at first sight: Although this is something ever present in folklore, fiction and fantasy - he believes that love takes more than a mere moment. It’s something that requires tending to - even if it begins like a hot-flash in the pan. 

How ‘romantic’ are they: Very.... Korekiyo’s appearance may imply anything but, but he is a highly romantic person. He enjoys affection, soft touches, hugs, being squeezed, giving gifts, huge gestures, romcoms, holding hands, dates... I could go on. He adores the saccharine and can be incredibly gentle when it comes to matters of love.  

Ideal physical traits: Korekiyo would struggle with this question - after all, his pet theory is that all humanity is beautiful. Beauty is alluring, and beauty is born from the soul - less so the body. However... He has an aesthetic appreciation for features similar to his own - archaic beauty, ink-brush strokes for hair, well-kept and slender. But! Tbh, radiant love overcomes any physical imperfections, his tastes bent to his heart’s desires. 

Ideal personality traits: He is particularly drawn to bright, effervescent people. Those who possess a deep, unending curiosity - who possess wit and good humour, intelligence and grace. There are many traits that he admires - just as there are many roles in this great kabuki play of life. However, above all else... A thirst for life. If your character displays a drive to survive against all odds, a ‘fuck you’ attitude to death - then his heart sings. Bravery in the face of impossible odds, an unwavering heart, hope blossoming amongst  the tangled thorns of despair... cliche, yes, but traits he finds incredibly attractive.  Additionally, he really enjoys being approached by someone else. His love hotel scene begins with Saihara taking an interest in him, after all. 

Unattractive physical traits: Hmm, again... there really aren’t many. 

Unattractive personality traits: He is not fond of people who are loud-mouthed and quick to interrupt him. He really dislikes those who shut down intelligent conversation, or think of him as boring, or refuse to pay attention. He hates promises being broken, and he will blame himself for being a poor teacher if someone shows even the slightest disinterest in what he has to say.  He also dislikes those he cannot pin down easily. If he cannot assign you a role and you baffle him with layers of inconsistencies/lies, he’s... going to lose interest, fast. If, however, he can pick up some threads of your puzzle - he’ll have... so much fun deciphering you that he’ll get lose in it.  Overall, it can be difficult to predict what traits Korekiyo is going to find unattractive since he is forever fishing for your beauty... 

Ideal date: Travelling, discussing anthropology, consuming media and analysing it afterwards... but more romantic moments are appreciated, too. If it’s an activity that allows him to revel in your beauty... he’s down, lmao. 

Do they have a type? Immensely passionate, confident & bright people!  

Average relationship length: Forever...

Preferred nonsexual intimacy: Being held/holding. I mean. The boy literally hugs himself bc no one else will... he’s honestly so desperate for this kind of physical affection that it breaks my heart on some level. Please.. someone... anyone.... hug him,,,,  Outside of this, while sexual intimacy can be incredibly loving and important in a relationship, I think he values nonsexual intimacy more. I know! This sounds! Really weird! Coming from! The self-declared rope man! But! He constantly reiterates that love does not have to be ‘a physical connection’. So... honestly - beyond cuddling, his favourite thing to do to express intimacy is probably  just to talk. Talk and talk and talk. Enjoy doing things together, be in one another’s company, revel in the beautiful connection between you both  - the real meat of a relationship, you know? 

Commitment level: He’ll literally destroy himself and give up his flesh in order to let you inhabit his body if u go and die on him. And although he indulges his curiosity  in the love hotel scene... we have to remember that that is his fantasy. In the dating sim mode, he repeatedly shies away from sexual topics/intimacy (though he expresses they are normal human behaviours and he respects/is intrigued by Saihara because of them), because it would be ‘cheating’. Then again, he does claim that he tied up a whole village of women, so....

The thing is, Korekiyo’s. Well. What counts as ‘cheating’ might be a little fluid - can he indulge in Kinbaku because he’s doing it for ‘anthropological’ reasons? How far does that card stretch? He seemed to be aware that he actions with Saihara were dodgy given how much he emphasised it was a one-time affair... so, idk. GENERALLY THO I’d argue he is more committed than most, lmao. 

Opinion of public affection: He wants it, but it makes him incredibly uncomfortable. Like. Ideally he could be physical with his partner near constantly - but he’s learned that matters of love are best kept private, and with good reason. 

Past relationships: My personal headcanon is that his Sister is around a year & a half older than him, and they have been engaging in taboo acts since he was around 13. It’s... highly uncomfortable to think about, but. Yeah, so. Considering he still thinks he is in this relationship, they’ve been ‘together’ for 4-5 years. 

[food-advisor]

What the Dietitians Who Invented Intuitive ingesting think about weight-reduction plan lifestyle today

Intuitive ingesting has become wildly popular inside the past couple of years, however, the one-of-a-type anti-dieting framework has been around for 25 years now. The first edition of Intuitive eating changed into posted in 1995 by using dietitians, 

ingesting sickness specialists, and nutrients therapists Evelyn Tribole, M.S., R.D.N., and Elyse Resch, M.S., R.D.N. The modern book laid out the 10 ideas in their mind-body method of finding peace and freedom with meals and body—a private procedure that empowers human beings to reconnect with their inner know-how approximately consuming.

Ultimate month, Tribole and Resch posted the fourth edition of their definitive textual content, at a time whilst the wide variety of humans questioning or in open rise up towards weight-reduction plan lifestyle has by no means been more—or the embrace of intuitive consuming wider.

Extra widely, of direction, this is a profound and precarious second complete of challenges (the pandemic) and opportunities for transformative exchange (the actions towards anti-Black racism). “It’s a form of interesting that our book got here out these days inside the midst of everything that’s occurring within the world, especially at some stage in this time of seeking out social justice in each feasible way,” Tribole tells SELF. “We’re in this time of high-quality uncertainty on such a lot of degrees, and with that uncertainty is all this capability for revolution—at an inner level, at a community stage, and on an international level,” Tribole explains. “We want to have strength so that you can be part of that. And in case you’re weight-reduction plan, you’re going to be preoccupied.”

SELF spoke with the authors about what’s new in this updated version, the evolution of intuitive ingesting, the methods that their work is attached to current occasions—and what they are nevertheless gaining knowledge of.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

SELF: Why did you need to post a new version now?

Tribole: there are numerous motives. While we first began Intuitive ingesting, 25 years ago, let's imagine it was studies-stimulated, stimulated with the aid of our scientific enjoy operating with clients. However rapid-ahead to these days, and we've greater than one hundred twenty-five research on our paintings displaying an effect.

Also, lots have changed. We desired to surely deal with the weight-reduction plan way of life. It’s so form-transferring and so pervasive—we had been seeing customers who don’t become aware of the term weight-reduction plan. They’ll say, “Oh, I don’t weight-reduction plan, I do the keto lifestyle.” We were like, Ooh, we need to deal with that. We want to address fitness at each size.

And we made great modifications to the concepts of intuitive eating. The core continues to be the same, however, we changed the [principle] on handling your feelings. We used to mention, “address your emotions without using food,” but [emotional eating] has ended up so pathologized in weight-reduction plan subculture. Elyse and I truly gave it a whole lot of ideas and changed it to “deal with your feelings with kindness.” And throughout this time of COVID, we’ve surely simply seen extra how essential this is. After which we also changed the period exercise to movement, once more as it’s been so militarized and pathologized in our subculture.

Resch: We wanted to spend numerous time looking at weight bias and weight stigma, due to the fact we haven’t within the past. Our third version got here out in 2012, and we concept we had been handling that. And but we were shocked at some of the language we had used. We have been certainly looking to give ourselves a whole lot of grace due to the fact—this applies to many regions—you handiest realize what whilst you are aware of it. And whilst we wrote the first edition of the e-book 25 years ago, we were now not developed in the way we are today. So we checked out the book with an essential eye to make certain we were doing away with any form of stigmatizing language and supporting people flow extra toward self-recognition and self-love in a deeper manner.

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Tribole: just to add to what Elyse is saying, that changed into truly honestly humbling to go returned and be wincing, saying, ‘Oh, my God, we wrote that? How did that get via?’ but you recognize, we’ve also truly determined to be transparent about this—that we all evolve and develop and exchange.

I assume in the long run, with wherein we’re at in today’s global, we need to have more humility. We need cultural humility, we need intellectual humility, we need lived experience humility. And now searching on the intersection of racism and diet tradition, that’s certainly profound. We touched on it, but we didn’t unpack it on this edition. So I nonetheless see a 5th one coming out!

[Both laugh]

Resch: Oh, Evelyn!

Tribole: nicely, I’m just announcing! Doing a deep dive, and then searching at our very own internalized racism. Doing unlearning, doing gaining knowledge of, and then looking at and analyzing our model in phrases of how we can do better. Because if we don’t address racism, I don’t think we’re ever surely going to efficaciously address fatphobia and weight stigma. So we've got several works to do.

Numerous us are doing plenty of studying and unlearning proper now, so I suppose it’s essential for people to have examples of humility and mastering.

Resch: We promote so much self-compassion at some point in the book and with everyone we speak to. And self-compassion consists of having this humility and now not being indignant at ourselves. As I stated before, we will most effectively realize what we understand when we comprehend it. After which it’s what we do with that after we're wakened to that new know-how…. We want to be gaining knowledge of each day, and we want to be talking up each day.

Tribole: while we begin looking at diet lifestyle being rooted in racism—I’m glad to say, we cite Sabrina Stringers’s e-book, Fearing the Black frame: The Racist Origins of Fatphobia. And one of the things we are saying in this edition is that today we've got now not best the health enterprise, the weight loss industry, however, we've got hospital treatment and fitness care is a part of weight loss program lifestyle. That's irritating. Because now we have sufferers coming in with this pressure to change their frame no longer simply from the way of life, however from health care.

And this is going on even though we have a profound body of research showing that the act of dieting—the act of reducing your food intake to shrink your frame—now not best does it not work, it honestly causes damage, biological damage, mental harm. It increases the threat of ingesting problems and weight stigma. While you examine the fact that eating issues charges have doubled, it’s a travesty. I assume it is in element because the weight loss program lifestyle has ended up so normalized. You realize, humans didn’t use to head bragging approximately keto or the contemporary rapid they were on. And it’s like, “Wow, we've got lots of work to do, Elyse!”

Resch: We should spend time also teaching the scientific community due to the fact there’s an entire notion device on weight and the risks of what they recall “extra weight,” so we have a variety of paintings to do.

Why do you believe you studied intuitive ingesting has truly stuck hearth these days?

Resch: So, I’m a feminist from the second wave of feminism, again inside the ’70s. And I suppose we've got gotten to a degree where we do now not need to be advised how we must look, how we must devour…a point where we want to take lower back the delight of eating, the pleasure in eating and make selections for ourselves in a self-sufficient manner.

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It’s been the type of viral, with such a lot of magazines and on-line articles about intuitive ingesting on this beyond yr. And I assume there’s something to do with the political environment…. We are becoming to a point in which we’re tired of being instructed what to do, and we’re uninterested in feeling unsuccessful and terrible approximately ourselves.

Tribole: humans are bored with being advised, “There’s something incorrect with you, there’s something wrong with your body,” when it turns out, no, it’s our lifestyle. And you could take your energy back. The concept is to reclaim the pleasure of ingesting. Eating is meant to be fun! It’s become this supply of disgrace and guilt when it’s sincerely meant to be a source of satisfaction and reference to different human beings. And while you get that lower back, it’s first-rate. You’re extra alive, you’re more present in your relationships without being preoccupied.

Resch: It’s liberating. The much less you’re worried about doing something incorrect in your eating and the greater tuned in you're on your very own body. It opens this space for bringing greater significant things into existence, whilst you are taking out that one big piece that’s on such a lot of people’s minds.

Tribole: And yet while people are in marginalized bodies, they need to feel secure within the international, so it’s additionally understandable that in this time of splendid problem human beings were feeling precipitated to get lower back into the weight-reduction plan. Due to the fact food plan lifestyle offers actuality at a time of uncertainty. It offers fable, and desire, and particular guidelines that preserve your mind off of the tension of what’s going to take place inside the globe. But the trouble is, it’s short-lived. I additionally paintings with loads of folks been prompted by way of this time, and that I say it’s understandable because weight loss plan culture’s everywhere.

Resch: I think you’re right, Evelyn. It’s simply this fake experience of management in an international wherein there is no manipulate. So we do need to have compassion for those who do take that path and assist them understand the psychology of why they're doing that. However, there’s plenty of alleviation that comes whilst you let cross of the notion that you may use something like dieting to present yourself an experience of manipulating the sector, actual control, while there isn’t any. You pass on an eating regimen to attempt to manage things, and it doesn’t exercise sessions, and it’s no longer going to repair the pandemic.

Tribole: I’m additionally considering the obsession with lavatory paper. I've never in my existence ever centered on rest room paper, after which all of a sudden, I’m like, “Do I have enough? Is it there?” And that’s what it’s like with dieting. All of a surprise you want what you can’t have, you need what is in quick supply, and also you come to be fixated on that. I assume it’s an apt metaphor for making peace with food, and what occurs while you don’t make peace with food.

[fat-highlander]

Week 3 - Fat Wars: Revenge Of The Dish

So last week we left your hero (me :-p) recovering from an almighty battle of courage, wit, carbs and alcohol; a battle I severely got cuffed in as I had managed to best my record for highest weight gain achieved in a week on ANY stint I've had at SW. We’re talking almost impressive number of pounds here people, like it was opposite day and I was king of weight gain. In opposite day I would have won SW and no one else would compete anymore! Think about life without SW! The weight gains! The secret competitiveness between “friends” gone. The missed banter about Gin! (my group is VERY Gin and booze focussed....as is my blog so far actually, I’m wondering if this should be turning into and SW-AA group combination lol)

So I pretty much got to work straight after that weight gain. Got my new food diaries as my daughter decided to destroy the others. I was a good little boy noting down everything, keeping an eye on everything. Noticing things I hadn’t noticed previously, and honestly, its really the little things. The times I've shrugged off times people have said to measure things out and in my own arrogance I just ‘eye ball’ it. That eye balling could be the difference between 1 and 6 or 7 syns! So while yes, still eye balling here, I’m eye balling with spoons and eyes until I get myself some proper weight spoon things. 

Other little things, spreads! I might have touched on this last time, but f*ck. Bread, spread, touch of mayo, the building blocks of a delicious sammage for me. That’s not even a filling yet and we’re hitting high syns for a damn sammage! But as I touched on this last week, me and bread are on a break. It has been somewhat awkward though. Keep bumping into bread when I’m in the kitchen, we exchange a polite nod now and again, I know my wife and daughter both still see bread on a daily basis which yeah, that is hard and hurts me a little. But I’m a big boy, I have to live and let live.....god I miss you bread.

The week continued on fairly well, there was slip up from unexpected sources. I’m starting the think the continued relationship between my wife and bread may be turning into something sinister, I say this as on Thursday night I was unexpectedly gifted a bar of Galaxy Chocolate, not a wee one either, a medium size we’ll say (to make ones self feel less a greedy bastard). “Why did you get me chocolate, that's not good?” I harked. “I thought you’d like a treat...” Well wasn’t like I could leave it really, these things only have a shelf life of like, 12-16 months, best not waste it. So it was devoured!!! And good god it was amazing. I’m not really a massive sweet tooth person, forever preferring a slab of meat to a slab of chocolate, but that Galaxy was incredible. 

Friday morning did feel somewhat like that guilty walk home from a one night stand as I made my way to work. I had chocolated, it was good at the time, but what was it really worth? I could effectively have just undone the decent week I had had leading to that chocolate. And sure, I could blame the wife, but I still decided to eat it didn’t I. I made the decision. You’re right lets just blame the wife lol.

And then we come to it. Friday evening/the weekend. The devils play ground! The sadists sauna! The drunkards divine days! Those 2 days are just the home of kryptonite, no work to be done, no distractions. A pure test of will to not f*ck up progress (potentially screwed by chocolate already) and behave. Which for the most part I actually did for a change. 

Food wise was still on plan with the odd treat here and there, but kept within syns on the treats. Saturday during the day we all went to the park with a new basketball I had bought in an attempt to relive my teenage years. Back in high school myself and a good friend Dalius would spend our lunch breaks and hours in the evenings playing basketball, to the point where we were actually pretty good (I thought so anyway) and I fancied getting back into this routine. So the local park has a concrete area and proper height hoop. The plan being take the wee one to the park with her new scooter, the ball, and just mess about. We arrived at the hoop, me feeling quite cool and confident as I start to bounce the ball like a pro! I still got this!!! Then I position myself to shoot, bend the knees and with an almighty spring from the legs, flew to the dizzying height of 1.5 inches off the ground! The ball, escalating through the skies to approx....2 feet higher than me, my muffin top escaping the underneath of my t shirt and flapping into the new winds create by my sudden movements, waving back and fourth nearly throwing me off balance! My shorts eventually feeling this effect (within the 1 second that this whole procedure lasted for) begin to creep down, taking with them the boxers, exposing the crack of my arse for the world. In one swift movement, I'd nearly gotten undressed and managed to display that my basketball prowess was long dead. I won’t even try describe what my man boobs did as i have still not worked out how they managed to tangle into each other. Not deterred though, going to keep it up. It’s the weight needing to come off, as I get lighter, movement will be easier, the height I jump, I hope to god will increase lol. And hopefully there will eventually be less flappy bits dancing in the wind like a rogue sail on boat in the high seas.

So spent a little more time shooting the hoops, carefully, then headed in as it started to rain. The only other downside to the Saturday was boredom in the evening which let to opening the only bottles of alcohol in the house, prosecco. Why do people rave about this stuff? It literally tastes to me like urine, lemon and fizzed in a sodastream…..still I drank it to get a feeling out of it lol. But again this was my bad area, waste of syns on something I in the end did not even enjoy!!! Maybe I should speak to the many Gin ladies of my group for alternatives lol :-p. 

Sunday was fairly standard again with the exception of a lunch at Simpson’s Garden centre. My fellow diners were in the mood for cake or scones, I opted for a wholemeal sammage instead. Hot smoked salmon, cream cheese and chives. The cream cheese and the spread (god damn you spread!!!!) will have been the killers here but I was fairly good the remainder of the day, so quite confident it wasn’t going to be the weight loss killer compared to Galaxy and Piss-eco.

And then we have weight day! The reason we put ourselves through this whole thing. The hope that we have scraped just enough of a good week to get that loss!! To get one over your mate in that secret rivalry you both have but will NEVER admit to each other is actually happening!! Finally, got a loss. 

And it felt f*ckn amazing. It wasn’t the greatest loss ever, it was more than one pound though, and it was a loss. This is the boost I needed. It’s now Wednesday and i’m still feeling confident. I don’t want to sound too “hell yeah bring it!! target 12 pounds loss this coming Monday!!!” cause that's just waiting for the fall really isn’t it. But the loss as spurred me on, I feel like i’m watching things more, watching what i’m taking in. Prime example, Tuesday night. The wife working, so I must fend for myself! Which is easy as I love cooking and by faaaar the superior chef of the house lol (love you baby). But upon planning my meal when I got in (it was going to be chicken and bacon in a paprika sauce, the sauce being made with some beef stock and cream cheese run through it, not crazy healthy, but packed with vegs. That cream cheese does add on the syns and if you end up using a lot, that could be a good half of someones daily intake on just one meal) I suddenly changed my mind. I knew my option was, to an extent, friendly, but it was not without the syns. I realised I could instead use the same ingredients minus a couple that would syn, get this meal made into a SW quiche, which is secretly a Frittata in disguise, im not sure if SW are aware of this. It’s not a quiche people, its a Frittata!!! 

So got that made, packed with veg, chicken, bacon without the delicious fat bits. Was plenty left for lunch today to so that was covered nicely. So that’s going to be my meal of this week, a fun new feature I've literally just made on the spot. I won’t list what I did or used to make it here as I know SW members have made this “quiche” before (its a fckn frittata!!). I will say though I made mine paprika based which made it slightly smokey, delicious.

So that's this week done with a loss. In summation, continue with the drinking of water at all stages, keep focussed, even those small things! THEY ADD UP! Don’t waste syns on stuff you won’t notice or need! And bread, I still love you, but please stop calling me it’s getting weird.

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Michael Prihoda

is a poet and editor, born and living in the Midwest. He has published two chapbooks and eight full-length collections of poetry, with another forthcoming in 2019. He has a blog to share his typewriter poetry. A full list of his creative publications appears here publications

He is the founding/managing editor of After the Pause (an online literary journal of experimental poetry, fiction, and artwork) as well as its small press imprint a…p press. In addition, he runs the After the Pause Review of Books.

He would love to hear from you:

You can find him elsewhere at:

Twitter: @michaelprihoda

Facebook: facebook.com/michaelprihoda

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

I started writing poetry in college but I began writing fiction well before that while I was in high school. I think I began as a means of self-discovery, of gripping and coming-to-terms with who I was and who I wanted to be and how I saw the world. It was therapy and self-discovery. Now, I see poetry as a vehicle of philosophy, an avenue through which to draw back a curtain to show an audience only things language can display and explore. For all that the world sways digital, there’s magic in paper pages, in what remains possible through the agglutination of words and phrases in both physical and metaphysical ways.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Literature was baked into my childhood. My earliest memories are of learning to read, specifically the first book I ever read solo: See the Yak Yak. I loved books of all kinds through school, was more of a book locust than just a book worm, and I believe what truly cemented the power of books in me at a young age was being read to by both my parents, not just as a toddler, but probably up until middle school. I would sit on the floor and play with Lego or do a puzzle and my parents would read classics like Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, The Gammage Cup, The Chronicles of Narnia. While my tastes have danced through different genres as I’ve grown up and been exposed to more and had a variety of adult experiences, I’ve remained obsessed with literature and read anything I can get my hands on that sparks that special something inside the literary chunk of my brain.

3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

Aware, but not willing to let that detract from my passion to pursue poetry. I also think that is starting to change. Poetry is being fully embraced by younger generations and I’ve seen poets achieve remarkable levels of success and exposure in their 20s and 30s. Poetry in America isn’t stuffy, archaic, and dying with some last cohort of old white American men who were renowned for their 20th century contributions. Poetry feels incredibly diverse and exciting and I think youth are driving the movement.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I have honestly never kept a regular routine for the actual writing I do. Writing has always been contained to my spare time as I have a full-time job that is separate from my creative pursuits. I write sporadically, often in bursts, and will sometimes go weeks without writing a thing that is creatively productive. However, I have oriented myself toward the world in such a way as to always be a consumer and processer of information and literature. I see the potentiality for poems and stories everywhere and I make an effort to jot down ideas or phrases that I believe might grow into something more. My writing brain is always on, whether or not I do any actual creative writing in a day.

5. What motivates you to write?

I’m motivated by my experiences. I feel the constant urge to create based on what I see in the world around me and my emotional response to it. Sometimes that’s in the form of very short poetry, sometimes it becomes longer stories but I feel that the connective thread tying all my work together is a disorientation that I feel and see in the world around me between what this life is supposed to be or could be and what this wreckage ends up being for so many of us. There’s a line in one of Jeff Vandermeer’s books that runs through my head almost daily that (apologies to Jeff if this isn’t exact), “We are vessels filled with light. Broken vessels, broken light. But vessels nonetheless.” I’m another broken vessel filled with my own kind of broken light, hoping that I might share that light with people out there for the moments their light feels weak.

6. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

What always catches my attention most, and what always has since I was very young, is when an author is able to craft a compelling world, one that could only come from that person’s brain. Or if in poetry or realist fiction, I look for a compelling voice, something that sounds and feels unique, lives and breathes on its own terms and is unapologetic about doing things differently or taking risks in the approach and execution. Of course I am influenced by myriad writers who have come before me, as are all authors, but the great ones take their influences and produce some new tonic. I would hardly call myself a great writer, but that is what I try to do with my poetry and my fiction, having attempted to distill and absorb as much as I can from the writers I most admire: bloom something into existence that could not have come from anyone but myself.

6.1. Which older writers “spark that special something inside the literary chunk of (your) brain.”?

Non-exhaustive yet comprehensive of who I think of as particularly special: Don DeLillo, Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, Jeff Vandermeer, Lydia Davis, Kelly Link, Rae Armantrout, Claudia Rankine.

6.2. Why are they special?

Each brings something unique to the literary landscape and is wholly an individual stylist. DeLillo is perhaps the most concise writer I’ve ever encountered, not necessarily in brevity of writing, but in the meaningful usage of sentences. Each feels weighty and philosophical. Vonnegut is the original fabulist, speculative before that became a genre. Foster Wallace practically invented a new dictionary to write Infinite Jest and it is some of the most compelling prose I’ve ever seen. Vandermeer is inventive and able to morph his style into myriad genres while never losing his flair for the strange and unfamiliar. Davis is perhaps the best writer of realist short fiction, pared back and brimming with constrained emotion. Link is an incredible modern fabulist, marrying wild concepts with deeply human ambitions and themes. Armantrout’s poetry is so sparse yet packed to exploding with meaning and societal references. And Rankine is a standard-bearer in creating literature that strives to impact the racial conversation our country needs to have.

7.  Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

Writing feels like an activity that is necessary for my mind to feel as if I’m living a valuable life and contributing in the ways that I have been equipped to contribute to the world. Similar to spending time with my favorite people or going to work at the education nonprofit where I spend my days, it is a life-giving thing. I’ve done plenty of things in life that ended up not feeling useful or valuable. But I’ve never sat down to write and gotten up again without thinking I had just done something deeply meaningful and valuable, whether or not what I wrote in that instance ever sees the light of day.

8. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I believe becoming a writer begins with becoming a serious, avid reader. You learn so much about the writing craft through reading, and here I don’t just mean serious, classical literature. Anything applies. But I don’t think anyone can call themselves a writer unless they’ve put in the legwork being a reader. Secondly, you have to be okay with failing and here I don’t even mean rejection. Of course that will come. But rejection isn’t even close to the first obstacle writers will face. You have to be okay with writing things that are pure trash, that just aren’t good, that are so deeply flawed it would be embarrassing to show them to anyone else. The quickest way to become a good writer is to practice the art of writing and to become good will require writing a lot of bad along the way. I have an untold number of stories, poems, and novels that are bad and will never be published and will never to be shown to another soul but I had to write them in order to hone my craft, my voice, my style, to understand the intricacies of writing and the process that I would have to use to create something meaningful and valuable and, ultimately, publishable.

9. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

The major project I’m working on is a manuscript of poems that has been a result of reading Guantanamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was unfairly detained for over a decade and never charged with a crime. His diary is gripping and became the inspiration for a series of poems that also owe a debt of gratitude to the books The New Jim Crow and The History of White People. The poems grapple with how white supremacy has infiltrated everything about the United States and the experience of living and working in this country and how our country has abused and continues to abuse its power, especially against minorities. In the case of Mohamedou, the long arm of the United States stretched into Africa to take him from his homeland, away from his family, with no actual basis. As if the way my country persecutes some of its own citizens wasn’t enough. I often find injustice a trigger for my poems and this project has been an experience in attempting to find a foothold on the side of human dignity as I desire and work toward a world of actual equity.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Michael Prihoda Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

[kennethmontiveros]

Is Content Marketing a Waste of Time and Money? Data and Lessons Learned from 20 posts in 30 days.

Before I address the burning question in the headline, let’s rewind to the start of product awareness month for some context.

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I kicked 2018 off with a bold, self-inflicted challenge to write 30 blog posts in 30 days in a bid to increase adoption of our two new products, Popups and Sticky Bars.

The initial thinking was to call this effort Product Marketing Month, with the content based on our (and my) journey to become more proficient product marketers. As I shared at the start of the journey, the adoption of the new products had been disappointingly low; only 6% of our customers were using them when I first started looking at the numbers in August. That number was probably around 7% or 8% at the start of January.

Being a marketer who hadn’t actually practiced the discipline of product marketing, I thought that by talking about our products more directly in the content – including interactive demos and interesting use cases – coupled with a redesign of the blog just for this new content, we’d crush those numbers with ease.

I was incredibly naive

Boy oh boy was I wrong. Not only did I misinterpret what product marketing is: an expansive role that includes customer insights, data analysis, product validation, positioning, and market research, but I assumed that top of funnel content alone could solve our problems.

In my moment of hubris, I even bought the domain whatsproductmarketing.com where I intended to have a blank white page with the word “Marketing” on it. Cos that’s all product marketing is, right? Nope. In the end, I decided against that brazen approach.

It quickly became clear that what I was actually doing was more closely tied to product awareness. As with many other SaaS content marketers, I had little control or influence over what happened to people after they sign up. So we repositioned the challenge as Product Awareness Month.

I also inadvertently caused offense to some folks in the company by including a question in the first blog post that posited “Do we suck at product marketing?”.

While I’d intended it as a question (to start the post with a provocative buzz-generating bang), it came across more as a statement, and pretty offensive one at that. Especially when the social team latched onto the power of that statement (rightly so) and started tweeting about it.

I think it was co-founder Carter Gilchrist who helped me understand the impact by asking me “If you’d said ‘Do we suck at design? Or do we suck at engineering?’ how do you think the team would feel about it?” Pretty shitty I imagine. I removed that line from the post. The talented people on our product and product marketing teams deserve better than that.

The 30-Posts-in-30-Days Challenge

The best part of this challenge was getting back to writing. Because I’ve been on the road so much as a public speaker recently, it turns out I hadn’t written a single word on our blog (or Unbounce marketing content in general) for two years.

30 posts was an audacious goal. Especially when you consider how much of it was designed to be an exploration of an approach to marketing that was completely new to me. The posts ranged from 700 to 7,000 words in length and included many interactive demos of our new products baked right into the blog posts – including many hacks that required custom code.

Fortunately, I had the help of some incredible Unbounce developers:

Sam Shen – who, with Sabrina Chan’s mockups, built a redesign of the blog (just for the new product marketing category) in two days.

Noah Matsell & Brian Burns – who saved my ass by providing many custom workarounds, use case examples, and interactive demos. The most impressive of them being a way to communicate across domains to set and read cookies so that I could demo the cookie targeting feature of the new products.

Luis Francisco – one of our designers who is rapidly becoming one of the best hackers of Unbounce. Including the mind-blowing augmented reality demo in my 5 Legitimately Cool Use Cases for Website Popups post.

Not to mention the guidance, brainstorming, reality checks, and content planning help of the awesome Jen Pepper, and five designers who took turns creating the majority of the blog post hero images under the guidance of Cesar Martinez.

The craziness of the challenge was important to me. I don’t get inspired by normalcy. I love chaos and ridiculous ideas, and honestly, if I’d planned on writing three blog posts I probably wouldn’t have written any.

Turns out I was a bit too ambitious, and after ten consecutive sixteen hour days (weekends included) I decided to remove weekend posts from the schedule because they get little traction anyway, and focus more on quality than quantity, resulting in this post being number 20 – still pretty damn good.

Pretty sure my wife Nicole would’ve left me if I continued at that pace with the neglect that came with it. #alwaysbeoptimizing

Content Marketing Performance: Was I Wasting My Time?

Given that I was now dealing with pure product awareness, the topic of content marketing in general became top of mind. In particular, how does our blog perform as an agent of customer acquisition?

Digging into Kissmetrics I was shocked by what I uncovered.

As an attributable part of customer acquisition, the content I’d written on the blog in January was converting readers to NTS (new trial starts) at the paltry rate of 0.3%. Let me repeat that. Zero point three percent.

The blog converts at 0.3%. WTF?! How can that be the case?

What am I (and/or we) doing so wrong that this number is a possible reality? Content has been the hallmark of our marketing since we started Unbounce 8 years ago.

Time to dig deeper into the data.

The Data Insights & Lessons Learned I’ll be Sharing in This Post

In the interests of transparency (one of our six core values), I’ll be sharing all of the data I could find that helps shed light on the performance and effect of my month of madness.

It’s important to note that the full impact of this endeavor won’t be visible for a few months for a couple of reasons: we measure a customer as someone who’s paid us three times, and true product adoption can occur at any time.

Here’s a linked list of the data, insights, and learnings that you’ll find in the remainder of the post.

The number of NTS (new trial starts) attributed to Product Awareness Month

Historical NTS attributed to the blog

How other companies content marketing performs. I reached out to:

Andy Crestodina from Orbit Media

Cyrus Shepard formerly at Moz

John Bonini from Databox

Impact of the blog redesign

Sidebar

Header

Blog posts with old design

Individual blog post interaction

Blog traffic

Blog Subscription Conversion Rates for different popup trigger types

The impact of changes to our highest organic traffic page

SaaS app login data

Product awareness and adoption numbers

Visitors

Users

Customers

How many words I wrote

Impact on writing quality

What I should be writing about next

I’ll also discuss what I learned as a marketer, writer, and SaaS co-founder, after living the past 30 days like this.

Insight #1 – Blog Conversion Rates to NTS attributed to Product Awareness Month

Here’s a look at the funnel report in Kissmetrics that shows the conversion rate from visits to the new content to new Unbounce trial starts (NTS).

As I mentioned, I was really shocked by this number. Only 37 NTS from all that effort? I was starting to think that my content simply wasn’t interesting or relevant enough to convince people to sign up.

Was it just me?

Insight #2 – Historical Blog Conversion Rates

Then I looked at some historical data to make a comparison. The chart below is for the previous 9 months of blog content. I would’ve looked further back in time, but since we switched the website to HTTPS the reporting gets a little more complex.

Turns out that our blog converts at that rate in general. It’s important to note that the second chart is based on every single blog post on the blog, for that 9 month period, which is why the actual number of signups is so much higher.

At least it’s not just me.

Now, you may be inclined to think that given the low numbers, the blog doesn’t have the efficacy to warrant its existence or at least the amount of effort that goes into maintaining it. I know I started having some doubts.

But then I reached out to some industry folks who I deeply admire for their content marketing prowess, to see what their experiences and thoughts were on the topic.

Insight #3 – Content Marketing at Other Companies

The first person I contacted was Andy Crestodina, co-founder of Orbit Media a Chicago web development a design agency. Andy is a good friend, an incredible speaker, and a genius content marketer whose expertise I value highly. Here’s what he had to say:

This is an awesome question that gets to something that a lot of content marketers may not understand: it’s the indirect benefits of content marketing that drive results. And in a lot of cases, it’s about SEO. The content drives the links, which drive the authority, which drive the rankings, which drive qualified visitors who searched for a “commercial intent” keyphrase …and now you have a visitor who is highly likely to convert, unlike your typical blog reader.

Here’s the data on our analytics. We had just over a million visits last year. (yay!) And 91% of those visitors started on a blog post.

But do these people ever really turn into business leads?

…not really. Almost never actually. But obviously, we’d have a lot less traffic (brand awareness) if we didn’t publish anything. Our site would be just a brochure. We wouldn’t have followers or subscribers. But the other downside of not having a blog (and maybe the most important benefit of blogging) is the links.

According to Open Site Explorer’s “Top Pages” report, there are virtually no links to our service pages. The top 217 linked-to pages, except for the home page, are blog posts and authors.

So without these pages, we’d have no authority …and no ranking for the “money phrases”.

If you want to attract visitors who have strong intent, who have their wallets out, you have to have a lot of content, links and authority so you can rank for the phrase. I bet the Unbounce analytics and rankings look a lot like this.

If you want the fortune, you’ve got to get the glory first!

Genius.

I also reached out to Cyrus Shepard, the former Director of SEO & Audience Development at Moz. Here’s what he had to say:

Our content with the highest conversion rates were always surprising and very specific (posts about title tags and how to run a site audit). The problem was, while these pieces had a 5x conversion rate over other content, the number of overall conversions they drove was actually small compared to our total. In other words, if we would have focused on these micro-problems exclusively, our overall sales would likely have been much smaller.

Counter-intuitively, we found we did better on big content with corresponding ridiculously low conversion rates, because it raised awareness. Awareness raised brand interest/queries, and 2-3-4 months down the line we close the sale when they are ready to purchase. In other words, our content with the actual highest conversion rates—as it is with all companies—was our homepage and “about” pages (and also our tools, but that’s another story). So raising brand awareness long-term always trumped short-term content-specific conversions.

Some similar sentiment to Andy where the long-term thinking, and believe that if you publish exceptional content you will benefit in indirect ways.

Finally, I reached out to John Bonini from Databox, who explained how they use dashboards (created with their own product which looks awesome) to keep a close eye on blog attribution. Here’s the one John shared with me. I embedded it in an iFrame so I’d suggest clicking inside it to scroll inside the different data blocks.

And here’s what he had to say about how their blog benefits their business:

1. For us, the blog plays a pretty powerful role in getting readers into the product. We transitioned to freemium last year, so the barrier to entry into the product is low. What works well for us is covering the challenges that marketers and salespeople are having in tracking performance and making sense of their data. Rather than rely on premium content like ebooks and webinars (we use these more for customer marketing) we’ll include free templates for dashboards that help solve the problem we’re writing about. It’s a fairly straight line from problem>>solution, which is why the blog is such a powerful lever.

2. Content attribution is hard. And the reality is that monthly reporting decks are binary–were the goals hit or not? Are we growing at or above the rate we need to…or not? Gross revenue was X. ARR is Y. So when you start talking about the importance of multi-touch attribution in order to measure the effectiveness of the blog, you run the risk of seeming like you’re “in the clouds.” I’ve had heated debates with executives who felt strongly against “being a publishing house.” Because attribution in many cases wasn’t a straight line, the content to them was fluff, and the time spent on it was sunk cost. The best thing to arm yourself within those cases is specific examples. Measuring the aggregate success of your blog is hard, but when you’re tracking the success of specific blog posts you know see a lot of traffic, you can better illustrate the value in producing more and optimizing for the long-term. That’s why I use the attached chart to keep an eye on our top visited pages (most of which are blog posts) and track the number of signups coming from each. As organic traffic grows, so does the output from each post. If you can convey that quickly and succinctly, you make a strong case.

Who’s Reading Your Blog?

We need to also recognize the fact that sometimes the person reading your content isn’t the person who ends up paying for it. There’s a difference between a functional user and a functional buyer, and that’s why attribution is the single biggest challenge in marketing today.

Connecting the who with the what with the when and the why is very difficult, for almost everyone.

Takeaway – It’s all yo’ blogs too!

We need to think a little differently when choosing the metrics we assign to our content marketing. I’d love to hear about how your blog performs in regard to similar metrics. Jump in the comments if you’d care to share.

It’s worth discussing a few other factors when thinking about the value of a blog. I know that personally, when I’m looking at the website of a software or service provider, if they don’t have a team page with photos of the company’s employees, a physical address for the office, and a blog that’s active, I won’t give them my business – unless they are the only option.

In many ways perception is reality.

If you don’t appear to be active or don’t appear to be a thought leader in the space you’re selling in, you simply don’t appear as credible as a company who is.

So Is Content Marketing a Waste of Time & Money or Not?

No. Clearly not. You just need to understand the nuances of how you measure your ROI so that you’re not thrown off by the metrics and numbers I’ve just shared with you.

In the rest of this post, I hope you will learn enough to persuade you if you’re not persuaded about the value of content marketing, and if you already are, I hope you learn some brilliant tactical ideas for 2018.

Insight #4 – Impact of the blog redesign

In this section, I’ll cover the impacts a new blog design (just for this month’s posts) impacted interaction behavior. I’ll break it down into three sections:

Sidebar: How did a new product focused sidebar perform?

Header: We introduced a new header navigation bar with a different focus.

Old posts: A comparative look at how the header and sidebar interaction was on posts with the old design.

Individual posts: How did interactions with the header CTAs vary between different post topics?

Insight #4a – Impact of the blog redesign: analyzing the new sidebar

Part of the redesign included a new sidebar dedicated to the two new products. You can see the before and after designs below.

Blog Design Before and After

I was pretty excited to see how this would perform as we’ve never been that blatantly promotional on the blog before.

Here’s a click heat map based on traffic to the first few posts. The screenshot background is auto-generated from the first post, but the sidebar and header were constant elements that show cumulative clicks.

Out of 1,481 (desktop) visitors and 3,428 clicks, only 3 people (0.09%) clicked the sidebar CTA. More people clicked on the statement beneath the button than on the button itself.

My first instinct was to think that the subtext read as a clearer and more actionable statement than the button copy, so I reversed them (putting the subtext as the button copy), but it changed nothing.

Nobody cared about the sidebar CTA.

Something to note is that it wasn’t a sticky sidebar (it disappears as you scroll) which no doubt had an impact on the low engagement numbers, but the content was too long to make it a persistent sidebar because the CTA wouldn’t be visible in most browsers.

Takeaway – Nobody cares about your sidebar

After a week with little to no interaction with the sidebar, we decided to simply remove it. I think the reading experience is significantly nicer without it.

Insight #4b – Impact of the blog redesign: analyzing the new header

The more significant change to the blog was the new header. Removing the standard SaaS navigation with features, templates, integrations, pricing etc. allowed the content to be the focus, with a greatly simplified expression of our product’s value proposition.

Here’s a wireframe for the new header.

I loved nerding out with my new reMarkable tablet to sketch many of the diagrams and illustrations throughout the month. Apologies for my terrible handwriting, but if you’re a visual thinker and communicator it’s the best product I’ve ever used.

Let’s take a look at some heat maps for the header.

Week One

The heat map below is for the first four blog posts and shows quite a lot of activity on the three product CTAs.

Number of clicks [Landing Pages: 26] [Popups: 39] [Sticky Bars: 43]

Total clicks on product CTAs 108 out of 1,481 clicks = 3.15%

Week Two

The next one is for the middle part of the month after the sidebar had been removed.

Number of clicks [Landing Pages: 106] [Popups: 124] [Sticky Bars: 99]

Total clicks on product CTAs 329 out of 7,596 clicks = 4.42%

Week 3

Week 3 is missing because I’m an idiot and forgot to start the heat map recording in Hotjar.

Week 4

Later in the month, the heat map tells a slightly different story. Note that this is a smaller sample size as it’s not been collecting data as long.

Number of clicks [Landing Pages: 16] [Popups: 28] [Sticky Bars: 33]

Total clicks on product CTAs 77 out of 2,387 clicks = 2.56%

The lower % of clicks here might be explained by repeat visitors not having a need to click again. Or it could be the topic and quality of the posts, or it could be a sampling issue.

Insight #4c – Click Map Data From Old Posts

To gain some comparative perspective, I dug out some heat maps from blog posts that have the original design, to see how they fared. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison as the CTAs are not the same in both designs.

But it is interesting to note that on this blog post about 35 landing page design examples (our highest traffic blog post of all time), the combined number of clicks on the top CTA and the sidebar CTA was 2 out of 1,844.

And a similarly high-traffic landing page examples post only received 6 clicks out of 1,777 visitors.

It seems you have to work really hard to get people to click your product CTAs from a blog post.

Insight #4d – Interaction Based on Blog Post Topic

If we look at individual posts from Product Awareness Month, we can see some really interesting patterns based on the topic of the post. For the five posts below, all of them have a dominant percentage of clicks going to the product being discussed in the post.

In the examples below the values represent the number of clicks each CTA received.

Popup Post 1: A Blueprint for the Perfect Popup

[Landing Pages: 4] [Popups: 13] [Sticky Bars: 2]

Popup Post 2: “Maybe Later” – A New Interaction Model for E-commerce Entrance Popups

[Landing Pages: 9] [Popups: 20] [Sticky Bars: 12]

Popup Post 3: 11 Awesome Popup Design Examples – Scored by the Delight Equation

[Landing Pages: 11] [Popups: 16] [Sticky Bars: 2]

Sticky Bar Post 1: 9 Creative Sticky Bar Examples – Plus 21 New Unbounce Templates

Super low traffic on this one, but the pattern remains intact.

[Landing Pages: 1] [Popups: 3] [Sticky Bars: 9]

Sticky Bar Post 2: How to Build a Sticky SaaS Product

This one’s not really even about sticky bars per se. It just has the word in the title and an equal measure of mentions of the sticky bar and popup products.

[Landing Pages: 4] [Popups: 5] [Sticky Bars: 9]

Takeaway – Context Matters

Now it might seem obvious that it would be the case that the blog post topic would dictate product interest, but it’s still really nice to confirm it through data and to know that the content is indeed driving the intended behavior from the audience.

Insight #5 – Blog Traffic

One of the things we’ve been learning of late is the importance of getting back to basics with SEO, and writing content that people are actually searching for. Obvious enough. But that’s not what I had in mind when I started this month of content production. I was stuck in my own head, with my own concepts, and my own ideas of how I was going to change things.

As a result, about half of the content I wrote has an easily identifiable search term to optimize for. But the other half don’t.

I’m okay with that, to an extent, because I firmly believe you can’t spend all of your time answering people’s search questions. That’s a critical path to business success, but in order to rise above your competitors, you also need to invent things. To come up with new ways of thinking – actual thought leadership.

I have an innate need to create things that not only scratch an itch in myself, to expand my intellect, and thought process, but also because I want to inspire someone else to care or grow, or experiment, and think in ways they hadn’t previously considered.

It’s similar to the concept of breaking content marketing into two buckets of lead gen and awareness. You need inspiration as well as resolution.

I digress. What’s the traffic to the blog been like this month? Well for starters, when I made this crazy challenge to myself, I didn’t realize that our blog traffic has taken a big hit in the past year. I’m not sure what my decision-making process would have been had I known. Do I get more excited because I want to re-energize the blog? Or do I think that it’s not worth the effort if we don’t get much traffic anymore?

Here’s a GA chart of traffic to our blog since we started Unbounce in 2009.

You can see that in early 2017, things changed, pretty dramatically.

(You can also see that we’ve got a decent boost this month).

If we segment this by organic traffic and compare April 2017 to January 2017, you see a graph like this, where we lost around 35% of our organic blog traffic in one quarter.

I reached out to Cody Campbell, our Marketing Manager of Funnel Growth (and resident SEO pro) for an explanation. Here’s how he described what had happened:

We have 1250 posts published on the Unbounce blog.

In 2017, those posts drove 1.6 million sessions to our blog. That’s 18% of total website traffic.

Of that 1.6M sessions, 77% was Organic. Yay for SEO…but this was also an incredibly terrifying fact at the same time. We had all our eggs in one basket. And lucky for us, that basket was performing really well. Until it all came crashing down.

The Largest Traffic Drop of 2017 In the 4 month period between January and April, blog traffic dropped 74,000 sessions.

Here’s the breakdown: Organic: 60k decrease Direct: 7.3k decrease Social: 2.2k decrease Email: 5.3k decrease

After digging deeper, we found that the majority of the traffic drop came from 23 posts. Wait. What? 1.84% of our posts were driving the bulk of our blog traffic? Yup.

…Holy sh!t. What happened?

Most of those high traffic blog posts were written between 2012 to 2016 and we hadn’t touched them since. Meanwhile, numerous competitors entered the market and content marketing hit its climax.

The spreadsheet below shows some of the posts, and the impact this period had on them.

The result? We’re now competing against a ton of other companies in the Google SERPs all of whom are trying to rank for the same keywords.

Our competitor’s content was far more up-to-date than ours (and in some cases even better), so, naturally, it started to get more attention from readers. Google took notice and started dropping us from position #1 to position 2 or 3.

Moving from position #1 to #3 lost us up to 50% or more of our traffic per post. And when that happens and you only have a handful of posts holding up your blog, you’re in trouble.

Takeaway

In a highly competitive space, it’s critical that you maintain your organic rankings by updating and optimizing your important blog content so it doesn’t fall below the quality and impact of what others are doing.

Insight #6 – Blog Subscription Conversion Rates for Different Popup Trigger Types

In order to explore the concept of two-step opt-in forms, I set up two methods for people to subscribe to the weekly email digests we created for those interested in following along with Product Awareness Month.

Version 1 used an exit-triggered popup to present the subscribe form, and version 2 used a click-triggered popup to create the two-step opt-in experience.

Here’s the popup people were shown:

Trigger Method #1 – Exit Popup Subscribe

Exit popups are great in that almost everyone sees them, but they don’t have the intelligence to know whether the visitor was enjoying the content or not. In our experiences, the conversion rate depends highly on the perceived value of the offer.

When we give away video recordings of events we put on (webinars or conferences) the conversion rates are fantastic, between 15 and 30%.

When you’re offering a blog subscription, it’s typically in the 1-5% range. In this instance, we were offering a subscription to the blog, but the value was described as following along with our product awareness experiment, as opposed to the blog in general. Limiting the value even further.

The conversion rate for the exit popup hovered around the 2% range, dipping to 1.86% overall.

Trigger Method #2 – Click Popup Subscribe

The click trigger is the absolute best option if you want to create a valuable experience, as the popup you show is based on an explicitly expressed intent. I set up links throughout the blog posts, asking people to subscribe. When they clicked the link they got the popup.

The conversion rate for the click-triggered popup varied from around the 20% range, dipping to 15.57% overall.

So for this example, the click-triggered popup outperformed the exit popup by 722%.

Declining Conversion Rates

The reason I mention the dips in conversion rates is that I found the change really interesting. The sample sizes are not very big (120 and 52 conversions respectively), but the conversion rates held fairly steady for weeks, dropping closer to the end of the month.

This could be entirely based on sample size, but another hypothesis I had was that the motivation to subscribe was waning with every day because the value was diminished as the month went on. If you’re being asked to subscribe to a one-month content experience, and there are only 1 or 2 weeks remaining, it makes perfect sense that fewer people would care.

I can’t prove or disprove either explanation, but it’s definitely food for thought when designing time-based experiences like this.

Takeaway

It’s important to consider whether the value of your offer changes over time – either increasing or decreasing – so that you can better understand the subsequent motivation.

Insight #7 – Call to Action Clicks on Our Highest Traffic Content Page

As part of my post about the highest-traffic page you’re neglecting, I rewrote the content on our “What is a Landing Page?” page that receives over 10,000 unique visitors per month.

As part of the exercise, I experimented with three options in a choose-your-own-adventure format, as a learning exercise so we can study what these visitors are actually looking for.

Option 1: “I’m new to landing pages, and want to learn more.” CTA >> [ Watch The Landing Page Sessions Video Series ]

Option 2: “I have a landing page, but I’m not sure how good it is.” CTA >> [ Grade Your Page With The Landing Page Analyzer ]

Option 3: “I need to build a landing page.” CTA >> [ Try The Unbounce Builder in Preview Mode ]

When I looked at the scroll map data it showed that fewer than 50% of visitors were scrolling far enough to see the three CTAs.

So I moved them up to the top of the post, right beneath the opening description of what a landing page is – based on the fact that 86% of visitors scroll that far, and that the needs of most visitors have been met at this point (answering their question about what a landing page is).

Then I recorded the clicks that the three CTAs were getting to measure the intent and experience level of the audience. The values in the heat map below show the percentage of all clicks on the page.

Out of 983 desktop pageviews, the numerical distribution of 141 clicks was as follows:

[I’m New: 111] [I Have an LP: 15] [I need to build an LP: 15]

It’s really clear that the beginner level CTA is most relevant to visitors to this page. Makes total sense. But when we were looking at this, Cody wondered if the order of the CTAs might be an influencing factor.

So I flipped the order and ran it for another 1,000 pageviews.

This time, out of 1,013 desktop pageviews, the numerical distribution of only 83 clicks was as follows:

[I need to build an LP: 48] [I Have an LP: 1] [I’m New: 34]

Really interesting that the number one slot retained its position as the click leader, but the overall number of clicks dropped from 11.94% to 6.33%, a decrease of 89%.

I’d like to run this again as an A/B test with a larger sample size, but my hypothesis for why the number of interactions dropped is that the first option is too aggressive for the majority of visitors to this page, resulting in them not going to the effort of reading all three options.

To add a little confirmation to the experiment, I reverted to the original order and ran the heat map again.

This time, out of 835 desktop pageviews, the numerical distribution of 116 clicks was as follows:

[I’m New: 94] [I Have an LP: 10] [I need to build an LP: 12]

Which is very close to the first one in terms of distribution.

Takeaway

Choose-your-own-adventure navigation is a really fun and interesting way to learn about the intent of your visitors, and the order and magnitude of the action you’re asking people to take can influence how much interaction takes place.

Fascinating stuff!

Insight #8 – SaaS User Login Visits

This one is a bit tangential, and came to me when designing The Login Hijack concept in my post about cool use cases for popups.

For SaaS businesses, it’s very common for people to visit your website for the sole purpose of logging in to your app, and if you don’t take this into account your metrics can be way off.

You can see that for Unbounce 35.04% of website sessions are used to log in to the Unbounce app.

I reached out on Twitter to inquire about the numbers at other SaaS companies and found a lot of similarities:

Stefan Debois‏ reported that for SurveyAnyPlace.com it’s 45% of homepage visits

John Bonini from Databox shared that their number is 28%

Jon Davis from Shape.io reported a number of 30%

All of these numbers represent significant potential for incorrect reporting, and opportunistic product marketing to your customers who are showing up for this reason.

Takeaway

I ran a Twitter poll to extend the question:

What’s particularly interesting is that the majority of people who answered don’t know. We all need to know this number. Go find yours and report in the comments.

Insight #9 – Product Awareness and Adoption Data

In this section I’ll cover the levels of awareness increase based on three segments of people:

Visitors: new folks coming to Unbounce.com who have never used the product

Users: those with an Unbounce account of some type who have not paid us three times

Customers: those who have paid us three times

Insight #9a – Product Awareness: New Visitors

Looking in GA, there were 8,036 new visitors who were exposed to the new Product Awareness Month content – who were not current users or customers.

This will be an interesting chart to follow over time to see which content continues to produce organic traffic.

Looking at Kissmetrics we can look at the cohort who have reached a product touchpoint including documentation, features pages or campaign landing pages specific to popups and sticky bars (but not the new PAM content):

Visitors have seen awareness content (excl. PAM)

Visitors have seen awareness content (with PAM) These are visitors who have found their way to the product touchpoints AND also saw the PAM content.

What this shows us is that 274/3762 = 7.3% of total new aware visitors in January came from the Product Awareness Month content.

Insight #9b – Product Awareness: Users

Let’s use a different lens for a moment. The previous section was an analysis of Unbounce customers based on our definition of a customer being someone who has paid us three times.

But what if we look at overall users? Our user count is much larger than the customer count because it includes those still on their free trial as well as plans like free / student / startup / not-for-profit.

In the past 30 days, changes in product awareness look like the chart below. That’s an increase of 2,031 people (10.7%) in the total population based on the activities and campaigns of the awareness squad.

Now if we include folks who’ve seen the Product Awareness Month content, the number rises by an additional 374 people.

In essence, what this tells us is that the Product Awareness Month content contributed 18.4% of the total user awareness increase in January.

That’s pretty damn cool. And because it’s content, it will continue to live on and continue to increase awareness. At least the portions that speak to search intent, and those that inspire backlinks.

Insight #9c – Product Awareness & Adoption: Customers

When we first began marketing popups and sticky bars we were focused on both prospects and customers. But adoption is largely dependent on customer awareness of the products, and so one of our teams in Customer Success got to work.

Knowing awareness was the goal, they launched a campaign designed to make sure our customer base knew we weren’t just a landing page builder anymore.

They created an epic video, embedded it on this landing page, and ran their campaign, which included redesigning our login screen to take advantage of a placement every customer sees multiple times:

The results? The team’s had 3,473 visits to the landing page (about 27% of our active customer base) and 52,603 views of the new login page ad above.

For the purposes of this campaign, the team defined “aware” as anyone who had reached a product touchpoint including documentation, features pages or campaign landing pages specific to popups and sticky bars.

The data below represents awareness changes over time as defined above. It currently doesn’t filter for customers only, but does include criteria that someone has accessed the builder in addition to the other touch points aforementioned:

As you can see, corresponding to the launch of two major customer campaigns, there has been a steading increase in encounters with these touchpoints, and thereby awareness.

There has been a 51.49% increase in awareness in just the first week following the launch, as seen in the day-by-day view below:

Regarding adoption, our product adoption funnel looks like this in simple terms:

Created -> Published -> Installed -> Evaluated -> Adopted

The chart below shows the growth of the various stages since we launched the limited beta at the end of 2016.

Zooming in below, you can see that some of the adoption funnel metrics are a bit flat, but the exciting thing is that the number of popups and sticky bars being created and published is showing a great improvement which will naturally lead to adoption. And it looks like the lift started right around the time of the January 15th campaign launch.

We have a phase 2 campaign going out soon focus on driving people all the way through the adoption funnel, which will hopefully amplify these early successes.

Takeaway

While the blog could work to increase awareness with those who’ve never heard about us, customer campaigns are still very necessary.

Insight #10 – How Many Words Did I Write?

Including this post my tally sits at around 37,000 words.

According to research into the page count of recent NYT bestsellers list books, 300 pages is about the right length. At an average of 250 words per page, that totals 75,000 words.

Basically, I’m halfway to having people read about popups and sticky bars on a plane, in my book they bought in an airport bookstore.

Takeaway

Write 20 more posts then stick ‘em all together and call Wiley and Random House.

Insight #11 – The Impact Quantity Has on Quality

I put out some seriously awesome content this month. Stuff I’m really proud of in terms of creative thought and interaction design. But there’s one thing that’s missing (I think) from the writing, once I started to get tired from all the writing.

I lost my edge in terms of personality and humor.

It just wasn’t possible to write that many posts, with that many words, and find a way to make it as entertaining as I expect my content to be. But that’s because there were no second drafts, no editing, virtually no QA on mobile. It was always a 2am battle to finish the day’s post to publish it before I went to bed.

Add. Rinse. Repeat.

Another important factor was that because I was so rushed, and creating so much content, I had no time to do any image optimization. There are no alt or title tags on the images and links, so there’s a big missed opportunity for image search. Having an extra day per post, would have made a big difference.

Takeaway

I love the quantity. I guess I’m vain that way, but if we want our content to live on past the typical 3-5 day window that blog posts have to be seen, then they either have to be so special that everyone links to them, or so on point with the search intent of your ideal customer that it’s find time and time again.

One of the biggest drivers of traffic to our blog from organic search is to a post about email subject lines, which has absolutely nothing to do with our target audience. We used to have a very broad full-stack breadth to our content which was great, it has a ton of value. But it doesn’t attract our ideal customer, which makes it a waste.

Tough lesson learned. We’ll be focusing our content (aside from this month’s insanity) in a much more targeted manner this year, and I’m excited to see how much of an impact it has on our key metrics.

Insight #12 – What Should I be Writing About Next?

I’ve learned a lot in the past 30 days about what is and isn’t important when it comes to impactful content, and I’m re-energized to continue creating value for our now and future customers. But what form will it take?

Based on the highest organic traffic content, there are two places that need an urgent overhaul:

The Landing Page Conversion Course (LPCC)

The Landing Page Conversion Course has always been great at attracting traffic, however, it’s very out of date, and the product videos are now 5 years old and not representative of what Unbounce has become as a product. It was also purposely targeted at top of funnel signups for our old free account. The focus of the new iteration will be much more targeted at NTS and getting much higher value from the content.

The landing page articles section

The landing page articles section is sooooo old. I wrote it in 2010 and only managed to rewrite one page of it this month (as part of insight #7 above). It’ll be great to freshen this up and provide better value for all those visitors looking for help with their landing page learning.

How do I Feel About Product Awareness Month Now?

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve felt so exhausted at any point in my professional career. This was a barn burner of a month. But it’s been such a rich and valuable journey for me, both as a marketer, and a co-founder. Hopefully it’s also been enriching for those who have followed along throughout this crazy experiment.

What’s next? Well before I dive into those two other projects, I need to get my butt to Mexico for a brief honeymoon with my beautiful bride Nicole. My plane leaves at 10:30am.

Adiós amigos! See you in a week.

Cheers, Oli Gardner

Is Content Marketing a Waste of Time and Money? Data and Lessons Learned from 20 posts in 30 days. published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/

[roypstickney]

Is Content Marketing a Waste of Time and Money? Data and Lessons Learned from 20 posts in 30 days.

Before I address the burning question in the headline, let’s rewind to the start of product awareness month for some context.

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I kicked 2018 off with a bold, self-inflicted challenge to write 30 blog posts in 30 days in a bid to increase adoption of our two new products, Popups and Sticky Bars.

The initial thinking was to call this effort Product Marketing Month, with the content based on our (and my) journey to become more proficient product marketers. As I shared at the start of the journey, the adoption of the new products had been disappointingly low; only 6% of our customers were using them when I first started looking at the numbers in August. That number was probably around 7% or 8% at the start of January.

Being a marketer who hadn’t actually practiced the discipline of product marketing, I thought that by talking about our products more directly in the content – including interactive demos and interesting use cases – coupled with a redesign of the blog just for this new content, we’d crush those numbers with ease.

I was incredibly naive

Boy oh boy was I wrong. Not only did I misinterpret what product marketing is: an expansive role that includes customer insights, data analysis, product validation, positioning, and market research, but I assumed that top of funnel content alone could solve our problems.

In my moment of hubris, I even bought the domain whatsproductmarketing.com where I intended to have a blank white page with the word “Marketing” on it. Cos that’s all product marketing is, right? Nope. In the end, I decided against that brazen approach.

It quickly became clear that what I was actually doing was more closely tied to product awareness. As with many other SaaS content marketers, I had little control or influence over what happened to people after they sign up. So we repositioned the challenge as Product Awareness Month.

I also inadvertently caused offense to some folks in the company by including a question in the first blog post that posited “Do we suck at product marketing?”.

While I’d intended it as a question (to start the post with a provocative buzz-generating bang), it came across more as a statement, and pretty offensive one at that. Especially when the social team latched onto the power of that statement (rightly so) and started tweeting about it.

I think it was co-founder Carter Gilchrist who helped me understand the impact by asking me “If you’d said ‘Do we suck at design? Or do we suck at engineering?’ how do you think the team would feel about it?” Pretty shitty I imagine. I removed that line from the post. The talented people on our product and product marketing teams deserve better than that.

The 30-Posts-in-30-Days Challenge

The best part of this challenge was getting back to writing. Because I’ve been on the road so much as a public speaker recently, it turns out I hadn’t written a single word on our blog (or Unbounce marketing content in general) for two years.

30 posts was an audacious goal. Especially when you consider how much of it was designed to be an exploration of an approach to marketing that was completely new to me. The posts ranged from 700 to 7,000 words in length and included many interactive demos of our new products baked right into the blog posts – including many hacks that required custom code.

Fortunately, I had the help of some incredible Unbounce developers:

Sam Shen – who, with Sabrina Chan’s mockups, built a redesign of the blog (just for the new product marketing category) in two days.

Noah Matsell & Brian Burns – who saved my ass by providing many custom workarounds, use case examples, and interactive demos. The most impressive of them being a way to communicate across domains to set and read cookies so that I could demo the cookie targeting feature of the new products.

Luis Francisco – one of our designers who is rapidly becoming one of the best hackers of Unbounce. Including the mind-blowing augmented reality demo in my 5 Legitimately Cool Use Cases for Website Popups post.

Not to mention the guidance, brainstorming, reality checks, and content planning help of the awesome Jen Pepper, and five designers who took turns creating the majority of the blog post hero images under the guidance of Cesar Martinez.

The craziness of the challenge was important to me. I don’t get inspired by normalcy. I love chaos and ridiculous ideas, and honestly, if I’d planned on writing three blog posts I probably wouldn’t have written any.

Turns out I was a bit too ambitious, and after ten consecutive sixteen hour days (weekends included) I decided to remove weekend posts from the schedule because they get little traction anyway, and focus more on quality than quantity, resulting in this post being number 20 – still pretty damn good.

Pretty sure my wife Nicole would’ve left me if I continued at that pace with the neglect that came with it. #alwaysbeoptimizing

Content Marketing Performance: Was I Wasting My Time?

Given that I was now dealing with pure product awareness, the topic of content marketing in general became top of mind. In particular, how does our blog perform as an agent of customer acquisition?

Digging into Kissmetrics I was shocked by what I uncovered.

As an attributable part of customer acquisition, the content I’d written on the blog in January was converting readers to NTS (new trial starts) at the paltry rate of 0.3%. Let me repeat that. Zero point three percent.

The blog converts at 0.3%. WTF?! How can that be the case?

What am I (and/or we) doing so wrong that this number is a possible reality? Content has been the hallmark of our marketing since we started Unbounce 8 years ago.

Time to dig deeper into the data.

The Data Insights & Lessons Learned I’ll be Sharing in This Post

In the interests of transparency (one of our six core values), I’ll be sharing all of the data I could find that helps shed light on the performance and effect of my month of madness.

It’s important to note that the full impact of this endeavor won’t be visible for a few months for a couple of reasons: we measure a customer as someone who’s paid us three times, and true product adoption can occur at any time.

Here’s a linked list of the data, insights, and learnings that you’ll find in the remainder of the post.

The number of NTS (new trial starts) attributed to Product Awareness Month

Historical NTS attributed to the blog

How other companies content marketing performs. I reached out to:

Andy Crestodina from Orbit Media

Cyrus Shepard formerly at Moz

John Bonini from Databox

Impact of the blog redesign

Sidebar

Header

Blog posts with old design

Individual blog post interaction

Blog traffic

Blog Subscription Conversion Rates for different popup trigger types

The impact of changes to our highest organic traffic page

SaaS app login data

Product awareness and adoption numbers

Visitors

Users

Customers

How many words I wrote

Impact on writing quality

What I should be writing about next

I’ll also discuss what I learned as a marketer, writer, and SaaS co-founder, after living the past 30 days like this.

Insight #1 – Blog Conversion Rates to NTS attributed to Product Awareness Month

Here’s a look at the funnel report in Kissmetrics that shows the conversion rate from visits to the new content to new Unbounce trial starts (NTS).

As I mentioned, I was really shocked by this number. Only 37 NTS from all that effort? I was starting to think that my content simply wasn’t interesting or relevant enough to convince people to sign up.

Was it just me?

Insight #2 – Historical Blog Conversion Rates

Then I looked at some historical data to make a comparison. The chart below is for the previous 9 months of blog content. I would’ve looked further back in time, but since we switched the website to HTTPS the reporting gets a little more complex.

Turns out that our blog converts at that rate in general. It’s important to note that the second chart is based on every single blog post on the blog, for that 9 month period, which is why the actual number of signups is so much higher.

At least it’s not just me.

Now, you may be inclined to think that given the low numbers, the blog doesn’t have the efficacy to warrant its existence or at least the amount of effort that goes into maintaining it. I know I started having some doubts.

But then I reached out to some industry folks who I deeply admire for their content marketing prowess, to see what their experiences and thoughts were on the topic.

Insight #3 – Content Marketing at Other Companies

The first person I contacted was Andy Crestodina, co-founder of Orbit Media a Chicago web development a design agency. Andy is a good friend, an incredible speaker, and a genius content marketer whose expertise I value highly. Here’s what he had to say:

This is an awesome question that gets to something that a lot of content marketers may not understand: it’s the indirect benefits of content marketing that drive results. And in a lot of cases, it’s about SEO. The content drives the links, which drive the authority, which drive the rankings, which drive qualified visitors who searched for a “commercial intent” keyphrase …and now you have a visitor who is highly likely to convert, unlike your typical blog reader.

Here’s the data on our analytics. We had just over a million visits last year. (yay!) And 91% of those visitors started on a blog post.

But do these people ever really turn into business leads?

…not really. Almost never actually. But obviously, we’d have a lot less traffic (brand awareness) if we didn’t publish anything. Our site would be just a brochure. We wouldn’t have followers or subscribers. But the other downside of not having a blog (and maybe the most important benefit of blogging) is the links.

According to Open Site Explorer’s “Top Pages” report, there are virtually no links to our service pages. The top 217 linked-to pages, except for the home page, are blog posts and authors.

So without these pages, we’d have no authority …and no ranking for the “money phrases”.

If you want to attract visitors who have strong intent, who have their wallets out, you have to have a lot of content, links and authority so you can rank for the phrase. I bet the Unbounce analytics and rankings look a lot like this.

If you want the fortune, you’ve got to get the glory first!

Genius.

I also reached out to Cyrus Shepard, the former Director of SEO & Audience Development at Moz. Here’s what he had to say:

Our content with the highest conversion rates were always surprising and very specific (posts about title tags and how to run a site audit). The problem was, while these pieces had a 5x conversion rate over other content, the number of overall conversions they drove was actually small compared to our total. In other words, if we would have focused on these micro-problems exclusively, our overall sales would likely have been much smaller.

Counter-intuitively, we found we did better on big content with corresponding ridiculously low conversion rates, because it raised awareness. Awareness raised brand interest/queries, and 2-3-4 months down the line we close the sale when they are ready to purchase. In other words, our content with the actual highest conversion rates—as it is with all companies—was our homepage and “about” pages (and also our tools, but that’s another story). So raising brand awareness long-term always trumped short-term content-specific conversions.

Some similar sentiment to Andy where the long-term thinking, and believe that if you publish exceptional content you will benefit in indirect ways.

Finally, I reached out to John Bonini from Databox, who explained how they use dashboards (created with their own product which looks awesome) to keep a close eye on blog attribution. Here’s the one John shared with me. I embedded it in an iFrame so I’d suggest clicking inside it to scroll inside the different data blocks.

And here’s what he had to say about how their blog benefits their business:

1. For us, the blog plays a pretty powerful role in getting readers into the product. We transitioned to freemium last year, so the barrier to entry into the product is low. What works well for us is covering the challenges that marketers and salespeople are having in tracking performance and making sense of their data. Rather than rely on premium content like ebooks and webinars (we use these more for customer marketing) we’ll include free templates for dashboards that help solve the problem we’re writing about. It’s a fairly straight line from problem>>solution, which is why the blog is such a powerful lever.

2. Content attribution is hard. And the reality is that monthly reporting decks are binary–were the goals hit or not? Are we growing at or above the rate we need to…or not? Gross revenue was X. ARR is Y. So when you start talking about the importance of multi-touch attribution in order to measure the effectiveness of the blog, you run the risk of seeming like you’re “in the clouds.” I’ve had heated debates with executives who felt strongly against “being a publishing house.” Because attribution in many cases wasn’t a straight line, the content to them was fluff, and the time spent on it was sunk cost. The best thing to arm yourself within those cases is specific examples. Measuring the aggregate success of your blog is hard, but when you’re tracking the success of specific blog posts you know see a lot of traffic, you can better illustrate the value in producing more and optimizing for the long-term. That’s why I use the attached chart to keep an eye on our top visited pages (most of which are blog posts) and track the number of signups coming from each. As organic traffic grows, so does the output from each post. If you can convey that quickly and succinctly, you make a strong case.

Who’s Reading Your Blog?

We need to also recognize the fact that sometimes the person reading your content isn’t the person who ends up paying for it. There’s a difference between a functional user and a functional buyer, and that’s why attribution is the single biggest challenge in marketing today.

Connecting the who with the what with the when and the why is very difficult, for almost everyone.

Takeaway – It’s all yo’ blogs too!

We need to think a little differently when choosing the metrics we assign to our content marketing. I’d love to hear about how your blog performs in regard to similar metrics. Jump in the comments if you’d care to share.

It’s worth discussing a few other factors when thinking about the value of a blog. I know that personally, when I’m looking at the website of a software or service provider, if they don’t have a team page with photos of the company’s employees, a physical address for the office, and a blog that’s active, I won’t give them my business – unless they are the only option.

In many ways perception is reality.

If you don’t appear to be active or don’t appear to be a thought leader in the space you’re selling in, you simply don’t appear as credible as a company who is.

So Is Content Marketing a Waste of Time & Money or Not?

No. Clearly not. You just need to understand the nuances of how you measure your ROI so that you’re not thrown off by the metrics and numbers I’ve just shared with you.

In the rest of this post, I hope you will learn enough to persuade you if you’re not persuaded about the value of content marketing, and if you already are, I hope you learn some brilliant tactical ideas for 2018.

Insight #4 – Impact of the blog redesign

In this section, I’ll cover the impacts a new blog design (just for this month’s posts) impacted interaction behavior. I’ll break it down into three sections:

Sidebar: How did a new product focused sidebar perform?

Header: We introduced a new header navigation bar with a different focus.

Old posts: A comparative look at how the header and sidebar interaction was on posts with the old design.

Individual posts: How did interactions with the header CTAs vary between different post topics?

Insight #4a – Impact of the blog redesign: analyzing the new sidebar

Part of the redesign included a new sidebar dedicated to the two new products. You can see the before and after designs below.

Blog Design Before and After

I was pretty excited to see how this would perform as we’ve never been that blatantly promotional on the blog before.

Here’s a click heat map based on traffic to the first few posts. The screenshot background is auto-generated from the first post, but the sidebar and header were constant elements that show cumulative clicks.

Out of 1,481 (desktop) visitors and 3,428 clicks, only 3 people (0.09%) clicked the sidebar CTA. More people clicked on the statement beneath the button than on the button itself.

My first instinct was to think that the subtext read as a clearer and more actionable statement than the button copy, so I reversed them (putting the subtext as the button copy), but it changed nothing.

Nobody cared about the sidebar CTA.

Something to note is that it wasn’t a sticky sidebar (it disappears as you scroll) which no doubt had an impact on the low engagement numbers, but the content was too long to make it a persistent sidebar because the CTA wouldn’t be visible in most browsers.

Takeaway – Nobody cares about your sidebar

After a week with little to no interaction with the sidebar, we decided to simply remove it. I think the reading experience is significantly nicer without it.

Insight #4b – Impact of the blog redesign: analyzing the new header

The more significant change to the blog was the new header. Removing the standard SaaS navigation with features, templates, integrations, pricing etc. allowed the content to be the focus, with a greatly simplified expression of our product’s value proposition.

Here’s a wireframe for the new header.

I loved nerding out with my new reMarkable tablet to sketch many of the diagrams and illustrations throughout the month. Apologies for my terrible handwriting, but if you’re a visual thinker and communicator it’s the best product I’ve ever used.

Let’s take a look at some heat maps for the header.

Week One

The heat map below is for the first four blog posts and shows quite a lot of activity on the three product CTAs.

Number of clicks [Landing Pages: 26] [Popups: 39] [Sticky Bars: 43]

Total clicks on product CTAs 108 out of 1,481 clicks = 3.15%

Week Two

The next one is for the middle part of the month after the sidebar had been removed.

Number of clicks [Landing Pages: 106] [Popups: 124] [Sticky Bars: 99]

Total clicks on product CTAs 329 out of 7,596 clicks = 4.42%

Week 3

Week 3 is missing because I’m an idiot and forgot to start the heat map recording in Hotjar.

Week 4

Later in the month, the heat map tells a slightly different story. Note that this is a smaller sample size as it’s not been collecting data as long.

Number of clicks [Landing Pages: 16] [Popups: 28] [Sticky Bars: 33]

Total clicks on product CTAs 77 out of 2,387 clicks = 2.56%

The lower % of clicks here might be explained by repeat visitors not having a need to click again. Or it could be the topic and quality of the posts, or it could be a sampling issue.

Insight #4c – Click Map Data From Old Posts

To gain some comparative perspective, I dug out some heat maps from blog posts that have the original design, to see how they fared. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison as the CTAs are not the same in both designs.

But it is interesting to note that on this blog post about 35 landing page design examples (our highest traffic blog post of all time), the combined number of clicks on the top CTA and the sidebar CTA was 2 out of 1,844.

And a similarly high-traffic landing page examples post only received 6 clicks out of 1,777 visitors.

It seems you have to work really hard to get people to click your product CTAs from a blog post.

Insight #4d – Interaction Based on Blog Post Topic

If we look at individual posts from Product Awareness Month, we can see some really interesting patterns based on the topic of the post. For the five posts below, all of them have a dominant percentage of clicks going to the product being discussed in the post.

In the examples below the values represent the number of clicks each CTA received.

Popup Post 1: A Blueprint for the Perfect Popup

[Landing Pages: 4] [Popups: 13] [Sticky Bars: 2]

Popup Post 2: “Maybe Later” – A New Interaction Model for E-commerce Entrance Popups

[Landing Pages: 9] [Popups: 20] [Sticky Bars: 12]

Popup Post 3: 11 Awesome Popup Design Examples – Scored by the Delight Equation

[Landing Pages: 11] [Popups: 16] [Sticky Bars: 2]

Sticky Bar Post 1: 9 Creative Sticky Bar Examples – Plus 21 New Unbounce Templates

Super low traffic on this one, but the pattern remains intact.

[Landing Pages: 1] [Popups: 3] [Sticky Bars: 9]

Sticky Bar Post 2: How to Build a Sticky SaaS Product

This one’s not really even about sticky bars per se. It just has the word in the title and an equal measure of mentions of the sticky bar and popup products.

[Landing Pages: 4] [Popups: 5] [Sticky Bars: 9]

Takeaway – Context Matters

Now it might seem obvious that it would be the case that the blog post topic would dictate product interest, but it’s still really nice to confirm it through data and to know that the content is indeed driving the intended behavior from the audience.

Insight #5 – Blog Traffic

One of the things we’ve been learning of late is the importance of getting back to basics with SEO, and writing content that people are actually searching for. Obvious enough. But that’s not what I had in mind when I started this month of content production. I was stuck in my own head, with my own concepts, and my own ideas of how I was going to change things.

As a result, about half of the content I wrote has an easily identifiable search term to optimize for. But the other half don’t.

I’m okay with that, to an extent, because I firmly believe you can’t spend all of your time answering people’s search questions. That’s a critical path to business success, but in order to rise above your competitors, you also need to invent things. To come up with new ways of thinking – actual thought leadership.

I have an innate need to create things that not only scratch an itch in myself, to expand my intellect, and thought process, but also because I want to inspire someone else to care or grow, or experiment, and think in ways they hadn’t previously considered.

It’s similar to the concept of breaking content marketing into two buckets of lead gen and awareness. You need inspiration as well as resolution.

I digress. What’s the traffic to the blog been like this month? Well for starters, when I made this crazy challenge to myself, I didn’t realize that our blog traffic has taken a big hit in the past year. I’m not sure what my decision-making process would have been had I known. Do I get more excited because I want to re-energize the blog? Or do I think that it’s not worth the effort if we don’t get much traffic anymore?

Here’s a GA chart of traffic to our blog since we started Unbounce in 2009.

You can see that in early 2017, things changed, pretty dramatically.

(You can also see that we’ve got a decent boost this month).

If we segment this by organic traffic and compare April 2017 to January 2017, you see a graph like this, where we lost around 35% of our organic blog traffic in one quarter.

I reached out to Cody Campbell, our Marketing Manager of Funnel Growth (and resident SEO pro) for an explanation. Here’s how he described what had happened:

We have 1250 posts published on the Unbounce blog.

In 2017, those posts drove 1.6 million sessions to our blog. That’s 18% of total website traffic.

Of that 1.6M sessions, 77% was Organic. Yay for SEO…but this was also an incredibly terrifying fact at the same time. We had all our eggs in one basket. And lucky for us, that basket was performing really well. Until it all came crashing down.

The Largest Traffic Drop of 2017 In the 4 month period between January and April, blog traffic dropped 74,000 sessions.

Here’s the breakdown: Organic: 60k decrease Direct: 7.3k decrease Social: 2.2k decrease Email: 5.3k decrease

After digging deeper, we found that the majority of the traffic drop came from 23 posts. Wait. What? 1.84% of our posts were driving the bulk of our blog traffic? Yup.

…Holy sh!t. What happened?

Most of those high traffic blog posts were written between 2012 to 2016 and we hadn’t touched them since. Meanwhile, numerous competitors entered the market and content marketing hit its climax.

The spreadsheet below shows some of the posts, and the impact this period had on them.

The result? We’re now competing against a ton of other companies in the Google SERPs all of whom are trying to rank for the same keywords.

Our competitor’s content was far more up-to-date than ours (and in some cases even better), so, naturally, it started to get more attention from readers. Google took notice and started dropping us from position #1 to position 2 or 3.

Moving from position #1 to #3 lost us up to 50% or more of our traffic per post. And when that happens and you only have a handful of posts holding up your blog, you’re in trouble.

Takeaway

In a highly competitive space, it’s critical that you maintain your organic rankings by updating and optimizing your important blog content so it doesn’t fall below the quality and impact of what others are doing.

Insight #6 – Blog Subscription Conversion Rates for Different Popup Trigger Types

In order to explore the concept of two-step opt-in forms, I set up two methods for people to subscribe to the weekly email digests we created for those interested in following along with Product Awareness Month.

Version 1 used an exit-triggered popup to present the subscribe form, and version 2 used a click-triggered popup to create the two-step opt-in experience.

Here’s the popup people were shown:

Trigger Method #1 – Exit Popup Subscribe

Exit popups are great in that almost everyone sees them, but they don’t have the intelligence to know whether the visitor was enjoying the content or not. In our experiences, the conversion rate depends highly on the perceived value of the offer.

When we give away video recordings of events we put on (webinars or conferences) the conversion rates are fantastic, between 15 and 30%.

When you’re offering a blog subscription, it’s typically in the 1-5% range. In this instance, we were offering a subscription to the blog, but the value was described as following along with our product awareness experiment, as opposed to the blog in general. Limiting the value even further.

The conversion rate for the exit popup hovered around the 2% range, dipping to 1.86% overall.

Trigger Method #2 – Click Popup Subscribe

The click trigger is the absolute best option if you want to create a valuable experience, as the popup you show is based on an explicitly expressed intent. I set up links throughout the blog posts, asking people to subscribe. When they clicked the link they got the popup.

The conversion rate for the click-triggered popup varied from around the 20% range, dipping to 15.57% overall.

So for this example, the click-triggered popup outperformed the exit popup by 722%.

Declining Conversion Rates

The reason I mention the dips in conversion rates is that I found the change really interesting. The sample sizes are not very big (120 and 52 conversions respectively), but the conversion rates held fairly steady for weeks, dropping closer to the end of the month.

This could be entirely based on sample size, but another hypothesis I had was that the motivation to subscribe was waning with every day because the value was diminished as the month went on. If you’re being asked to subscribe to a one-month content experience, and there are only 1 or 2 weeks remaining, it makes perfect sense that fewer people would care.

I can’t prove or disprove either explanation, but it’s definitely food for thought when designing time-based experiences like this.

Takeaway

It’s important to consider whether the value of your offer changes over time – either increasing or decreasing – so that you can better understand the subsequent motivation.

Insight #7 – Call to Action Clicks on Our Highest Traffic Content Page

As part of my post about the highest-traffic page you’re neglecting, I rewrote the content on our “What is a Landing Page?” page that receives over 10,000 unique visitors per month.

As part of the exercise, I experimented with three options in a choose-your-own-adventure format, as a learning exercise so we can study what these visitors are actually looking for.

Option 1: “I’m new to landing pages, and want to learn more.” CTA >> [ Watch The Landing Page Sessions Video Series ]

Option 2: “I have a landing page, but I’m not sure how good it is.” CTA >> [ Grade Your Page With The Landing Page Analyzer ]

Option 3: “I need to build a landing page.” CTA >> [ Try The Unbounce Builder in Preview Mode ]

When I looked at the scroll map data it showed that fewer than 50% of visitors were scrolling far enough to see the three CTAs.

So I moved them up to the top of the post, right beneath the opening description of what a landing page is – based on the fact that 86% of visitors scroll that far, and that the needs of most visitors have been met at this point (answering their question about what a landing page is).

Then I recorded the clicks that the three CTAs were getting to measure the intent and experience level of the audience. The values in the heat map below show the percentage of all clicks on the page.

Out of 983 desktop pageviews, the numerical distribution of 141 clicks was as follows:

[I’m New: 111] [I Have an LP: 15] [I need to build an LP: 15]

It’s really clear that the beginner level CTA is most relevant to visitors to this page. Makes total sense. But when we were looking at this, Cody wondered if the order of the CTAs might be an influencing factor.

So I flipped the order and ran it for another 1,000 pageviews.

This time, out of 1,013 desktop pageviews, the numerical distribution of only 83 clicks was as follows:

[I need to build an LP: 48] [I Have an LP: 1] [I’m New: 34]

Really interesting that the number one slot retained its position as the click leader, but the overall number of clicks dropped from 11.94% to 6.33%, a decrease of 89%.

I’d like to run this again as an A/B test with a larger sample size, but my hypothesis for why the number of interactions dropped is that the first option is too aggressive for the majority of visitors to this page, resulting in them not going to the effort of reading all three options.

To add a little confirmation to the experiment, I reverted to the original order and ran the heat map again.

This time, out of 835 desktop pageviews, the numerical distribution of 116 clicks was as follows:

[I’m New: 94] [I Have an LP: 10] [I need to build an LP: 12]

Which is very close to the first one in terms of distribution.

Takeaway

Choose-your-own-adventure navigation is a really fun and interesting way to learn about the intent of your visitors, and the order and magnitude of the action you’re asking people to take can influence how much interaction takes place.

Fascinating stuff!

Insight #8 – SaaS User Login Visits

This one is a bit tangential, and came to me when designing The Login Hijack concept in my post about cool use cases for popups.

For SaaS businesses, it’s very common for people to visit your website for the sole purpose of logging in to your app, and if you don’t take this into account your metrics can be way off.

You can see that for Unbounce 35.04% of website sessions are used to log in to the Unbounce app.

I reached out on Twitter to inquire about the numbers at other SaaS companies and found a lot of similarities:

Stefan Debois‏ reported that for SurveyAnyPlace.com it’s 45% of homepage visits

John Bonini from Databox shared that their number is 28%

Jon Davis from Shape.io reported a number of 30%

All of these numbers represent significant potential for incorrect reporting, and opportunistic product marketing to your customers who are showing up for this reason.

Takeaway

I ran a Twitter poll to extend the question:

What’s particularly interesting is that the majority of people who answered don’t know. We all need to know this number. Go find yours and report in the comments.

Insight #9 – Product Awareness and Adoption Data

In this section I’ll cover the levels of awareness increase based on three segments of people:

Visitors: new folks coming to Unbounce.com who have never used the product

Users: those with an Unbounce account of some type who have not paid us three times

Customers: those who have paid us three times

Insight #9a – Product Awareness: New Visitors

Looking in GA, there were 8,036 new visitors who were exposed to the new Product Awareness Month content – who were not current users or customers.

This will be an interesting chart to follow over time to see which content continues to produce organic traffic.

Looking at Kissmetrics we can look at the cohort who have reached a product touchpoint including documentation, features pages or campaign landing pages specific to popups and sticky bars (but not the new PAM content):

Visitors have seen awareness content (excl. PAM)

Visitors have seen awareness content (with PAM) These are visitors who have found their way to the product touchpoints AND also saw the PAM content.

What this shows us is that 274/3762 = 7.3% of total new aware visitors in January came from the Product Awareness Month content.

Insight #9b – Product Awareness: Users

Let’s use a different lens for a moment. The previous section was an analysis of Unbounce customers based on our definition of a customer being someone who has paid us three times.

But what if we look at overall users? Our user count is much larger than the customer count because it includes those still on their free trial as well as plans like free / student / startup / not-for-profit.

In the past 30 days, changes in product awareness look like the chart below. That’s an increase of 2,031 people (10.7%) in the total population based on the activities and campaigns of the awareness squad.

Now if we include folks who’ve seen the Product Awareness Month content, the number rises by an additional 374 people.

In essence, what this tells us is that the Product Awareness Month content contributed 18.4% of the total user awareness increase in January.

That’s pretty damn cool. And because it’s content, it will continue to live on and continue to increase awareness. At least the portions that speak to search intent, and those that inspire backlinks.

Insight #9c – Product Awareness & Adoption: Customers

When we first began marketing popups and sticky bars we were focused on both prospects and customers. But adoption is largely dependent on customer awareness of the products, and so one of our teams in Customer Success got to work.

Knowing awareness was the goal, they launched a campaign designed to make sure our customer base knew we weren’t just a landing page builder anymore.

They created an epic video, embedded it on this landing page, and ran their campaign, which included redesigning our login screen to take advantage of a placement every customer sees multiple times:

The results? The team’s had 3,473 visits to the landing page (about 27% of our active customer base) and 52,603 views of the new login page ad above.

For the purposes of this campaign, the team defined “aware” as anyone who had reached a product touchpoint including documentation, features pages or campaign landing pages specific to popups and sticky bars.

The data below represents awareness changes over time as defined above. It currently doesn’t filter for customers only, but does include criteria that someone has accessed the builder in addition to the other touch points aforementioned:

As you can see, corresponding to the launch of two major customer campaigns, there has been a steading increase in encounters with these touchpoints, and thereby awareness.

There has been a 51.49% increase in awareness in just the first week following the launch, as seen in the day-by-day view below:

Regarding adoption, our product adoption funnel looks like this in simple terms:

Created -> Published -> Installed -> Evaluated -> Adopted

The chart below shows the growth of the various stages since we launched the limited beta at the end of 2016.

Zooming in below, you can see that some of the adoption funnel metrics are a bit flat, but the exciting thing is that the number of popups and sticky bars being created and published is showing a great improvement which will naturally lead to adoption. And it looks like the lift started right around the time of the January 15th campaign launch.

We have a phase 2 campaign going out soon focus on driving people all the way through the adoption funnel, which will hopefully amplify these early successes.

Takeaway

While the blog could work to increase awareness with those who’ve never heard about us, customer campaigns are still very necessary.

Insight #10 – How Many Words Did I Write?

Including this post my tally sits at around 37,000 words.

According to research into the page count of recent NYT bestsellers list books, 300 pages is about the right length. At an average of 250 words per page, that totals 75,000 words.

Basically, I’m halfway to having people read about popups and sticky bars on a plane, in my book they bought in an airport bookstore.

Takeaway

Write 20 more posts then stick ‘em all together and call Wiley and Random House.

Insight #11 – The Impact Quantity Has on Quality

I put out some seriously awesome content this month. Stuff I’m really proud of in terms of creative thought and interaction design. But there’s one thing that’s missing (I think) from the writing, once I started to get tired from all the writing.

I lost my edge in terms of personality and humor.

It just wasn’t possible to write that many posts, with that many words, and find a way to make it as entertaining as I expect my content to be. But that’s because there were no second drafts, no editing, virtually no QA on mobile. It was always a 2am battle to finish the day’s post to publish it before I went to bed.

Add. Rinse. Repeat.

Another important factor was that because I was so rushed, and creating so much content, I had no time to do any image optimization. There are no alt or title tags on the images and links, so there’s a big missed opportunity for image search. Having an extra day per post, would have made a big difference.

Takeaway

I love the quantity. I guess I’m vain that way, but if we want our content to live on past the typical 3-5 day window that blog posts have to be seen, then they either have to be so special that everyone links to them, or so on point with the search intent of your ideal customer that it’s find time and time again.

One of the biggest drivers of traffic to our blog from organic search is to a post about email subject lines, which has absolutely nothing to do with our target audience. We used to have a very broad full-stack breadth to our content which was great, it has a ton of value. But it doesn’t attract our ideal customer, which makes it a waste.

Tough lesson learned. We’ll be focusing our content (aside from this month’s insanity) in a much more targeted manner this year, and I’m excited to see how much of an impact it has on our key metrics.

Insight #12 – What Should I be Writing About Next?

I’ve learned a lot in the past 30 days about what is and isn’t important when it comes to impactful content, and I’m re-energized to continue creating value for our now and future customers. But what form will it take?

Based on the highest organic traffic content, there are two places that need an urgent overhaul:

The Landing Page Conversion Course (LPCC)

The Landing Page Conversion Course has always been great at attracting traffic, however, it’s very out of date, and the product videos are now 5 years old and not representative of what Unbounce has become as a product. It was also purposely targeted at top of funnel signups for our old free account. The focus of the new iteration will be much more targeted at NTS and getting much higher value from the content.

The landing page articles section

The landing page articles section is sooooo old. I wrote it in 2010 and only managed to rewrite one page of it this month (as part of insight #7 above). It’ll be great to freshen this up and provide better value for all those visitors looking for help with their landing page learning.

How do I Feel About Product Awareness Month Now?

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve felt so exhausted at any point in my professional career. This was a barn burner of a month. But it’s been such a rich and valuable journey for me, both as a marketer, and a co-founder. Hopefully it’s also been enriching for those who have followed along throughout this crazy experiment.

What’s next? Well before I dive into those two other projects, I need to get my butt to Mexico for a brief honeymoon with my beautiful bride Nicole. My plane leaves at 10:30am.

Adiós amigos! See you in a week.

Cheers, Oli Gardner

[berthastover]

Is Content Marketing a Waste of Time and Money? Data & Lessons Learned from 20 posts in 30 days.

Before I address the burning question in the headline, let’s rewind to the start of product awareness month for some context.

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I kicked 2018 off with a bold, self-inflicted challenge to write 30 blog posts in 30 days in a bid to increase adoption of our two new products, Popups and Sticky Bars.

The initial thinking was to call this effort Product Marketing Month, with the content based on our (and my) journey to become more proficient product marketers. As I shared at the start of the journey, the adoption of the new products had been disappointingly low; only 6% of our customers were using them when I first started looking at the numbers in August. That number was probably around 7% or 8% at the start of January.

Being a marketer who hadn’t actually practiced the discipline of product marketing, I thought that by talking about our products more directly in the content – including interactive demos and interesting use cases – coupled with a redesign of the blog just for this new content, we’d crush those numbers with ease.

I was incredibly naive

Boy oh boy was I wrong. Not only did I misinterpret what product marketing is: an expansive role that includes customer insights, data analysis, product validation, positioning, and market research, but I assumed that top of funnel content alone could solve our problems.

In my moment of hubris, I even bought the domain whatsproductmarketing.com where I intended to have a blank white page with the word “Marketing” on it. Cos that’s all product marketing is, right? Nope. In the end, I decided against that brazen approach.

It quickly became clear that what I was actually doing was more closely tied to product awareness. As with many other SaaS content marketers, I had little control or influence over what happened to people after they sign up. So we repositioned the challenge as Product Awareness Month.

I also inadvertently caused offense to some folks in the company by including a question in the first blog post that posited “Do we suck at product marketing?”.

While I’d intended it as a question (to start the post with a provocative buzz-generating bang), it came across more as a statement, and pretty offensive one at that. Especially when the social team latched onto the power of that statement (rightly so) and started tweeting about it.

I think it was co-founder Carter Gilchrist who helped me understand the impact by asking me “If you’d said ‘Do we suck at design? Or do we suck at engineering?’ how do you think the team would feel about it?” Pretty shitty I imagine. I removed that line from the post. The talented people on our product and product marketing teams deserve better than that.

The 30-Posts-in-30-Days Challenge

The best part of this challenge was getting back to writing. Because I’ve been on the road so much as a public speaker recently, it turns out I hadn’t written a single word on our blog (or Unbounce marketing content in general) for two years.

30 posts was an audacious goal. Especially when you consider how much of it was designed to be an exploration of an approach to marketing that was completely new to me. The posts ranged from 700 to 7,000 words in length and included many interactive demos of our new products baked right into the blog posts – including many hacks that required custom code.

Fortunately, I had the help of some incredible Unbounce developers:

Sam Shen – who, with Sabrina Chan’s mockups, built a redesign of the blog (just for the new product marketing category) in two days.

Noah Matsell & Brian Burns – who saved my ass by providing many custom workarounds, use case examples, and interactive demos. The most impressive of them being a way to communicate across domains to set and read cookies so that I could demo the cookie targeting feature of the new products.

Luis Francisco – one of our designers who is rapidly becoming one of the best hackers of Unbounce. Including the mind-blowing augmented reality demo in my 5 Legitimately Cool Use Cases for Website Popups post.

Not to mention the guidance, brainstorming, reality checks, and content planning help of the awesome Jen Pepper, and five designers who took turns creating the majority of the blog post hero images under the guidance of Cesar Martinez.

The craziness of the challenge was important to me. I don’t get inspired by normalcy. I love chaos and ridiculous ideas, and honestly, if I’d planned on writing three blog posts I probably wouldn’t have written any.

Turns out I was a bit too ambitious, and after ten consecutive sixteen hour days (weekends included) I decided to remove weekend posts from the schedule because they get little traction anyway, and focus more on quality than quantity, resulting in this post being number 20 – still pretty damn good.

Pretty sure my wife Nicole would’ve left me if I continued at that pace with the neglect that came with it. #alwaysbeoptimizing

Content Marketing Performance: Was I Wasting My Time?

Given that I was now dealing with pure product awareness, the topic of content marketing in general became top of mind. In particular, how does our blog perform as an agent of customer acquisition?

Digging into Kissmetrics I was shocked by what I uncovered.

As an attributable part of customer acquisition, the content I’d written on the blog in January was converting readers to NTS (new trial starts) at the paltry rate of 0.3%. Let me repeat that. Zero point three percent.

The blog converts at 0.3%. WTF?! How can that be the case?

What am I (and/or we) doing so wrong that this number is a possible reality? Content has been the hallmark of our marketing since we started Unbounce 8 years ago.

Time to dig deeper into the data.

The Data Insights & Lessons Learned I’ll be Sharing in This Post

In the interests of transparency (one of our six core values), I’ll be sharing all of the data I could find that helps shed light on the performance and effect of my month of madness.

It’s important to note that the full impact of this endeavor won’t be visible for a few months for a couple of reasons: we measure a customer as someone who’s paid us three times, and true product adoption can occur at any time.

Here’s a linked list of the data, insights, and learnings that you’ll find in the remainder of the post.

The number of NTS (new trial starts) attributed to Product Awareness Month

Historical NTS attributed to the blog

How other companies content marketing performs. I reached out to:

Andy Crestodina from Orbit Media

Cyrus Shepard formerly at Moz

John Bonini from Databox

Impact of the blog redesign

Sidebar

Header

Blog posts with old design

Individual blog post interaction

Blog traffic

Blog Subscription Conversion Rates for different popup trigger types

The impact of changes to our highest organic traffic page

SaaS app login data

Product awareness and adoption numbers

Visitors

Users

Customers

How many words I wrote

Impact on writing quality

What I should be writing about next

I’ll also discuss what I learned as a marketer, writer, and SaaS co-founder, after living the past 30 days like this.

Insight #1 – Blog Conversion Rates to NTS attributed to Product Awareness Month

Here’s a look at the funnel report in Kissmetrics that shows the conversion rate from visits to the new content to new Unbounce trial starts (NTS).

As I mentioned, I was really shocked by this number. Only 37 NTS from all that effort? I was starting to think that my content simply wasn’t interesting or relevant enough to convince people to sign up.

Was it just me?

Insight #2 – Historical Blog Conversion Rates

Then I looked at some historical data to make a comparison. The chart below is for the previous 9 months of blog content. I would’ve looked further back in time, but since we switched the website to HTTPS the reporting gets a little more complex.

Turns out that our blog converts at that rate in general. It’s important to note that the second chart is based on every single blog post on the blog, for that 9 month period, which is why the actual number of signups is so much higher.

At least it’s not just me.

Now, you may be inclined to think that given the low numbers, the blog doesn’t have the efficacy to warrant its existence or at least the amount of effort that goes into maintaining it. I know I started having some doubts.

But then I reached out to some industry folks who I deeply admire for their content marketing prowess, to see what their experiences and thoughts were on the topic.

Insight #3 – Content Marketing at Other Companies

The first person I contacted was Andy Crestodina, co-founder of Orbit Media a Chicago web development a design agency. Andy is a good friend, an incredible speaker, and a genius content marketer whose expertise I value highly. Here’s what he had to say:

This is an awesome question that gets to something that a lot of content marketers may not understand: it’s the indirect benefits of content marketing that drive results. And in a lot of cases, it’s about SEO. The content drives the links, which drive the authority, which drive the rankings, which drive qualified visitors who searched for a “commercial intent” keyphrase …and now you have a visitor who is highly likely to convert, unlike your typical blog reader.

Here’s the data on our analytics. We had just over a million visits last year. (yay!) And 91% of those visitors started on a blog post.

But do these people ever really turn into business leads?

…not really. Almost never actually. But obviously, we’d have a lot less traffic (brand awareness) if we didn’t publish anything. Our site would be just a brochure. We wouldn’t have followers or subscribers. But the other downside of not having a blog (and maybe the most important benefit of blogging) is the links.

According to Open Site Explorer’s “Top Pages” report, there are virtually no links to our service pages. The top 217 linked-to pages, except for the home page, are blog posts and authors.

So without these pages, we’d have no authority …and no ranking for the “money phrases”.

If you want to attract visitors who have strong intent, who have their wallets out, you have to have a lot of content, links and authority so you can rank for the phrase. I bet the Unbounce analytics and rankings look a lot like this.

If you want the fortune, you’ve got to get the glory first!

Genius.

I also reached out to Cyrus Shepard, the former Director of SEO & Audience Development at Moz. Here’s what he had to say:

Our content with the highest conversion rates were always surprising and very specific (posts about title tags and how to run a site audit). The problem was, while these pieces had a 5x conversion rate over other content, the number of overall conversions they drove was actually small compared to our total. In other words, if we would have focused on these micro-problems exclusively, our overall sales would likely have been much smaller.

Counter-intuitively, we found we did better on big content with corresponding ridiculously low conversion rates, because it raised awareness. Awareness raised brand interest/queries, and 2-3-4 months down the line we close the sale when they are ready to purchase. In other words, our content with the actual highest conversion rates—as it is with all companies—was our homepage and “about” pages (and also our tools, but that’s another story). So raising brand awareness long-term always trumped short-term content-specific conversions.

Some similar sentiment to Andy where the long-term thinking, and believe that if you publish exceptional content you will benefit in indirect ways.

Finally, I reached out to John Bonini from Databox, who explained how they use dashboards (created with their own product which looks awesome) to keep a close eye on blog attribution. Here’s the one John shared with me. I embedded it in an iFrame so I’d suggest clicking inside it to scroll inside the different data blocks.

And here’s what he had to say about how their blog benefits their business:

1. For us, the blog plays a pretty powerful role in getting readers into the product. We transitioned to freemium last year, so the barrier to entry into the product is low. What works well for us is covering the challenges that marketers and salespeople are having in tracking performance and making sense of their data. Rather than rely on premium content like ebooks and webinars (we use these more for customer marketing) we’ll include free templates for dashboards that help solve the problem we’re writing about. It’s a fairly straight line from problem>>solution, which is why the blog is such a powerful lever.

2. Content attribution is hard. And the reality is that monthly reporting decks are binary–were the goals hit or not? Are we growing at or above the rate we need to…or not? Gross revenue was X. ARR is Y. So when you start talking about the importance of multi-touch attribution in order to measure the effectiveness of the blog, you run the risk of seeming like you’re “in the clouds.” I’ve had heated debates with executives who felt strongly against “being a publishing house.” Because attribution in many cases wasn’t a straight line, the content to them was fluff, and the time spent on it was sunk cost. The best thing to arm yourself within those cases is specific examples. Measuring the aggregate success of your blog is hard, but when you’re tracking the success of specific blog posts you know see a lot of traffic, you can better illustrate the value in producing more and optimizing for the long-term. That’s why I use the attached chart to keep an eye on our top visited pages (most of which are blog posts) and track the number of signups coming from each. As organic traffic grows, so does the output from each post. If you can convey that quickly and succinctly, you make a strong case.

Who’s Reading Your Blog?

We need to also recognize the fact that sometimes the person reading your content isn’t the person who ends up paying for it. There’s a difference between a functional user and a functional buyer, and that’s why attribution is the single biggest challenge in marketing today.

Connecting the who with the what with the when and the why is very difficult, for almost everyone.

Takeaway – It’s all yo’ blogs too!

We need to think a little differently when choosing the metrics we assign to our content marketing. I’d love to hear about how your blog performs in regard to similar metrics. Jump in the comments if you’d care to share.

It’s worth discussing a few other factors when thinking about the value of a blog. I know that personally, when I’m looking at the website of a software or service provider, if they don’t have a team page with photos of the company’s employees, a physical address for the office, and a blog that’s active, I won’t give them my business – unless they are the only option.

In many ways perception is reality.

If you don’t appear to be active or don’t appear to be a thought leader in the space you’re selling in, you simply don’t appear as credible as a company who is.

So Is Content Marketing a Waste of Time & Money or Not?

No. Clearly not. You just need to understand the nuances of how you measure your ROI so that you’re not thrown off by the metrics and numbers I’ve just shared with you.

In the rest of this post, I hope you will learn enough to persuade you if you’re not persuaded about the value of content marketing, and if you already are, I hope you learn some brilliant tactical ideas for 2018.

Insight #4 – Impact of the blog redesign

In this section, I’ll cover the impacts a new blog design (just for this month’s posts) impacted interaction behavior. I’ll break it down into three sections:

Sidebar: How did a new product focused sidebar perform?

Header: We introduced a new header navigation bar with a different focus.

Old posts: A comparative look at how the header and sidebar interaction was on posts with the old design.

Individual posts: How did interactions with the header CTAs vary between different post topics?

Insight #4a – Impact of the blog redesign: analyzing the new sidebar

Part of the redesign included a new sidebar dedicated to the two new products. You can see the before and after designs below.

Blog Design Before and After

I was pretty excited to see how this would perform as we’ve never been that blatantly promotional on the blog before.

Here’s a click heat map based on traffic to the first few posts. The screenshot background is auto-generated from the first post, but the sidebar and header were constant elements that show cumulative clicks.

Out of 1,481 (desktop) visitors and 3,428 clicks, only 3 people (0.09%) clicked the sidebar CTA. More people clicked on the statement beneath the button than on the button itself.

My first instinct was to think that the subtext read as a clearer and more actionable statement than the button copy, so I reversed them (putting the subtext as the button copy), but it changed nothing.

Nobody cared about the sidebar CTA.

Something to note is that it wasn’t a sticky sidebar (it disappears as you scroll) which no doubt had an impact on the low engagement numbers, but the content was too long to make it a persistent sidebar because the CTA wouldn’t be visible in most browsers.

Takeaway – Nobody cares about your sidebar

After a week with little to no interaction with the sidebar, we decided to simply remove it. I think the reading experience is significantly nicer without it.

Insight #4b – Impact of the blog redesign: analyzing the new header

The more significant change to the blog was the new header. Removing the standard SaaS navigation with features, templates, integrations, pricing etc. allowed the content to be the focus, with a greatly simplified expression of our product’s value proposition.

Here’s a wireframe for the new header.

I loved nerding out with my new reMarkable tablet to sketch many of the diagrams and illustrations throughout the month. Apologies for my terrible handwriting, but if you’re a visual thinker and communicator it’s the best product I’ve ever used.

Let’s take a look at some heat maps for the header.

Week One

The heat map below is for the first four blog posts and shows quite a lot of activity on the three product CTAs.

Number of clicks [Landing Pages: 26] [Popups: 39] [Sticky Bars: 43]

Total clicks on product CTAs 108 out of 1,481 clicks = 3.15%

Week Two

The next one is for the middle part of the month after the sidebar had been removed.

Number of clicks [Landing Pages: 106] [Popups: 124] [Sticky Bars: 99]

Total clicks on product CTAs 329 out of 7,596 clicks = 4.42%

Week 3

Week 3 is missing because I’m an idiot and forgot to start the heat map recording in Hotjar.

Week 4

Later in the month, the heat map tells a slightly different story. Note that this is a smaller sample size as it’s not been collecting data as long.

Number of clicks [Landing Pages: 16] [Popups: 28] [Sticky Bars: 33]

Total clicks on product CTAs 77 out of 2,387 clicks = 2.56%

The lower % of clicks here might be explained by repeat visitors not having a need to click again. Or it could be the topic and quality of the posts, or it could be a sampling issue.

Insight #4c – Click Map Data From Old Posts

To gain some comparative perspective, I dug out some heat maps from blog posts that have the original design, to see how they fared. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison as the CTAs are not the same in both designs.

But it is interesting to note that on this blog post about 35 landing page design examples (our highest traffic blog post of all time), the combined number of clicks on the top CTA and the sidebar CTA was 2 out of 1,844.

And a similarly high-traffic landing page examples post only received 6 clicks out of 1,777 visitors.

It seems you have to work really hard to get people to click your product CTAs from a blog post.

Insight #4d – Interaction Based on Blog Post Topic

If we look at individual posts from Product Awareness Month, we can see some really interesting patterns based on the topic of the post. For the five posts below, all of them have a dominant percentage of clicks going to the product being discussed in the post.

In the examples below the values represent the number of clicks each CTA received.

Popup Post 1: A Blueprint for the Perfect Popup

[Landing Pages: 4] [Popups: 13] [Sticky Bars: 2]

Popup Post 2: “Maybe Later” – A New Interaction Model for E-commerce Entrance Popups

[Landing Pages: 9] [Popups: 20] [Sticky Bars: 12]

Popup Post 3: 11 Awesome Popup Design Examples – Scored by the Delight Equation

[Landing Pages: 11] [Popups: 16] [Sticky Bars: 2]

Sticky Bar Post 1: 9 Creative Sticky Bar Examples – Plus 21 New Unbounce Templates

Super low traffic on this one, but the pattern remains intact.

[Landing Pages: 1] [Popups: 3] [Sticky Bars: 9]

Sticky Bar Post 2: How to Build a Sticky SaaS Product

This one’s not really even about sticky bars per se. It just has the word in the title and an equal measure of mentions of the sticky bar and popup products.

[Landing Pages: 4] [Popups: 5] [Sticky Bars: 9]

Takeaway – Context Matters

Now it might seem obvious that it would be the case that the blog post topic would dictate product interest, but it’s still really nice to confirm it through data and to know that the content is indeed driving the intended behavior from the audience.

Insight #5 – Blog Traffic

One of the things we’ve been learning of late is the importance of getting back to basics with SEO, and writing content that people are actually searching for. Obvious enough. But that’s not what I had in mind when I started this month of content production. I was stuck in my own head, with my own concepts, and my own ideas of how I was going to change things.

As a result, about half of the content I wrote has an easily identifiable search term to optimize for. But the other half don’t.

I’m okay with that, to an extent, because I firmly believe you can’t spend all of your time answering people’s search questions. That’s a critical path to business success, but in order to rise above your competitors, you also need to invent things. To come up with new ways of thinking – actual thought leadership.

I have an innate need to create things that not only scratch an itch in myself, to expand my intellect, and thought process, but also because I want to inspire someone else to care or grow, or experiment, and think in ways they hadn’t previously considered.

It’s similar to the concept of breaking content marketing into two buckets of lead gen and awareness. You need inspiration as well as resolution.

I digress. What’s the traffic to the blog been like this month? Well for starters, when I made this crazy challenge to myself, I didn’t realize that our blog traffic has taken a big hit in the past year. I’m not sure what my decision-making process would have been had I known. Do I get more excited because I want to re-energize the blog? Or do I think that it’s not worth the effort if we don’t get much traffic anymore?

Here’s a GA chart of traffic to our blog since we started Unbounce in 2009.

You can see that in early 2017, things changed, pretty dramatically.

(You can also see that we’ve got a decent boost this month).

If we segment this by organic traffic and compare April 2017 to January 2017, you see a graph like this, where we lost around 35% of our organic blog traffic in one quarter.

I reached out to Cody Campbell, our Marketing Manager of Funnel Growth (and resident SEO pro) for an explanation. Here’s how he described what had happened:

We have 1250 posts published on the Unbounce blog.

In 2017, those posts drove 1.6 million sessions to our blog. That’s 18% of total website traffic.

Of that 1.6M sessions, 77% was Organic. Yay for SEO…but this was also an incredibly terrifying fact at the same time. We had all our eggs in one basket. And lucky for us, that basket was performing really well. Until it all came crashing down.

The Largest Traffic Drop of 2017 In the 4 month period between January and April, blog traffic dropped 74,000 sessions.

Here’s the breakdown: Organic: 60k decrease Direct: 7.3k decrease Social: 2.2k decrease Email: 5.3k decrease

After digging deeper, we found that the majority of the traffic drop came from 23 posts. Wait. What? 1.84% of our posts were driving the bulk of our blog traffic? Yup.

…Holy sh!t. What happened?

Most of those high traffic blog posts were written between 2012 to 2016 and we hadn’t touched them since. Meanwhile, numerous competitors entered the market and content marketing hit its climax.

The spreadsheet below shows some of the posts, and the impact this period had on them.

The result? We’re now competing against a ton of other companies in the Google SERPs all of whom are trying to rank for the same keywords.

Our competitor’s content was far more up-to-date than ours (and in some cases even better), so, naturally, it started to get more attention from readers. Google took notice and started dropping us from position #1 to position 2 or 3.

Moving from position #1 to #3 lost us up to 50% or more of our traffic per post. And when that happens and you only have a handful of posts holding up your blog, you’re in trouble.

Takeaway

In a highly competitive space, it’s critical that you maintain your organic rankings by updating and optimizing your important blog content so it doesn’t fall below the quality and impact of what others are doing.

Insight #6 – Blog Subscription Conversion Rates for Different Popup Trigger Types

In order to explore the concept of two-step opt-in forms, I set up two methods for people to subscribe to the weekly email digests we created for those interested in following along with Product Awareness Month.

Version 1 used an exit-triggered popup to present the subscribe form, and version 2 used a click-triggered popup to create the two-step opt-in experience.

Here’s the popup people were shown:

Trigger Method #1 – Exit Popup Subscribe

Exit popups are great in that almost everyone sees them, but they don’t have the intelligence to know whether the visitor was enjoying the content or not. In our experiences, the conversion rate depends highly on the perceived value of the offer.

When we give away video recordings of events we put on (webinars or conferences) the conversion rates are fantastic, between 15 and 30%.

When you’re offering a blog subscription, it’s typically in the 1-5% range. In this instance, we were offering a subscription to the blog, but the value was described as following along with our product awareness experiment, as opposed to the blog in general. Limiting the value even further.

The conversion rate for the exit popup hovered around the 2% range, dipping to 1.86% overall.

Trigger Method #2 – Click Popup Subscribe

The click trigger is the absolute best option if you want to create a valuable experience, as the popup you show is based on an explicitly expressed intent. I set up links throughout the blog posts, asking people to subscribe. When they clicked the link they got the popup.

The conversion rate for the click-triggered popup varied from around the 20% range, dipping to 15.57% overall.

So for this example, the click-triggered popup outperformed the exit popup by 722%.

Declining Conversion Rates

The reason I mention the dips in conversion rates is that I found the change really interesting. The sample sizes are not very big (120 and 52 conversions respectively), but the conversion rates held fairly steady for weeks, dropping closer to the end of the month.

This could be entirely based on sample size, but another hypothesis I had was that the motivation to subscribe was waning with every day because the value was diminished as the month went on. If you’re being asked to subscribe to a one-month content experience, and there are only 1 or 2 weeks remaining, it makes perfect sense that fewer people would care.

I can’t prove or disprove either explanation, but it’s definitely food for thought when designing time-based experiences like this.

Takeaway

It’s important to consider whether the value of your offer changes over time – either increasing or decreasing – so that you can better understand the subsequent motivation.

Insight #7 – Call to Action Clicks on Our Highest Traffic Content Page

As part of my post about the highest-traffic page you’re neglecting, I rewrote the content on our “What is a Landing Page?” page that receives over 10,000 unique visitors per month.

As part of the exercise, I experimented with three options in a choose-your-own-adventure format, as a learning exercise so we can study what these visitors are actually looking for.

Option 1: “I’m new to landing pages, and want to learn more.” CTA >> [ Watch The Landing Page Sessions Video Series ]

Option 2: “I have a landing page, but I’m not sure how good it is.” CTA >> [ Grade Your Page With The Landing Page Analyzer ]

Option 3: “I need to build a landing page.” CTA >> [ Try The Unbounce Builder in Preview Mode ]

When I looked at the scroll map data it showed that fewer than 50% of visitors were scrolling far enough to see the three CTAs.

So I moved them up to the top of the post, right beneath the opening description of what a landing page is – based on the fact that 86% of visitors scroll that far, and that the needs of most visitors have been met at this point (answering their question about what a landing page is).

Then I recorded the clicks that the three CTAs were getting to measure the intent and experience level of the audience. The values in the heat map below show the percentage of all clicks on the page.

Out of 983 desktop pageviews, the numerical distribution of 141 clicks was as follows:

[I’m New: 111] [I Have an LP: 15] [I need to build an LP: 15]

It’s really clear that the beginner level CTA is most relevant to visitors to this page. Makes total sense. But when we were looking at this, Cody wondered if the order of the CTAs might be an influencing factor.

So I flipped the order and ran it for another 1,000 pageviews.

This time, out of 1,013 desktop pageviews, the numerical distribution of only 83 clicks was as follows:

[I need to build an LP: 48] [I Have an LP: 1] [I’m New: 34]

Really interesting that the number one slot retained its position as the click leader, but the overall number of clicks dropped from 11.94% to 6.33%, a decrease of 89%.

I’d like to run this again as an A/B test with a larger sample size, but my hypothesis for why the number of interactions dropped is that the first option is too aggressive for the majority of visitors to this page, resulting in them not going to the effort of reading all three options.

To add a little confirmation to the experiment, I reverted to the original order and ran the heat map again.

This time, out of 835 desktop pageviews, the numerical distribution of 116 clicks was as follows:

[I’m New: 94] [I Have an LP: 10] [I need to build an LP: 12]

Which is very close to the first one in terms of distribution.

Takeaway

Choose-your-own-adventure navigation is a really fun and interesting way to learn about the intent of your visitors, and the order and magnitude of the action you’re asking people to take can influence how much interaction takes place.

Fascinating stuff!

Insight #8 – SaaS User Login Visits

This one is a bit tangential, and came to me when designing The Login Hijack concept in my post about cool use cases for popups.

For SaaS businesses, it’s very common for people to visit your website for the sole purpose of logging in to your app, and if you don’t take this into account your metrics can be way off.

You can see that for Unbounce 35.04% of website sessions are used to log in to the Unbounce app.

I reached out on Twitter to inquire about the numbers at other SaaS companies and found a lot of similarities:

Stefan Debois‏ reported that for SurveyAnyPlace.com it’s 45% of homepage visits

John Bonini from Databox shared that their number is 28%

Jon Davis from Shape.io reported a number of 30%

All of these numbers represent significant potential for incorrect reporting, and opportunistic product marketing to your customers who are showing up for this reason.

Takeaway

I ran a Twitter poll to extend the question:

What’s particularly interesting is that the majority of people who answered don’t know. We all need to know this number. Go find yours and report in the comments.

Insight #9 – Product Awareness and Adoption Data

In this section I’ll cover the levels of awareness increase based on three segments of people:

Visitors: new folks coming to Unbounce.com who have never used the product

Users: those with an Unbounce account of some type who have not paid us three times

Customers: those who have paid us three times

Insight #9a – Product Awareness: New Visitors

Looking in GA, there were 8,036 new visitors who were exposed to the new Product Awareness Month content – who were not current users or customers.

This will be an interesting chart to follow over time to see which content continues to produce organic traffic.

Looking at Kissmetrics we can look at the cohort who have reached a product touchpoint including documentation, features pages or campaign landing pages specific to popups and sticky bars (but not the new PAM content):

Visitors have seen awareness content (excl. PAM)

Visitors have seen awareness content (with PAM) These are visitors who have found their way to the product touchpoints AND also saw the PAM content.

What this shows us is that 274/3762 = 7.3% of total new aware visitors in January came from the Product Awareness Month content.

Insight #9b – Product Awareness: Users

Let’s use a different lens for a moment. The previous section was an analysis of Unbounce customers based on our definition of a customer being someone who has paid us three times.

But what if we look at overall users? Our user count is much larger than the customer count because it includes those still on their free trial as well as plans like free / student / startup / not-for-profit.

In the past 30 days, changes in product awareness look like the chart below. That’s an increase of 2,031 people (10.7%) in the total population based on the activities and campaigns of the awareness squad.

Now if we include folks who’ve seen the Product Awareness Month content, the number rises by an additional 374 people.

In essence, what this tells us is that the Product Awareness Month content contributed 18.4% of the total user awareness increase in January.

That’s pretty damn cool. And because it’s content, it will continue to live on and continue to increase awareness. At least the portions that speak to search intent, and those that inspire backlinks.

Insight #9c – Product Awareness & Adoption: Customers

When we first began marketing popups and sticky bars we were focused on both prospects and customers. But adoption is largely dependent on customer awareness of the products, and so one of our teams in Customer Success got to work.

Knowing awareness was the goal, they launched a campaign designed to make sure our customer base knew we weren’t just a landing page builder anymore.

They created an epic video, embedded it on this landing page, and ran their campaign, which included redesigning our login screen to take advantage of a placement every customer sees multiple times:

The results? The team’s had 3,473 visits to the landing page (about 27% of our active customer base) and 52,603 views of the new login page ad above.

For the purposes of this campaign, the team defined “aware” as anyone who had reached a product touchpoint including documentation, features pages or campaign landing pages specific to popups and sticky bars.

The data below represents awareness changes over time as defined above. It currently doesn’t filter for customers only, but does include criteria that someone has accessed the builder in addition to the other touch points aforementioned:

As you can see, corresponding to the launch of two major customer campaigns, there has been a steading increase in encounters with these touchpoints, and thereby awareness.

There has been a 51.49% increase in awareness in just the first week following the launch, as seen in the day-by-day view below:

Regarding adoption, our product adoption funnel looks like this in simple terms:

Created -> Published -> Installed -> Evaluated -> Adopted

The chart below shows the growth of the various stages since we launched the limited beta at the end of 2016.

Zooming in below, you can see that some of the adoption funnel metrics are a bit flat, but the exciting thing is that the number of popups and sticky bars being created and published is showing a great improvement which will naturally lead to adoption. And it looks like the lift started right around the time of the January 15th campaign launch.

We have a phase 2 campaign going out soon focus on driving people all the way through the adoption funnel, which will hopefully amplify these early successes.

Takeaway

While the blog could work to increase awareness with those who’ve never heard about us, customer campaigns are still very necessary.

Insight #10 – How Many Words Did I Write?

Including this post my tally sits at around 37,000 words.

According to research into the page count of recent NYT bestsellers list books, 300 pages is about the right length. At an average of 250 words per page, that totals 75,000 words.

Basically, I’m halfway to having people read about popups and sticky bars on a plane, in my book they bought in an airport bookstore.

Takeaway

Write 20 more posts then stick ‘em all together and call Wiley and Random House.

Insight #11 – The Impact Quantity Has on Quality

I put out some seriously awesome content this month. Stuff I’m really proud of in terms of creative thought and interaction design. But there’s one thing that’s missing (I think) from the writing, once I started to get tired from all the writing.

I lost my edge in terms of personality and humor.

It just wasn’t possible to write that many posts, with that many words, and find a way to make it as entertaining as I expect my content to be. But that’s because there were no second drafts, no editing, virtually no QA on mobile. It was always a 2am battle to finish the day’s post to publish it before I went to bed.

Add. Rinse. Repeat.

Another important factor was that because I was so rushed, and creating so much content, I had no time to do any image optimization. There are no alt or title tags on the images and links, so there’s a big missed opportunity for image search. Having an extra day per post, would have made a big difference.

Takeaway

I love the quantity. I guess I’m vain that way, but if we want our content to live on past the typical 3-5 day window that blog posts have to be seen, then they either have to be so special that everyone links to them, or so on point with the search intent of your ideal customer that it’s find time and time again.

One of the biggest drivers of traffic to our blog from organic search is to a post about email subject lines, which has absolutely nothing to do with our target audience. We used to have a very broad full-stack breadth to our content which was great, it has a ton of value. But it doesn’t attract our ideal customer, which makes it a waste.

Tough lesson learned. We’ll be focusing our content (aside from this month’s insanity) in a much more targeted manner this year, and I’m excited to see how much of an impact it has on our key metrics.

Insight #12 – What Should I be Writing About Next?

I’ve learned a lot in the past 30 days about what is and isn’t important when it comes to impactful content, and I’m re-energized to continue creating value for our now and future customers. But what form will it take?

Based on the highest organic traffic content, there are two places that need an urgent overhaul:

The Landing Page Conversion Course (LPCC)

The Landing Page Conversion Course has always been great at attracting traffic, however, it’s very out of date, and the product videos are now 5 years old and not representative of what Unbounce has become as a product. It was also purposely targeted at top of funnel signups for our old free account. The focus of the new iteration will be much more targeted at NTS and getting much higher value from the content.

The landing page articles section

The landing page articles section is sooooo old. I wrote it in 2010 and only managed to rewrite one page of it this month (as part of insight #7 above). It’ll be great to freshen this up and provide better value for all those visitors looking for help with their landing page learning.

How do I Feel About Product Awareness Month Now?

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve felt so exhausted at any point in my professional career. This was a barn burner of a month. But it’s been such a rich and valuable journey for me, both as a marketer, and a co-founder. Hopefully it’s also been enriching for those who have followed along throughout this crazy experiment.

What’s next? Well before I dive into those two other projects, I need to get my butt to Mexico for a brief honeymoon with my beautiful bride Nicole. My plane leaves at 10:30am.

Adiós amigos! See you in a week.

Cheers, Oli Gardner

Original Source: Is Content Marketing a Waste of Time and Money? Data & Lessons Learned from 20 posts in 30 days.