How a poetry lesson transformed my marketing copy
Ask anyone who used to work on a content team with me—or any one of the clients I’ve worked with—and they’ll tell you that there’s one thing I say over and over again.
“You need to write off the subject.”
This isn’t something I came up with on my own. Nope, this was ripped straight out of one of the first books I was assigned for a college course: Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town, part of the curriculum for the intro-level “Writing Poetry” class at Allegheny College.
What does ‘writing off the subject’ mean?
Keep in mind: Hugo is teaching how to write poems, not be a good marketer—but here’s what he writes.
“A poem can be said to have two subjects, the initiating or triggering subject, which starts the poem or ‘causes’ the poem to be written, and the real or generated subject, which the poem comes to say or mean.”
In marketing, you have two subjects: why your businesses exists, and the generated subjects around it.
Often, this means the feelings around something.
Let’s look at clothing brand AYR, for example.
On the subject: we sell clothes, jeans, and accessories for men and women. Buy this shirt!
Off the subject: let us paint you a picture of your next trip: you’re sitting in an airport lounge sipping complimentary prosecco, looking absolutely fly in The Espionage trench coat. People wonder what you’re there for: work? Pleasure? They’ll never know.
This isn’t about buying the coat: it’s about that aspirational feeling when you have it on.
How does writing off the subject relate to content strategy?
This is exceptionally powerful for social media—that’s because people scrolling through their feeds don’t want some corporate spiel about why they need to buy a product or service. They’re smarter than that, and you need to be sneakier. They want to be entertained or educated in a way that appeals to them.
And, well, it’s hard to be entertained when you’re being fed the corporate line.
Writing “off the subject” gives you the permission to think on the lateral: how can you help a consumer relate to your product without actually talking about your product?
It forces you to put yourself in their shoes: what are they interested in? What problems are they having? What makes them lean into their screen, or laugh, or commiserate?
How writing off the subject leans into your top-funnel strategy
This is especially useful from a top-of-funnel perspective. Think about it: these are people who don’t know you exist, and they don’t realize they need what you have. So how can you increase your chances to get in front of them organically?
You need to relate to them on a familiar level. And to do that, you’ve got to talk off the subject until you warm them up.
Writing off the subject: a success story
One of my favorite ways I see this being executed is with Wisner Baum law firm on Tiktok and Instagram.
They have a series where someone on the team approaches a lawyer and asks them to translate a simple phrase into legalese:
Hilarity ensues—but so does a brilliant marketing strategy. I mean, look at those numbers on their socials!
They could be talking about subject-matter-expert type things, or sharing case studies on how they’ve fought for their clients, or class-action lawsuits people can jump on (in other words, very much on the subject about cases they probably want to get). And hey—they do share those things. But that’s not what’s pulling in the numbers.
Think about law firm marketing: repetition and getting into the lizard brain is key. Most consumers don’t need a lawyer until they need one…and so you want to be top of mind when that time comes. That’s why attorneys are traditionally plastered all over billboards and broadcast with easy-to-remember phone numbers—look at me, think of me, call me.
Wisner Baum cracked the code on billboard marketing in the social age. They pulled out something relatable that makes people laugh—everyone has rolled their eyes at overly complex legal language—and leaned into it.
It’s evolved over time into all types of humanizing, off-the-subject content—which, again, is brilliant, because I want my lawyer to be a human, not the skeezy stereotype built up over years of watching gimmicky TV commercials.
So, when a new brand organically pops into your feed, take note: is it a direct sell, or is it off the subject?