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Stay with me to the end of this newsletter!!!! I’ve got some new new for you. 🤭

 

Now lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we actually discover brands. Not how marketers want discovery to work—how it really happens (kind of my job tbh).

 

Mainly because I’ve absolutely wandered the homeopathic aisles of Sprouts and Whole Foods before. Many times. And somehow… fully missed Beekeeper’s Naturals sitting right there.

 

 

Suddenly, I knew what it was. Why it existed. Why people loved it. I went home, swept their entire site, and stocked up before sick season like it was my job.

 

And then—only then—did I start seeing them everywhere.

 

On shelves. Online. In ads. At the airport. All the places they had apparently been the whole time.

 

That’s when it clicked for me (again): sometimes ads aren’t enough. Shelf presence isn’t enough. Even familiarity isn’t enough.

 

 

 

 

 

Let me tell you a little bit about the man I’m married to.

 

 

I probably went a solid two years of dating him without being totally sure he even liked me. Which, to be fair, might’ve been on me; I was 23 and fully believed romance looked like 13 Going on 30.

 

There were signs. They just weren’t dramatic. There were no grand gestures, surprise flowers and most certainly NO sweeping declarations.

 

Two years in, he finally dropped the “I love you,” and all my doubts were immediately put to bed. Relief. Growth. Character development!!

 

When it came to gifting, he had a system: he’d ask me what I wanted, then he’d get exactly that. No guessing. No pretending to love something I didn’t. TBH I did love it. Efficient. Transparent. A dream, really.

 

Fast forward nearly nine years.

 

This past Christmas, he didn’t ask me what I wanted.

 

I was a little nervy Christmas morning. Not panicked; just mentally preparing myself for the possibility of having to say “I love it” in that tone.

 

And then I opened it.

 

It was something I had never heard of before.

 

And within about ten seconds, I was fully obsessed.

 

Enter: The Flower Letters.

…a monthly snail-mail subscription that sends beautifully designed, historically rooted, emotionally resonant letters straight to your mailbox. Each one is meant to slow you down, make you feel something, and remind you that not everything meaningful has to live on a screen. It’s thoughtful without being cheesy, nostalgic without being outdated, and somehow feels both personal and scalable at the same time.

 

 

And here’s where I got marketing nerdy about it; he didn’t find them on Instagram. He didn’t Google “cool gifts for wife” (unless he blatantly lied to me).  

 

He heard about them on a podcast.

 

He casually mentioned that The Flower Letters has over 300,000 subscribers, which immediately sent me into back-of-napkin math mode.

 

A physical product.

Sent through the mail.

At scale.

 

That kind of number doesn’t happen by accident: it happens when distribution, story, and timing line up.

 

 

The Flower Letters WORKS because it does the opposite of what most brands are chasing right now. Instead of faster, louder, and more frequent, it leans into slow, intentional, and tactile. Snail mail feels novel again, not because it’s new, but because it’s pretty far and few (unless it’s a holiday card or some local business trying to get you to buy new windows… yucky!!!)

 

Getting a letter that isn’t a bill or a coupon immediately changes how you experience it; you open it differently, you keep it longer, you actually read it.

 

They’ve positioned letters not as content, but as an experience. Something you wait for. Something that feels earned. That anticipation is the product as much as the paper and ink are. And when people love an experience like that, they talk about it—organically, enthusiastically, and without being prompted by a referral code.

 

 

What’s especially smart is that the etters themselves become marketing. They sit on desks, kitchen counters, nightstands. 

 

They’re shown to friends. They’re posted online. Every delivery reinforces the brand promise in a physical way. In a world where digital content disappears in seconds, The Flower Letters figured out how to make something that literally sticks around.

 

 

This entire chain of events started with a podcast mention; not an ad my husband skipped, not a sponsored post he scrolled past. He “got got” by a trusted voice talking about a business they genuinely found interesting (Nikonomics to be exact).

 

👉That matters. Long-form media creates context that short-form simply can’t. You don’t just hear what the company does, you hear why it exists, how it makes money, and what makes it different.

 

(Highly recommend tuning into the above episode though, because is not what got them initial market entry – “50,000 subscribers by focusing on daily profitability and smart advertising strategies, leveraging a prepaid option for cash flow.”)

 

HOWEVER, podcasts are uniquely powerful for brands like this because they attract curious, intentional listeners—people who like thinking about ideas, systems, and growth. That’s exactly the audience The Flower Letters needs. By the time someone hears about the subscription, they already understand its value. There’s no hard sell baked into it.

 

Wanna get smart about sales? Stop chasing every platform. Show up where the attention is already DEEP and trust is already built.

In this case, one podcast episode turned into one gift, which turned into one delighted customer, which turned into this entire newsletter section.

 

Scale that by thousands of listeners over time, and 300,000 subscribers starts to make a lot more sense

I’m on a memory lane kick here with the historically inspired Flower Letters breakdown. Let’s go.

 

→ Bringing back an oldie but a goodie, female rage, the commercial. I need some car brand to bring this back in some capacity in 2026. Please I’m begging you. 

→ Another unhinged car commercial that really makes me wonder why TF our bumpers aren’t still like this.

👀

 

Hey so if you’re not like, new new here, you know that a few newsletters ago I mentioned that we have to rebrand because apparently “The Good Marketer™” is NOT a safe trademark. Sigh. I guess I’m not that smart or creative after all (kidding, maybe). 

 

So I had to go back to the drawing board. And by drawing board I mean I called up my BFF naming expert Katie Pannell and nearly cried and begged for her soonest available namestorming session date and alas… she presented me with a newsletter name that has grown on, inside, and all around me. 

 

As of next week, this newsletter will be REBRANDED AND RENAMED to…

 

So… why Funnel Cake™?

 

Because marketing funnels have a reputation problem.

They’re usually framed as complicated, technical, and kind of joyless.

But when marketing is actually done well?
It’s fun. It pulls you in. You don’t feel sold to—you feel in.

 

That’s the Funnel Cake idea.

 

Funnel cake isn’t fancy. It’s sticky, nostalgic, and incredibly effective at doing its job. If it’s done right, you’re already thinking about a second bite before you’ve finished the first.

 

That’s how I think great marketing should work.

 

This newsletter exists to break down the campaigns you’re already screenshotting, explain why they work, and hand you the ingredients—without turning it into homework.

Sweet. Sticky. Digestible.
 

TL;DR:
Funnel Cake makes marketing strategy fun, memorable, and easy to actually use—because when a funnel’s done right, it’s a piece of cake. :) AND WHO DOESN'T LIKE CAKE???? (do not tell me if you do not like cake, I will think of you differently)
 

WE WILL NOT BE CHANGING THE NEWSLETTER NAME OR BRANDING FROM HERE ON OUT OK???????? Funnel Cake™ is here to stay and the trademark application is sitting on the USTPO’s (virtual) desk. 

 

 

So if you’d be so kind… and refer all your marketer besties… The more subscribers we have the cooler shit I can do and the more fun I can make opening a newsletter at 5:30 in the morning when you’re getting your morning walk/workout/breakfast in. Sound good???? 

 

Love you. Mean it. 

 

Thank you for sticking through with me from Toastworthy → Brand Good Times → The Good Marketer (failed ™, sigh) → final resting place: Funnel Cake™.