[Issue 16] Crafting an Impressive Entrance

It’s time to bring people into your world.

[Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash]

The Odysseus Files, Issue 16

Build a Castle, Not a Village, Part 9

The Propylaion

[Note: this is Part 9 of a miniseries within the broader Odysseus Files called “Build a Castle, Not a Village.” These miniseries will group broad topics thematically, helping you connect the dots between them more easily.]

TL;DR - Scroll to the end for the takeaways! 

This week, we’re heading inside your acropolis. We’re shifting from the brand identity components to the experience you will build for your customers. And it begins at the gates. 

The Propylaion at Athens, one of several buildings built by Pericles in the decades after the Persians burned Athens to the ground, was so big that many centuries later Ottoman troops used the gatehouse as a barracks during their occupation of Greece. 

Propylaea (the plural form) were monumental gates. They were meant to impress - as well as to be a chokepoint for access to the citadel. 

For our purposes, the propylaea is the system with which you bring people into your world - the inner workings of your acropolis. 

There’s a clear delineation here: everything within the walls of your acropolis happens behind the scenes. You have to enter the gate to experience it. Everything outside the walls is visible to outsiders. 

We can clarify this with some examples of marketing tactics: 

If you create content on platforms you don’t own - social media, paid ads, guest blogging/podcasting, etcetera - this is outside your acropolis. It’s meant to get attention - but cannot deliver the transformative experience your best customers need from you. 

Outside of your acropolis, whatever you build is visible to anyone, but so is whatever someone else builds. People can be easily distracted. (This is the purpose of your walls: to stand out enough to make people want to see what’s behind them.) 

But whatever you build inside your acropolis is exclusive. It’s an experience that has to be felt, a transformation waiting to happen - but you have to come inside to see it. This is where your people come. And once they’re inside, they no longer have eyes for whatever villages the competition is building. They can only see what you’ve built for them. If it’s exciting, they’ll stick around. If not? Back out the gate to go look for someone else. 

Getting Inside Your Acropolis

Given this, your propylaion is the channel by which your best prospects and customers move from outside (with everyone else) to inside (with you). What you build here will in large part determine how sustainable your business will be. 

Financial sustainability in a business comes down to two things: new customers coming in the door (reliably & predictably) and customers continuing to spend again and again (and tell others about you). 

If everything you build sits outside your acropolis, you’re not building a business, you’re building a charity. Charities are important, but they won’t help you support your family or build a resilient lifestyle. 

However, whatever you build inside your acropolis is the primary contributor to whether or not you get people coming back. (And it’s how you make money.) 

That being said, the propylaion in most cases is going to be your email list. 

It’s how you transfer people from platforms you don’t own onto one you do. It’s how you get them excited to discover what else you have for them within the walls of your acropolis. 

(Blogs and podcasts fit into this as well, but they sit at the very entrance of your propylaion: people can see them without having to give you access to reaching out to them. As soon as someone gives you their contact information, you can reach them over and over again; it’s like moving them from the outer edge of your gatehouse through the gates themselves, so they’re that much closer to stepping out into your acropolis proper.) 

You have a lot of flexibility in the experience you can provide people on your email list. Just like the monumental nature of the propylaion meant you could expect variety across many different acropoleis, you can opt to do a newsletter, a mini email course, a free or paid lead magnet, automated nurture sequences, “live” daily emails, etcetera. The sky's the limit. 

The specific tactics you use will depend on the brand experience you decide to create. But the point is, YOU get to create this. You don’t have to follow anyone else’s template for “what’s working now.” You do what you enjoy - and what’s congruent with the promise of the experience you will deliver within your acropolis. 

Takeaways

Gates keep people out. But they can also build anticipation for what’s inside your acropolis. 

Use this opportunity to make the method by which people enter your world uniquely you. Avoid cliches and what everyone else in your industry is doing. Assuming email is your gatehouse, like it should be for most businesses, feel free to scratch most of the email marketing advice you’ve heard; if you use it, you’ll sound like every other email list your visitor has signed up for. 

Boring much? 

Instead, like we’ve said quite often here, don’t be afraid to play your own game. Optimize for your own goals. Create the brand experience you want to deliver through your email list. You’ll enjoy it more (and when you do, so will they). 

P.S. - Last week I mentioned that my book The Acropolis Model will be coming out sometime in the next month or so. It brings together many of the ideas we’ve discussed here in The Odysseus Files into one place, laying out a clear framework for building a sustainable brand that is resilient to the many changes happening in the marketing world today. 

Here’s the cover: 

Interested? Hit “reply” and let me know, and I’ll make sure you get first access.