storyarb

We’re not saying everyone needs a New York Subway ad, but Rippling’s ROI on their recent campaign certainly makes a strong argument for it. It also humbly reminds us that not all great marketing moments can be added to the content calendar doc for the year. Here’s hoping you get some unexpected, free publicity in 2026. And that you finally subscribe to The Standard to learn about these things in a more timely manner: https://lnkd.in/extUBymC

2025 was insane for the 'arb. And we love that feeling.....so we're doubling down in 2026, which means 2X growth and 🎶 hiring tiiiiime! Mission #1: Serve our growing portfolio of incredible B2B brands through your killer service, strategy and copywriting prowess. It's all about telling great stories – and knowing the difference. Open Seats: + Content Strategists + Copywriters + Client Success Manager Mission #2: Explode the storyarb brand. We've been busy telling the story for our clients, now it's time to tell ours. I can't even wait.... 🥰 Open Seats: + Marketing Manager + Designer Mission #3: Do the best work of your careers alongside the most talented top 1% of content folks on the planet. Full pride in agency. Come run with us --> https://lnkd.in/ghHN6f64

If your sales calls start with prospects asking, “So, what exactly do you do?”, we’re here to help you fix that. Specifically, Everett Butler at Lindy is here to help you fix that. His process: + Step 1: Start with what people are interested in. (Even if it’s not your exact talk track flow.) Don’t guess. Go straight to the use cases your prospects already understand—AI email drafting, inbox triaging, notetaking, scheduling. + Step 2: Map messaging decisions before you test. Go deeper than “what headline works.” Make sure you know your audience segment, GTM motion, and who in the org needs specific messaging. You can’t write copy until those are locked. + Step 3: Test 10–15 variants at the same time. Live. Instead of slow, sequential tests, Everett ran 10–15 messaging variants in parallel across Google, Meta, and LinkedIn—“anywhere we could launch quickly and get a signal,” he says. The he tracked:  – Click-through rate – Demo bookings – Lead quality All these things will help you figure out how to shorten sales calls, so that: – Sales doesn’t have to spend 10 minutes explaining what the product does. – Prospects arrive using your language. – Cold traffic turns into qualified leads. Once Lindy saw these things happening, marketing knew their messaging was working. They knew it because the sales team told them they were getting their time back—not by having fewer demos, but from smoother ones. Test it in-market, and let the buyers write your script. Then get out of the way while sales closes faster. Full playbook for you to run with below.

Your CEO will ask you to defend your marketing budget in 3 weeks. So, we asked marketers (and a lot of you) who actually hit their numbers what they're betting on in 2026. Some standouts we loved: • Hiring an AI architect before you hire AI engineers is THE hack -Sydney Sloan (CMO, G2)  • ABM becomes the operating system for enterprise marketing, not a buzzword -Sarah Cascone (CMO, Appriss)  • One-off partnerships are out, small creator groups are in for podcasts, newsletters, and small series in distinct voices underneath your brand -Casey Hill (CMO, DoWhatWorks) • In-person, face-to-face will win out over AI- too many to mention 2025 was the AI gold rush. 2026 is the audit. We kept all the right ones in the playbook for ya 😉 Link below.

Someone added “oil painting of my pet guinea pig” to our company not-so-secret Santa list. You’re gonna have to open the holiday issue of The Standard to find out who it was though. In the spirit of the holiday season, we gave strategy decks (and our strategists) a break, literally a 2-week break. (Thanks, Abby Murray!) And we asked our team what was * *𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 ** on their holiday wish lists. 𝗧𝗼𝗽 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗱: + A fully funded horse + Socks without holes + A live-in masseuse + Espresso that doesn’t suck +A day without imposter syndrome No EOY math. Promise. 🔗⬇️

We’re not ones to yell, but The Standard proves something we’ve been politely shouting all year long: Marketers don’t need more content. They need repeatable frameworks that are worth returning to. We store everything we take in, but we do usually recall what we saved, forwarded to our teams, or quietly stole for our next deck. This week’s issue is a roundup of the most-saved playbooks of the year — including how to show up in AI results and how to prove Marketing ROI when you have a long sales cycle. It’s the shortcut key for every newsletter you skimmed in 2025.

Feel free to make your CFO sweat a little in your 2026 strategy meeting with these best-of playbooks sitting in your back pocket. We rounded up the most-read, most-forwarded, and most-Slacked playbooks of the year—and they’re the same ones smart marketers are already building into next year’s strategy decks. Inside the issue: + A partnership play that drove 45M+ YouTube views + A budget formula that works backwards from revenue desired + A $5K employee challenge that earned 7M impressions + The contact-based playbook replacing gated content once and for all You’ll also get sharp insights from some of our favorite minds this year—like Alex Lieberman on AI clarity, Elena Verna on who’s being left out of AI progress, and 🐼 Aviv Joseph Glazer on companies choosing to skip AI when it comes to people in their ads. This is the stuff you bring to the meeting👇

We’re not saying one SME convo can change your Q1 pipeline… But one did just lead to multiple referrals worth $5–12M for a client within hours of hitting send 👀 Sure, Compound Planning’s newsletter was part of our “quarterly company update.” But it was also built from a single expert interview, turned into a sticky framework, and delivered with story. The mini-case-study is in the new issue of The Standard. So are our 8 best performing playbooks of the year. …and so is your reason to stop writing filler content. 🔗 in comments

Not everyone was sitting in a dumpster fire in 2025. We stole those people’s ideas and packaged them up for you, so 2026 can be a phoenix rising from the ashes. 6 frameworks that delivered real results and the templates that actually got used (and reused). Read ‘em, copy ‘em, enjoy the wins.

Your Spotify “listening age” might be a hip 21, but we’re looking for ancient wisdom in The Standard’s “Best Of” this week. And with all the minutes you tuned in, the main message heard and received was… drumroll… 2025 was a HOT MESS. Shrinking budgets. Pressure to prove ROI. And the dreaded AI overload. But a few marketers turned that chaos into career-defining wins—and they were generous enough to share exactly how. We pulled the most clicked, shared, and bookmarked frameworks from our SME playbooks this year. The ones our readers actually used to plan, prioritize, and grow, and here’s your 2026 cheat sheet: 𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗖𝗢𝗠 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 + HubSpot’s Kyle Denhoff helps teams pair the right offer to audience intent + Result: Blog CVRs up 1,000%+ + Bonus: Lifted Lead-to-QL ratios across channels 𝟮. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 + Headspace’s Morgan Selzer spills her two-step process for smart partnerships + Force-rank potential partners by mission, audience trust, and reach (downloadable eval) + No more collabs that “feel cool” but deliver nothing 𝟯. 𝗔 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗲 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 + 1 proven tactic to double down on + 1 calculated bet to test + 1 bold experiment to run + Execution clarity + breathing room 𝟰. 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗼-𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 + Our very own Emma Miller’s 6-axis system to operationalize brand tone + Used by scaled brands + early teams alike + Find your celeb voice lookalike Give these some listening minutes this week.