Productized Marketing

Welcome to the first official newsletter under the BWJ brand 🥳

The new Build with Jake (BWJ) website is live at www.buildwithjake.club - right now it’s just a basic opt-in with article collection, but it’ll fill out as I publish more content to the site.

Here’s what I have for you this week:

• Live cast scheduled this Friday at 3:30pm with Dr. Brie-Anna Willey at Business for Nerds. We’ll be talking about our collaboration, marketing, AI, and whatever else we feel like nerding out about. Streamed on YouTube and X.

• Today’s deep dive is all about productizing your marketing.

• My best advice for anyone struggling with writer’s block.

If you were forwarded this email, click here to join.

TODAY’S DEEP DIVE

You’ve probably heard the phrase “you gotta deliver value.” in the sense of marketing and sales.

The idea is that if you deliver value, then people will be attracted to what you offer and more likely to buy from you.

Makes sense.

But how do you measure value and how does this actually look in practice?

Here’s one way to see it:
Treat your marketing like a product.

Think about it—products have value because people are willing to exchange their money for them. When you’re willing to exchange one currency for another, there’s value. With product, you’re exchanging the currency of money for another currency which could be more attention, time, identity, energy, or relationships.

Another thing about product:

If the product doesn’t sell, the business won’t survive. And for that reason, product is where the business does it’s best work. The product is why the business exists. Marketing and sales exists to support the distribution of product. So why not build your marketing with the same approach you would your product?

Even if you’re not charging for it, build your marketing as if you could.

That’s what I mean by productized marketing. It’s showing up for your marketing the same way you show up for your product.

So how does that look like in practice?

To productize marketing, your content needs to create real value. Something people can actually use, feel, or benefit from.

And from my experience, that value usually falls into one (or more) of these five categories:

1. Inspiration

Does it spark action or clarity? Maybe it helps someone get unstuck or see a path forward they hadn’t considered.

2. Awareness

Does it shine a light on something important? This isn’t just about “raising awareness” of you, but helping people see their own challenges, patterns, or opportunities more clearly.

3. Understanding

Are you helping people connect the dots? Whether it’s a new strategy, a better way to use a tool, or even just a mindset shift, this is all about making the complex feel doable.

4. Entertainment

Are you making it enjoyable? This doesn’t mean you have to be a comedian, but make your content fun, human, or emotionally engaging can be its own kind of value.

5. Connection

This is big—especially for smaller brands. Being accessible and actually showing up in conversation creates value that most big brands can’t replicate.

You don’t need to hit all five every time — But great marketing usually checks a couple of these boxes consistently. That’s how it becomes something people look forward to—not just tolerate.

An example always helps bring this home, so let’s see how this might look in practice. Below are a few ways you could implement productization into your marketing strategy:

• Onboarding new email subscribers so it orients them to get the most of out your content. Create a strong welcome sequence that delivers value out the gate. Just like onboarding new clients, you want to set a strong first impression and make them feel good about their decision.

• Clean branding that’s recognizable and maintains visual consistency across multiple channels. Think of this as the packaging for your marketing.

• Continuing to deliver content that offers benefits from one of the 5 value categories. Your marketing doesn’t just raise awareness around your offers, it actually solves real problems like a product or service.

You may already be doing some of these things, but just switch your mindset from thinking about it like a marketing campaign to thinking about it like a product - you’ll approach the task much differently.

If you align with this concept and want to implement this into your own business - Here’s an action step you can take. It’s simply answering a few questions:

What’s the value proposition behind the marketing strategy?

More specifically, why would someone follow your social media profile or join your email list? What’s in it for them?

You can reference back to the 5 value categories and determine if your plan is setup to create real benefits. If it’s truly valuable, the market will let you know. You’ll see it in growth in all aspects of your business from your audience size with following and subscribers to new leads and strategic partnerships.

Give it a shot, and see how it works for you.

TIP OF THE WEEK

If you’re struggling with writer’s block, or any creative block - here’s my best tip to help you get back into flow state: