Whatever you rolled in sure does stink.

In today’s Far Side cartoon, a male dog is calling on his female companion for a date. And is NOT BASHFUL in laying on the compliments in hope of winning her affections, and see where the night takes them.

I always crack up when I see our miniature poodle, Cinnamon roll around in whatever she happens to see. Dead frogs, dead crabs, stagnant water on the beach, whatever strikes her fancy in the moment.

What makes it funny is that Sana is primping and priming her to be “proper” with the fancy haircuts, trimming the nails, giving lots of love and affection and what not. And it does have an effect. Cinnamon is about the sweetest little dog you’ll ever meet and isn’t hesitant to introduce herself to strangers, particularly children.

She has come to expect affection from humans because that’s what she’s been taught to expect from her owners.

But grooming is not something Cinnamon would do of her own volition. She’ll give those puppy dog eyes when I’m eating a hot dog, express eagerness when she sees me put my hat on to go outside, but she’ll never beg to go to the groomers for a haircut. Leave it up to her, and she would just as soon eat dead hermit crabs at the beach.

There just might be some wisdom here to unpack for content creators like myself, and perhaps you who are reading this email.

Rex knows the proclivities of his “market”; in this case his date he’s trying to impress with his smooth words. Ginger for her part knows what her date will find attractive and goes out of her way to roll in “something special” in the compost pile.

I’m laughing typing these words, but it’s the truth. You’ve got to know what your consumers want, then plan your content around it.

Now there’s a fine line here in allowing the audience in having too much say in your content. It’s your show, you do it for you first and foremost, and democracy ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, be it in politics or podcasting. But when the content creator knows their market beyond a superficial understanding of what they say they want (hitting the “purchase” or “play” button is the best indicator of what people really want) and plans their content around that, it’s a gold mine.

This is “long game” thinking at play; an audience will not be built in a day with this way of thinking and planning. But the audience, once established, will be as strong as the walls around a city in the ancient world. Sometimes you need to give the audience what they want before they know (or admit) what they want.

People like Howard Stern and Jerry Springer have used this principle quite effectively for millennia. I say if they can succeed appealing to the baser instincts of humanity, why can’t someone succeed appealing to our natural cravings for virtue and goodness?

A 5-minute scroll through my Twitter feed this morning made me wonder if such a thing will ever succeed; but I’m willing to give it a shot anyway.

Here’s the link to my This Is What We C.R.A.V.E. podcast if you want to check out an episode or five: https://jamesdnewcomb.com/podcast