The marketing philosophy at Tofugu is a bit atypical compared to other places, I think. We're not making decisions based on what will generate more revenue for us. Instead, we should make our decisions (yes, even our marketing decisions) based on whether or not it will progress the company's mission of helping people to learn and use their Japanese.

Marketing "Voice"

Our marketing voice is the same as our general voice. Go read that.

The only thing I'll re-emphasize is the importance of honesty in our marketing content. We shouldn't exaggerate how good something is, and in fact should say something is "okay" when it's okay—even if it's our own product. We don't need to use exclamation marks all the time. We shouldn't say how "sugoi" our product is.

Emails

Our email lists are probably our largest, and most direct forms of marketing. They consist of people who are interested in learning Japanese. When we try to get someone to subscribe, we should try and attract this type of person.

Because our marketing efforts should bring the company mission progress, the split we try to make with our emails looks like this:

• 90% of our emails should be useful: meaning, they should help the learner to make progress toward learning Japanese. Often times, they do this directly, with lessons and suggestions on how to learn more effectively.
• 10% of our emails can let our subscribers know that we sell products, too.

We want our subscribers to look forward to their emails. "What new thing will I learn this time?" or "What new resource will I get today?"

Tofugu Blog

The Tofugu Blog is another of our "marketing" channels, though its purpose isn't to promote any of our paid products. Like everything else, the Tofugu Blog exists to help people to learn and use their Japanese, as well as to have a better experience when they are in Japan (whether they're living in Japan or visiting).

Secondarily, though, we do mention our paid products— thoughonly when it makes sense via the lens of our mission. That is, it should help the learner, and we shouldn't shoehorn mentions of WaniKani everywhere.

Tofugu itself exists as a representation of our honesty. We're knowledgeable about what we write, we help people to make progress in their Japanese, we're unbiased about other (sometimes competing) resources, and we don't rely on clickbaity headlines. Through this honest, as well as through the learner's Japanese progress, we become a reliable and useful source for Japanese language learners and teachers. When we do make something new, or when a reader discovers that we made something, it'll be an easy buy (or try) for them because they know we do good things.

Customer Support

Customer support is a big part of our marketing. We try to be relatable, reasonable, and do nice things for our customers. When someone emails us, or contacts us, it's an opportunity to help someone with something, go above and beyond, and hopefully turn them into lifelong (or at least a-couple-years-long) fans of what we do. We're not difficult about refunds, we're nice, and we genuinely try to help people to make progress in their Japanese, even through customer support. It's one person at a time, but I think customer support is an important part of how we do "marketing."

Ads

I'm not totally against ads, and we've done some ad runs in the past, but we don't put a lot into them.

• Emails have been really good for us, much better than ads.
• Nothing against them or anything, but customers we've converted through ad spend tend to cost more time and effort. That is, they tend to whine more, they're more stingy, ask for more refunds, and have a harder time understanding our product. This is, of course, more or less anecdotal, so take all that with a grain of salt. It just feels like the customers who come in through ad spend cause more issues, and the people who come in through Tofugu, word of mouth, and the like, are just awesome in every way.