✍️ how one newsletter generated 3 $5M+ referrals

It's June. You're halfway to your annual number, the pipeline's lighter than you'd like, and the instinct is to do something — anything — right now.

So … you start playing Whack-a-Mole 🔨

Traffic slows down? Try some paid ads. Whack. Engagement dips? Add new content formats. Whack. Pipeline softens? Start a podcast. Launch a webinar series. Expand the audience. Whack, whack, whack. 

The impulse to identify a marketing issue and correct it quickly and decisively makes sense.

But there is another way. When marketing problems sprawl, go narrower. Deeper. Dig up the moles at their source. (...Is this metaphor still working?) 

Our friends at Compound — faced with competing marketing priorities, an inherited blog, and an incredibly wide range of potential clients to market to — did just this. 

And it got them three $5M+ referrals out of one edition of their newsletter. Whack.

Let’s dive in.

Rob Stella, then Head of Marketing at wealth management firm Compound, had an audience problem.

He had simply too much of it.

Like many financial firms, Compound served a wide range of clients: founders, tech employees, business owners, law partners, and more. Their content reflected that. A broad audience led to broad topics led to broad messaging (i.e., the death of your marketing goals). 

So Rob got real specific. Rather than try to serve all their prospects at once, the team narrowed almost all of their content around one audience: tech employees and founders. 

To sharpen the audience internally, the company created a shortlist of real LinkedIn profiles representing ideal clients and shared them with internal teams and agency partners. Suddenly, content stopped sounding like generic financial advice and started answering much more specific questions:

• What happens if I leave my company before my equity vests?

• Can I afford to take a sabbatical?

• Should I sell shares during a tender offer?

• What would it look like to step away from a high-burnout role without sacrificing long-term wealth?

A specific audience led to specific topics like navigating equity compensation, liquidity events, career transitions, and high-income financial decisions.

Specific topics led to specific messaging: Compound has the expertise to help you navigate these moments tactically — and also understands how you might be feeling as you go through them. 

The result was content that felt emotionally recognizable, not just technically useful. Readers could see themselves inside it.

Behind the scenes, Compound worked with yours truly to build a system where one advisor conversation could eventually power newsletters, long-form editorial, executive LinkedIn content, advisor social posts, and even sales language. In 2025, Compound launched Compound Interests, an editorial newsletter and direct line to the exact audience it wanted to help.

After sending an edition built around “The Two-Way Door Framework” — a method for thinking through major career and financial decisions without feeling trapped by them — the company received three referrals, each worth $5M+ in net worth, within hours. One exceeded $12M.

See how they built it in the full playbook.

Campaigns that got us talking: HubSpot for Startups promoted its AEO crash course using a little old-school referral loop disguised as nostalgia bait, and it warmed our little MSN Messenger millennial hearts.

AI spotlight: The Pope released a 42,000-word statement on AI this week. Which means AI discourse has officially reached “the Vatican has thoughts” levels. One of the biggest themes? Don’t lose the human part. (Pope Leo must subscribe to The Standard.)

Stuff that made us scroll back up: Companies increasingly want content marketers who are comfortable with analytics and data. Fair. Reasonable. Deeply unfortunate for anyone who got into this field to avoid spreadsheets.

Google released new guidance for showing up in AI-powered search results, and, honestly, it sounds a little familiar.

Two of the biggest recommendations?

• Provide a unique point of view — cough

• Create “non-commodity content” that’s genuinely helpful — cough, cough

As AI-generated search (Google AI, ChatGPT, Perplexity) starts taking over more of the search results page, the content getting surfaced is the content that actually answers the questions. And with expertise, specificity, and perspective.

That’s the kind of content we build. SME-led. Experience-backed. Actually helpful to read. 

If you’ve been wondering why investing in thoughtful content matters more than just traditional SEO, Google just published your reason. If you want to see what that looks like in practice, let’s talk.

LinkedIn posts written by Claude’s middle-manager cousin.

Someone finally built a Cringe Meter for those eerily polished LinkedIn posts that say nothing but use 14 line breaks to do it.

Paste in your copy and find out whether you sound like a person or a ChatGPT-powered “thought leader.”

To develop a unique brand voice, write to one person. (Literally, know their name and story.) 

To build trust with your audience, shed light on their unique anxieties. 

To generate referrals, own your audience, and show up in their inbox every. single week. Like so. 

And for Pete’s sake, stop whacking moles. 

See y’all next time. 

— the storyarb writers’ room 🫡

Oh! And another thing… Modern marketing’s obsession with analytics can be traced back to Philip Kotler, who helped convince businesses that marketing should be measured scientifically instead of run entirely on instinct and vibes. #ripvibes