Earl at the feed store started a newsletter. It is printed on paper thick enough to fix a wobbly table. It contains weather predictions, notices about stray dogs, and a column titled "What We Heard at the Gas Pump." It outsells half the digital marketing plans I have written.

We used to call it content strategy. Earl calls it "what people need to know." He has no analytics dashboard, just a circle of customers who make sure he never runs out of paper.

Every marketer wants engagement. Earl wants to know if his cousin's cow had a calf. The engagement is the cow.