Duolingo’s Secret to Keeping You Hooked

I think the best marketers and the best businesses lead, and that's why that people follow them and that's why they're excited to do that, is because they make it very clear this is where things are going and it's good for you and you should go this way. And so that's the first thing they're willing to take a leadership position. And anytime you take a leadership position, you got to know that you're going to have some arrows slung at you. I also think that, that when your prospects, when your customers, when your clients tell you that they want something, you should believe them. And if your job, if what your business does is help people achieve the outcome that they say they want, then.

You should do again, not whatever is within your means. You. I'm not saying that you go to.

This person's house and you like, kidnap their cat and you say, look, you're not getting your cat back until you pass your Portuguese test. Right? That would be a bridge too far.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Business Lunch with your host, Ryan Deiss and myself, Roland Frazier. It is wonderful to be back, Ryan. How you doing? We just got back from a wonderful time off and then you went and did something else. So you either tired or feeling refreshed or.

Yeah, maybe a little. Little from column A, a little from column B.

But no, I mean, it was good.

Like you and I got to head out to uk. Part board meeting, part, you know, partner retreat, part just kind of hang out and kick it. And so that was, that was really, really nice. Got to do that for, you know, for a week. And that was kind of on the back of some other family travel. So I'm now back in it. I mean, you know this. I like to take a 30 day vacation. I found that that's been one of the most helpful things that I do. Not just for me personally, but for the company. And so it was sort of broken up this year because my son had some college stuff. But I do actually feel very motivated and refreshed and I found myself like working this weekend not because, like I had to, but because I just was like itching to get in and start building some things. So. Yeah. What about you?

Good. Just kind of same. Just the trip was really great and then got back and hard in it for a week and then this weekend just to kind of get caught up on the fun, interesting things that I like to do. And I always like researching, kind of catching up on everything, finding things for us to talk about. And I came across this article that I sent you which was near and dear, I guess, to both of our hearts because you have had family experience with it and I have had direct experience experience with it. And that is that, that persnickety cagey little owl over at Duolingo. And, and I've seen and read quite a few deep dives on their marketing over the last four or five years and they seem to be to me, just brilliant. And I think I saw that profits, either profits or revenues were up 50%, you know, recently. And they just, they, they just do a great job. But this article had a little bit of pushback because the gentleman was learning Portuguese for a trip and he's like, I had the deadline. And so two weeks before I started doing it, I had a streak for two weeks. And I like this, it says it didn't take long for Duolingo's emails to shift in tone. One subject line read, it's been three days and it's got the rolly eyes emoticon. And then it says, or emoji. The next day it asks, have you already gotten sick of learning Portuguese? And then the day after, my favorite with the little smiley that's got its, its one eyebrow up and the hand on its chin says, it looks like you've learned how to say quitter in Portuguese. Ouch. So, so he was basically just saying that, that this is a amazing job of bringing a brand's personality to life. And it's clearly been great and they are following up, but not just, did you see my offer? Did you see my offer? Did you see my offer? They're following up in a brand personality congruent way. Consistently very emotional blackmail. Y They've gamified the app so that you've got these streaks that you just don't want to break because why?

I don't know.

Does it mean anything?

No, it doesn't.

Not at all.

But there's something about it that causes us to come back. I think.

I had right at a.

Year of one language I was trying to learn on there and I played with it probably since it's come into being. And it's also interesting, I guess the little this guy said in the article, I hadn't noticed it, but that the actual app icon turns from the happy, healthy green owl to like kind of a, you know, an aged, you know, decrepit owl when he doesn't get used on your app screen. They are absolutely brilliant at it. They sell, they sell the ability to.

And I don't know if you can.

Pay for it, but like you can use points towards it, the ability to get freeze diamonds and things to help you preserve a streak if you can't make it per day. But I just wanted to talk about it a little bit because I think it's brilliant and also does it go too far and how can we learn from that as marketers? What are your thoughts?

Hey Ryan Deiss here, co host of Business Lunch.

And before we get to the show, I have an exciting invitation for you.

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Well, so first of all, the article that you're referencing, Business Insider, and the headline is, the world's meanest app, Duolingo, subjects its users to emotional blackmail. Gen Z loves it. I think it's worth just pointing out again, the folks at Business Insider are just proving themselves to be just completely, you know, just, just, just such like, crybabies. I don't know. I just.

It drives me.

Or is it just clickbait opportunists?

Exactly. I mean, that's the thing. It's like their whole deal, like you're doing exactly. For what it's worth, you're doing exactly what you're railing.

Gets this app for doing. You've got clickbaity headlines and all this other stuff. So I, so I want to separate just kind of the, like, the tone of the article because to me it's just like whiny baby kind of reality stuff.

And, and I, but I do think.

It'S important to acknowledge that, yeah, what Duolingo is doing is absolutely a form of manipulation.

And I saw this with my, my youngest son, Timmy.

You know, we were gonna go, this was a couple years ago. You know, we're doing our family trip, 30 day vacation like I talked about. We're gonna be spending some time in, in Germany. And he decides I want to learn German. So he's like, can I get the Duolingo app?

And this kid's like, on a 400.

Plus day, streaks at 12 years old. Yeah, 12 years old, learning German. Can't speak a lick of German. So I don't necessarily want to speak to the efficiency or efficacy rather of, of this, of this particular language learning platform. But, but for sure, there was one night, I remember he came down just bawling his eyes out because he thought he lost his streak. He didn't get it in and his iPad had died and all this, you know, and he's bawling. And you know, I think people, you could argue that like, oh, this is therefore bad.

We got to have a conversation with him as parents about, like, let's talk about the things that matter. Let's talk about responsibility. Let's talk about, you know, there were.

Some good lessons for him to be had in there. So this idea of it being manipulative, I Think it's possible to acknowledge that, like, yeah, it probably is, you know, manipulative, but also to acknowledge that adults should be adults and should be responsible for their own stuff. And if you're going to let your.

Kids do it, parents should be parents. So can we set aside just the.

Is this wrong and is this bad argument? Because I just.

To me, that's.

I don't know.

I think it's idiotic.

What do you think?

Actually, I would like to speak to it briefly because, you know, you and I feel very similarly about things like that. But I think that not to get lost in our own, you know, you know, I can't call you an old man. I mean, I could if I was 20. But people yelling at clouds in our own, you know, like, dad rhetoric. Is it unethical to manipulate your audience into doing the thing that you think serves them? Let's. Let's give duolingo credit and say we.

Believe people that say they want to.

Learn a language should be encouraged to learn a language at all costs is probably too far over on the spectrum. Not at all. And hope they just work is not enough. Is it unethical to manipulate people into taking action to consume your product?

Yeah, and I would argue that no, especially if you can make different arguments about whether or not the thing somebody wants to do is good or bad. And then you can decide what business you want to be in. If somebody's like, I'm not going to be in a business that encourages smoking and drug use and pornography, I think that those things are bad. And so even if somebody says that they want it, I'm not necessarily going to be in a business that encourages those lifestyles because, you know, for me, I think that that's. I think that's bad and unhelpful in this case.

How ethical is the result? Right. As the thing they want, let's assume the thing they want. We don't have an ethical challenge with. Now we go to. Is the method is the means of getting them to consume the thing that we actually know they want. You know, where. Where do we draw the line there? And how. How do. How do people. Because I want to help everybody who's watching and listening first solve the moral dilemma or at least be able to analyze it. And so I think that first level is. Is the thing that we're ultimately trying to give them something that's not really that great for them. And if it isn't, then, you know, that's an ethical dilemma you've got to wrestle with. And Decide, you know, are you okay with that or not? We've obviously decided not. So. So then we get to, yeah, okay, so they want it and it's good for them. And we've got some tricks up our sleeves to kind of emotionally cause them to feel bad if they don't move in the direction, which is the other thing. That's negative reinforcement versus positive, right? So the positive is, congratulations, you're on day 45 of your streak. And the negative is, I guess you've learned how to say quitter in Portuguese. So how do we help people, including ourselves, think about where do you draw the line? Or is pretty much anything okay?

I think the best marketers and the best businesses lead, and that's why that people follow them, that's why they're excited to do that, is because they make it very clear this is where things are going and it's good for you and you should go this way. And so that's the first thing, like, they're willing to take a leadership position. And anytime you take a leadership position, you gotta know that you're gonna have some arrows slung at you. I also think that when your prospects, when your customers, when your clients tell you that they want something, you should believe them. And if your job, if what your business does is help people achieve the outcome that they say they want, then.

You should do again, not whatever is within your means. You. I'm not saying that you go to.

This person's house and you, like, kidnap their cat and you say, look, you're not getting your cat back until you pass your Portuguese test. Right? That would be a bridge too far.

But.

But to say, hey, you said that you wanted this and you're not doing.

It, that kind of makes you a quitter to break out the stick. I don't. I don't think that that is a bad thing at all. I think it's actually in many cases a brave thing for a brand to.

Do because they're going to get crap.

For it, because people are going to get pissed off about it. Similarly, I don't think it's bad for a salesperson to follow up. Somebody opts in for something they express interest.

It's something that they've said that they are interested in their actions said that.

You should believe them, that they want.

It, and you should take a leadership role in trying to get them to do this thing that, while it's good for them, is going to mean a change, which is hard for them. Not everybody's going to want to do it, but if you've decided that yeah, as a business we're certainly in the business of making money, but we're also in the business of helping people, changing lives, making an impact that is going.

To require you to take the role.

Of a leadership, of a leader. You should absolutely deploy lots of benefit based languages, lots of carrot. But when necessary you should be willing to get out a little bit of a stick. Is there a line and is it possible to cross that line and do some brands cross the line? Yeah, I don't know that that line is necessarily clear. But this idea that oh, you should only use positive reinforcement to get somebody to do something, you're just not going to be as effective, you're just not statistically proven scientifically.

Right. Negative reinforcement works better. Okay, so some of the lessons I just came across it. So the first quarter of 2024 the company reported 54% year over year growth in daily active users, which is pretty impressive. 45% growth in revenue and record profitability with over 31 million people paying to be on the platform. That's pretty crazy. What can we do if we don't have programmers that can create maybe the gamification to the level that those guys have is the first place in our messaging, is it in retargeting, is it emails? What do you think some of the things that folks could do to help take advantage of what they learn from what Duolingo does because clearly they're having success.

I think getting clear on the front end with your prospects and definitely with your clients. How do you define success and if they're not sure, providing a means to define success for them. So in Duolingo again I'm not familiar enough, you know, with it, but obviously success is contin is completing the different levels. So you want to complete the lessons and then you're leveling up and that's kind of how it gets gamified. I know the scalable company. We would define success for a client. We're going to ask them what is your three year target? Right. That's how we're going to define scale. Scale is increasing your sales, profitability and enterprise value from X to Y in three years. So what is that? Some businesses know it, some businesses don't. And so we'll say if you're unclear, we would recommend either double in three or top line to bottom line. So double in three is simply doubling your top line revenue and doubling your profitability in three years. Or go whatever your top line is today. Let's set a goal of that being your bottom line profitability in three years.

So I do think again, this comes.

Down to leadership and the best brands lead. But getting crystal clear on what is, what does winning look like to you?

And if they're not sure, helping them.

To define it, that's the first step. And everybody can do that. And that could be an aspect of a form they fill out, where it's automated. That could be an aspect of a consultative sales onboarding conversation. If what you're doing is more enterprise, if it's more professional, service based. But I think that's the first, that's the first step. And then when they tell you, I think it's your job to then believe them. And even when it gets hard to continue to follow up, even when it gets awkward, even when, you know they're a little bit sick of hearing from.

You, even when, and I think this.

Is important, you know, it risks the sale. And yeah, it's possible to cross a line. And I think we've all have received cold outreach from people who, you know, they reach out to us, we don't know who this person is. And, and then like message six or seven, they're like, you know, I guess clearly you don't care about this thing.

Like, I think if it's a cold.

Outreach, you haven't earned the right to take that posture and take that tone. But if it's an inbound inquiry, if it's an active customer or a client, I think you have earned that. And that's where I would say the other piece is to get permission early on, especially with your clients, hey, if this is what you want, can I have permission at times to really, to push back and to lean in and to maybe kind of call you on, on some B.S. if it's there, to maybe give you a kick in the pants. And I think asking for permission and this might be something that Duolingo might even do in the early stages where they would ask, you know, we found that our, that, that our members respond when we frankly, you know, poke them and get a little bit snarky. Like, how would you like to set your snark o meter? You know, do you want like a 10 out of 10 where we are going to come to your house and steal your cat and not give it back to you until you complete your lessons or zero to zero, like it's only this.

So I think getting permission on the.

Front end would kind of be step two and then, yeah, step, step three.

Is being willing to follow up with.

Both the carrot and stick and understanding that, that when you do reach out and when you hold up a mirror in front of somebody's face and you kind of speak truth into their life, if it's on something small, like language learning or if it's on something, you.

Know, bigger, fitness is a big aspect of this. Just know that some people are going.

To get mad at you and that's.

Okay because that's you doing your job.

And you can't take the negative criticism as a reason that you should stop doing it. The only thing I think you should not the only thing, the primary thing you should look on is what are your success rates? Because if your customers, if your clients are successful, then your methods are working. You know, focus, focus on that. Obviously, if you're getting lots and lots.

And lots of negative feedback, if people.

Are like hating on your brand, then maybe you're pushing it too far. But I think you need to be willing to go there. I think most brands aren't willing to go there. I think about like Southwest Airlines, right, who planted a flag and said like, we're not going to serve food and we're not going to do these things. And they're, you know, they'll get a letter from a customer who's like, how dare you? I can't believe that you won't let me, you know, pick my seat ahead of time, which they're now doing. I can't believe you won't offer meals. And they get a letter from the CEO that simply says, we'll miss you.

That's leadership.

And I think the best brands are willing to offend for the sake of their clients and for the sake of the overall mission.

So I agree. I think that our overly PC world is, it's not how things really are. It's just not how it is. It's, you know, we try, but. So the, the other thing that they, that they were talking about in the article, they said research suggests it's especially risky to deploy marketing campaigns that make people feel bad about themselves. A 2010 study found that the use of guilt and shame in anti drinking ads triggered a defensive response that actually made their target viewers likelier to drink more. If people feel that they're constantly bumping up against reminders of their failure, they may decide they no longer no longer having fun and want to move on. So that's one thing I want to talk about. But at the same time, Duolingo says that its guilt tripping notifications do the trick of enticing people to drop whatever they're doing. And log onto the app. Spokesperson told a magazine in 2020 that other options for re engaging users were between 5 and 8% less effective, which isn't that much really. But over 31 million users, it's a.

Lot.

That can be quite a few and a lot of money. So it's kind of interesting that there's research that says don't, don't make them feel bad. But at the same time I think it might be, don't make them feel bad about themselves more. Like if you think about drinking, it's like if you're shaming somebody about drinking, is it, I'm an alcoholic. And that's a label that's got so much social negativity that we don't want to be reminded of it. As opposed to, hey, remember you wanted to learn a language is more about your habit of learning the language or your commitment to yourself. It's not a label that you are, you know, a non language learner, which is a, you know, a thing that society doesn't like. What are your thoughts about that?

I think those two, I think the.

Study they mentioned has nothing to do with Duolingo.

I think there's an incredibly important difference.

Which is if you're just running anti.

Drinking ads, that is cold outreach. These are not people who have requested to receive anti drinking ads.

These are not people who are in some type of substance abuse program. Like, I think if somebody is in that, then like we both have known people who have gone through substance abuse program while they don't, you know, lean into like shame. And it's a highly supportive type thing.

You know, if you miss your meeting.

Your sponsor is going to reach out.

To you, like, what the heck?

Where were you? You know, I mean there's, there is both, there's a tremendous amount of positive reinforcement, but there's also a fair bit of accountability. And hey, you said that this is.

Who you are now and that you're.

Not this person anymore. Now you can call that shame or you can call that accountability. I don't like, that's, to me, that's a bit of a spectrum and kind of in the eye of the beholder. But I think that there's a fundamental difference between I have opted in for this app, I have said I want to learn a language.

If I just got, if somebody just.

Was randomly reaching out to me, being like, quitter, why on earth aren't you learning Portuguese?

I'd be like, what's wrong with you?

I never asked. I never said I wanted to learn Portuguese.

The Biggest difference is they've opted in, they have said, and that's why that.

Step one is so important. Getting crystal clear with your leads, with your prospects, with your customers, with your clients. What does success look like for you.

Once you have asked that question, got.

An answer and believed, and you've aligned.

With them and said, I agree, that is a good thing, you're right to.

Want it and we can help you get it. That's when I think you've earned the.

Right to be, to leverage the stick. And until you have done that, I would agree with it. You shouldn't leverage the stick. You have not earned the right to.

Speak truth into this person's life. And I think we're talking about the difference between inbound and outbound. And that clearly the author of this does not understand the distinction between that.

But I think it's big, it's huge. And it's, it's why how you go.

About doing outreach, like if you're going.

To do cold outreach, I think your.

Methodology should be fundamentally different than if it's inbound and you're following up with existing leads and customers. So I.

Permission to. You have a greater level of permission, but you have a greater level of permission to engage in that nagging kind of behavior if somebody's opted into it, basically, is what you're saying.

And especially if you've literally asked.

Yeah, especially if you literally asked for permission.

Like if you've said again, like, step one, let's get agreement on what success looks like. Step two, get permission to, hey, can.

I in the beginning, before anybody's failed.

Yet, before any shame is entered in, do I have permission to kind of nag you about this to give you a kick in the pants when you need it. So I mean, whether you get kind of passive permission or direct active permission. Yeah, I think that that is important if you're going to take on that role of saying, hey, you're not doing what you said you would do. Whether that is in a proactive email outreach, whether it's in a follow up phone call or whether it's in a owl going from green and happy to like sad and gray.

There's an author that they quote in here of a book called Hoodwinked How Marketers Use the Story, Same tactics as Cults. And that that person said that ethical lines get crossed when a brand attracts consumers under a false premise or doesn't let them disengage. Which I think that's, that's important as well. Like if they nag you and you're like, you know, no. And they're like, you know, well, you said that you wanted to opt out, but we're still talking to you. She cited multi level marketing schemes as one example of a business model that routinely draws on both of these unethical tactics. Tactics relying on bombarding customers with communication, then withholding delivery of the promised goods or services until the customer gives more of their time, money, or both. So that I would say would cross the line. Well, I'd like to read that book. I put it down because I, I love the Blair. Is it, was it Blair Warren?

Yeah. Blair Warren, yeah.

Had the one sentence, persuasion, that basically he studied all the cults and, and came up with, I think it was five things that, that good cults do and that marketers could ethically be inspired by or lean into a little bit without, without the bad result of let's, let's make somebody leave all their money and friends and life and free will to a cult. But I thought that was an interesting thing to say, you know, that, that really disengagement, the ability to disengage the, the delivery of what you're promising. That isn't a, almost extortion. You know, we're, we're, we're not going to give you this until you give us that. So I thought that was pretty cool. And, and clearly duolingo is more nudgy than is anything else. So I thought that was, I thought that was kind of cool. And, and then once you, once you decide where you're going to be on that spectrum, you're going to risk losing people because you are creating some sort of friction. There are people that might read this article and say, I never want duolingo, or people that got the nagging email and said I'm out. But like you said with Southwest, it's like, okay, we're going to miss you. Right. You're not our customer because you can't make everybody happy. And if you do, you become so blase and vanilla that you're just nothing. So I thought it was interesting.

So if we were going to summarize.

I think the first thing was do decide if you're okay losing customers because you take some sort of stand or you define your customers so that there are customers that might have personalities that you don't want. Is that a fair first kind of thing to think about?

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's a great, great place to start.

Okay. And then you're going to decide what, what is the personality of my brand? I'm okay. So step one, yep, I'm okay. I'm going to repel some people, I'm going to attract some people. That's generally a good thing. Then what do I want my personality to be? And then is it possible for, you know, like, how is that personality going to differentiate you from the rest of the world? The little owl is very different from every other language learning platform that I've ever been and it's the only one that I've paid for for years consistently. Even though, as you said, I don't think that it's like, as an exclusive way to learn language, you're not going to take a year of Duolingo and speak, you know, fluent French or Portuguese or German. But, but that. So that personality would be the next one and then it would be.

And just as just an example of that, I think that's important because you can still hold people accountable and do what we talked about in the beginning, like, say we're going to do this. Southwest does it in a, in a warm, fun, whimsical kind of way. But whereas, I mean, you think about these, these people who are running these like alpha male boot camps where like guys come there, you know, and in many cases they're literally like yelling at them, screaming their face like, you need to do this.

Right.

Yeah.

And both of those can be effective.

And both of those are on brand.

And in both cases, well, certainly in the latter case, people have opted in.

For that kind of feedback. So you. It's possible to, to give, to give critical feedback and, and to be quote, unquote manipulative, but still be very much on brand and it's going to look different.

Which leads to the next thing that I think would be step three would be differentiate your permission based messages from your general messages. Right. Get permission to be that level of manipulative and obnoxious versus your. Because I don't see, I don't see, like if you look at Duolingo's Social and their TikTok and other campaigns that they run, they are, they have the personality and the owl has the personality, but there's no guilt or shame. There's no direct, you know, bad feelings that you get. It's more, I'm sassy. You know, I think, I think there was an album that was put out with the title Brat and Duolingo posted. Oh, somebody finally wrote a whole album about me or something like that. You know, it's like that. That's not at all manipulating people. That's. That's a personality I like. Now I'm going to opt in because I want to engage with that personality or screw that little green guy.

I hate him.

I'm not going to opt in. But you haven't been nagged or offended or anything like that. I think that's actually a pretty good litmus, like to. To say this is when it's okay to communicate like that. This is when it's not, you know, I don't know. What do you think about that?

I think one of the best ways to get permission is passively. If you're not going to do it actively, hey, do I have permission to follow up with you in this way? But one of the best ways to do it passively is to be very intentional about your brand and your messaging, such that when people do sign up, they're not surprised. Right. Again, if you go and sign up for one of these, like former military person yelling at your face like boot camps and you get upset that they yelled at you, well then what's wrong with you? Like, that was clear across all of their marketing.

Every social post is like this leader.

Of the thing yelling at somebody and telling them that they're no good. So I think the more intentional that you are about who you are about your messaging, about your brand voice, and the more that you put it out there and market accordingly, that is a way of getting passive permission. Now, nobody's surprised when the follow up is a little bit snarky and a little bit tongue in cheek or nobody's surprised that like, oh, it's kind of like I've got my Catholic grandmother following up with me and suddenly making me feel a little bit guilty in a passive aggressive manner. Right. Nobody's surprised because that's what's out there on full display.

Yeah, yeah. The other thing I like is that it's the messaging, most of it. The one exception that I actually didn't really like was the one where he said, you, you've figured out how to say quitter in Portuguese. That most of the messaging is criticizing the behavior, not the person. It's not putting a label on a person, which I think quitter is putting a label on a person. And I think that I, I would not want, I would be annoyed if I saw that because I'd be like, I'm not a freaking quitter. I just didn't have time for your stupid, you know, even if they just.

Said you learned how to say quit, it would I think be a little bit.

And I agree.

And this is where there's the line. Right.

And like, if, if one of our copywriters brought that to me, I would be like, okay, I love what you're doing here. Let's pull it back to like 80, 90% of that.

Yeah.

Because again, I don't want to do.

But that's, that's where you need somebody.

There to exercise some wisdom.

You're going to try some things that.

Maybe pushes the line a little bit too far. You get the feedback. You realize we get most of the result without going all the way there. But brands need to be bold enough and brave enough to test the line just a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a pretty cool ability to distinguish. Let's criticize the behavior, not criticize the human that is behind it. And then moving towards what the, the author of the book said, allow them to disengage, allow people to opt out of that. I was wondering if it, like when you opt out, a lot of savvy marketers will have something that says, I noticed that you're opting out. Was it because you received too many emails? If so, would you like to receive fewer? And then it says like, you know, once a day, once a week, once a month, you know, that kind of thing. And I was wondering if maybe it would be possible to gauge the level of snarkiness that it might actually be kind of fun to do that where you have, you know, we have, you know, which, which Duolingo owl do you want? Do you want the ultra snarky evil owl, you know, or do you want the relatively mild mannered? And it could be, you know, too snarky, not snarky enough, you know, something like that could be kind of a fun way to do that too. Right?

Yeah. Setting the evil owl meter. And I think a lot of that goes into the, into permission and saying, what's the best way?

And this is like, I know when.

We'Re working with clients, we tell our, know our, our business advisors to ask them. One of the questions that we ask our clients is how do you best respond? Do you like to be challenged? Do you like to.

And I think the more that we.

Can do that again, we're doing it for their benefit. And I think as long as you're saying, I know what your goal is, your goal is good, I can help you get your goal. And now I want to partner with you in your achievement of this goal and whatever is best, that's how we get permission to do these things. And that's how I think we.

Are.

Better at the marketing, the fulfillment side.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. And then so I think that, I think that's it, right. Did we miss any steps along the way, you think, or anything for people to be thinking about?

I think those are the steps. I would just say whether you want to learn a language or not, it's worth downloading the. It's worth downloading the Duolingo app. It is a masterclass in marketing and in follow up in gamification and all of the above. And so it's worth getting in there, you know, start to learn a lesson and then just naturally fade and see.

How they respond and see how it.

Hits you and say, like, what am I seeing here that I could apply into my own business? It's just one of the cheapest marketing masterclasses you can, you can attend.

Yeah. And I would say if you're thinking, yeah, but I don't have the budget or the time or even know how I would program gamification in. Don't worry about that. Just look at the emails. That's just your autoresponder.

Like you can go all the way.

Towards you program streak reminders and, you know, app contests and all kinds of other things. Like they do, you know, they have leagues of people that are competing weekly for language learning. You know, you can do all that or you cannot. You can just do emails. But there are lessons to learn for everybody, no matter what the budget, no matter what you're doing. So hopefully you guys found that helpful. If you did, please share this with other people. We love, love, love reaching more people and we'll see you next time on Business Lunch.

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