Notes on digital media, strategy, and advertising
This is Daniel Goodall's collection of thoughts on social media, marketing, and advertising — written by a working practitioner rather than a textbook. Posts cover frameworks for social content, customer value models, demand generation, and why some ad formats fall flat. The writing is professional but informal, and leans analytical rather than promotional.
Browse the posts below, check the portfolio, or read the about page for background on the author.
A social media strategy without a clear relationship model is just noise. When brands treat every platform as a broadcast channel, they miss the fundamental shift that turned audiences into participants. The most effective social content understands that people share what reflects their identity, not what interrupts their scrolling. Building a genuine connection means listening before posting and valuing the customer relationship over the vanity metrics that too many dashboards celebrate.
Digital advertising has spent years chasing the wrong metrics. Impressions and clicks tell a shallow story when the real question is whether anyone remembers the brand an hour later. Banner blindness is not a myth — it is a learned behaviour that millions of internet users have developed through sheer exposure to forgettable creative. The formats that work are those that respect attention as a finite resource and offer something worth the mental energy they demand.
Content strategy suffers when creativity is treated as a production line. Agencies that pitch volume over value end up filling feeds with material nobody seeks out and nobody misses. The alternative is harder but more rewarding: fewer pieces, each built around a genuine insight about the audience. That kind of work takes longer to create and requires a client willing to trust the process, but it leaves a mark that a thousand generic posts cannot match.
The job interview process in digital roles often reveals more than either party intends. Candidates who can articulate why a campaign worked — not just that it generated impressions — demonstrate the analytical thinking that separates practitioners from button-pushers. Likewise, interviewers who ask thoughtful questions about creative problem-solving signal an agency culture that values substance over slide decks. Both sides should be listening for evidence of real curiosity.
Customer lifetime value remains one of the most underused frameworks in marketing planning. When acquisition costs are measured against a single transaction, the maths rarely favours quality creative or patient brand building. Shift the lens to the full arc of a customer relationship, and suddenly the economics support investment in content that deepens loyalty rather than simply triggering the next click.
LinkedIn has evolved into something stranger than its early promise suggested. What began as a professional networking tool now hosts personal confessionals, viral opinion pieces, and a style of engagement bait that rivals any consumer platform. For brands and individuals alike, the challenge is the same: finding a voice that adds genuine value without slipping into the performative sincerity that the algorithm seems to reward.
The Michelin guide and Volvo trucks both illustrate something important about branded content done right. Neither example succeeded by talking about product features in the conventional sense. Instead, each created something people actively wanted to spend time with — content that stood on its own merits and earned attention through quality rather than interruption. That principle scales far beyond the famous case studies.
Writing about digital media while working in it creates a useful tension. The practitioner who also reflects publicly on their craft develops sharper instincts because they are forced to examine their own assumptions. A blog post that started as a half-formed thought on the train can become a framework that shapes client conversations months later. The act of publishing is itself a form of strategic thinking.
The bit about me
Daniel Goodall (also known as dagood or Dan Goodall) writes here about digital media, social strategy, and marketing. As of March 2015 he was Head of Digital and CRM at Fiskars. The about page has more on his background and the thinking behind the blog.
Explore the site
- My Portfolio — professional work and projects.
- Popular Posts — the most-read articles, including Social Customer Lifetime Value and the LEGS framework.
- The Bit About Me — background on Daniel Goodall.
Featured posts
- Giving your Social Content "LEGS" — published January 31, 2014. Proposes Listen, Engage, Give, Sell as a gentler alternative to Gary Vaynerchuk's "Jab, Jab, Jab, Hook" approach.
- Social Customer Lifetime Value — published September 23, 2010. Argues that CLV should expand to SCLV = CLV + Customer Referral Value, drawing on Brian Solis's writing on Social Capital.
- "There is no such thing as a low-interest category…" — published January 15, 2014. Looks at how brands like Volvo, working with Forsman Bodenfors, make unglamorous categories interesting.
- The Real Reason That Banners Don't Work — published May 26, 2013. A look at why banner ads so often underperform.
Key info
| Author | Daniel Goodall (dagood) |
| Role noted on site | Head of Digital and CRM, Fiskars (from March 2015) |
| Site focus | Digital media, social strategy, advertising, marketing |
| Framework featured | LEGS — Listen, Engage, Give, Sell |
Other posts touch on demand generation versus demand fulfillment (January 7, 2014), branded content's long history (December 10, 2012), and identifying a brand's most valuable customer (November 28, 2012).
SCLV, in short
SCLV = CLV + CRV
CLV = (Sale value) x (Estimated reorders), adjusted for present value
CRV = Social Capital x likelihood of advocacy
That's the shorthand version of the Social Customer Lifetime Value post from September 2010 — the idea that traditional Customer Lifetime Value misses the referral and advocacy effects customers create in social channels.