Marketing Isn’t Just Campaigns — It’s Listening at Scale

When we started UnscriptedVani, we thought marketing meant one thing: a campaign that goes viral.

The kind with a cheeky tagline, trendy hooks, and hopefully, a few thousand likes to prove we exist.

And sure, we tried that. A few reels. A carousel with emojis. Even that one “Drop a 🔥 if you relate” post we don’t want to talk about.

But here’s what hit us, fast and hard: good marketing isn’t about talking louder.It’s about listening better. And not just to one person — but at scale.

We learned this the hard way (aka, through silence)

Our first few posts didn’t exactly pop.We were proud of them. Sharp copy. Clean visuals. Deep insights.But... nothing.

No comments. No shares. Barely any reach.We double-checked the hashtags like 12 times. No help.

What went wrong?

We were creating content for the internet. Not for our audience.

We were speaking. But we weren’t listening.

So we paused posting — and started lurking.

We became digital flies on the wall.

We read startup founder rants on Reddit. Scrolled through LinkedIn comments under viral posts. Watched what content our audience saved, not just liked. Checked what kind of DMs we were getting (even the awkward ones).

And slowly, patterns emerged:

• Founders were tired of inspirational fluff.

• Early-stage teams wanted execution tips, not brand theory.

• People loved underdog stories more than shiny success ones.

• Everyone was figuring it out in real time — no one wanted content that pretended otherwise.

So we stopped guessing and started reflecting. Every like became a clue. Every comment, a compass.

We started marketing by listening — and everything changed.

Instead of brainstorming “what will get clicks,” we asked: what’s not being said?What do people feel but can’t articulate?What’s noisy out there, and what’s quietly needed?

That’s when we wrote a story about a founder from a Tier-2 town who was figuring things out with zero funds and no co-founder.It got shared 100+ times.Because it wasn’t just his story — it was theirs.

We didn’t invent a new campaign. We just finally said what others were thinking.

Listening at scale = emotional market research

We started treating every post like a feedback loop.What are people saving?What are they screenshotting?Which line are they reposting?Where are they clicking “See more”?

That became our unofficial analytics dashboard.

And trust us, it told us more than Google Analytics ever could.

We also started asking real questions: “What do you wish startup content talked about?” “What’s something no one told you when you started?”“What’s the last piece of content that really hit you?”

Answers poured in. Not in massive numbers — but in honest, voice-note-level depth. That was gold.

So what does “listening at scale” actually look like?

It’s not just customer surveys or NPS scores.It’s reading the room — daily.

• It’s the meme that got shared 70 times with zero likes.

• It’s the founder who messages you saying “I felt this.”

• It’s noticing that every woman entrepreneur we interviewed had to justify her leadership twice as hard.

• It’s seeing the quiet patterns people don’t even notice they’re revealing.

Marketing, we realized, isn’t a megaphone. It’s an echo chamber check.

Are we repeating what everyone else is saying?Or are we tapping into something people actually want to hear?

The best marketers aren’t loud. They’re in tune.

We once read a quote that said, "The best ideas don’t start in a boardroom. They start in comment sections."

It felt like a joke. Until it became our strategy.

Because today’s audience? They can smell a “growth hack” post from miles away.They scroll past the CTA and pause at the story. They save content that listens to them — not lectures them.

Marketing today is empathy, in public.

If you're building, try this:

1. Spend 30 minutes not creating. Just reading what your audience is talking about.

2. Turn your next post into an answer to a question someone never asked out loud.

3. Look at which post felt like a mirror — then double down on that.

   
   

Campaigns are cool. Listening is long game.

And in the noise of the internet, people don’t remember the catchiest line.They remember the one that understood them.

This is Unfiltered by Us.Where we talk less like marketers — and more like humans building something real.