When it comes to marketing, a skillset like so many others increasingly defined by data and measurement, Scott’s idea of legibility has daily implications for our decision making. Now more than ever, Scott’s ideas can help us avoid the mistakes that so often accompany optimizing metrics and interpreting data.Â
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"Technique denies mystery a priori. The mysterious is merely that which has not yet been technicized" — Jacques Ellul
Part of the reason the Natural Orders system is so successful is because it balances limiting risks of collapse while still optimizing for conversions.
One of the ways it limits these risks is by avoiding a common mistake author James C. Scott refers to as "legibility": the urge to impose a top-down aesthetic of order onto a messy, complicated system.
When we understand legibility, we check our impulse to play the "star architect", pencilling out a masterpiece automation design destined from the beginning to collapse. Just like a natural system, you can't go straight from rocks to rainforest.
This is one of the most important ideas to understand when building advanced email automation. Rather than imposing an idealized solution onto a messy reality, we must go to efforts to ensure that what we build is the result of gradual and sustainable growth from strong foundations.
In this article, I describe Scott's idea of legibility, and why it's central to building profitable and sustainable email marketing strategies. We'll also recap some of the strategies I've shared in recent posts, and how this heuristic has been central to all of them.
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Matt
Symbios Growth Automation
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