Wednesday's Evolution Formula

Hey entertainment marketers, welcome to The Fanbased Formula. 🎬

This is where entertainment meets email marketing. You get to learn email marketing lessons based on hit movies and shows of our time.

So without further ado, let’s get started!

I just watched Wednesday Season 2 Part 1 this week and couldn't stop thinking about how brilliantly they evolved Wednesday's character.

What really struck me was how the showrunners took a character known for emotional detachment and made her feelings the driving force of the entire season.

Here's what blew my mind: In season one Wednesday's feelings were merely symptomatic. She was responding to her changing environment.

This season, her character development is much more intimate. Wednesday doesn't simply feel, it's her feelings that drive the plot.

This is exactly how your email sequences should evolve your subscribers. Let me share what clicked for me 🎬

What Wednesday's creators did was genius.

They didn't just repeat Season 1's formula of Wednesday reluctantly caring about others. Instead, they made her emotional investment the catalyst for everything that happens.

The trailer has already given away what anchors the season…

Wednesday's premonition reveals not only that Enid will die.

But that Wednesday is responsible for her death.

And because of this, Wednesday's naturally obsessive personality gears itself towards protecting Enid and preventing that outcome.

This works because it transforms Wednesday from reactive to proactive. She's no longer just responding to mysteries around her. She's driving the narrative through her own emotional stakes.

Your email subscribers need the same evolution journey.

Here's how I think you should apply this character development insight to your email sequences:

Stage 1: The Reactive Subscriber

Start with subscribers responding to your content. They're opening emails because you're providing value, solving problems, or entertaining them. This is your Wednesday Season 1 phase - they care, but their engagement is symptomatic.

Stage 2: The Invested Subscriber

Like Wednesday's Season 2 transformation, make your subscribers' investment drive their actions. Give them a personal stake in your content outcomes. Show them how your success directly impacts their world.

Stage 3: The Proactive Advocate

Transform subscribers from passive recipients to active participants. Wednesday became obsessively protective of Enid. Your subscribers should become protectively invested in your brand's mission.

These softer emotions are extremely at odds with a character that many have come to associate with coldness and isolation.

It feels almost sacrilegious, twisted even, to explore this iconic character with such depth, and yet Gough and Millar have allowed her to embrace these vulnerabilities without diminishing the darkness that still makes her Wednesday.

You can evolve your subscriber relationships without losing your brand identity.

Transform your subscribers from reactive readers to emotionally invested advocates.

This Week: Audit your current email sequences.

Are subscribers just responding to your content, or are they driving action because they're personally invested in outcomes?

This Month: Create "premonition moments" - show subscribers what they risk losing if they don't engage with your content evolution.

Make their success dependent on following your journey.

This Quarter: Design email sequences that make subscribers the heroes of their own transformation story, with your brand as the catalyst for their character evolution.

Wednesday's creators understood that true engagement comes from making your audience personally invested in outcomes they help create.

The most powerful email relationships aren't built on providing value - they're built on shared stakes in mutual success.

What character evolution are you creating for your subscribers? 🎬

Share this with entertainment marketers who understand that the best email sequences are character development arcs.

See you next week,

Geb Vence