What do The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the 2022 Halo series, and the last season of Game of Thrones have in common?
Yes, they all have abysmal ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Clearly, the audience didn’t like them. But why?
There’s something they all share. A common reason why the audience hates them—sometimes even without knowing why.
It’s not that they necessarily had bad writing. Or that they had lots of plot holes. It’s not even that they often felt rushed and unpolished.
No, it’s something much more fundamental.
Here’s a tip. They all had previously built fanbases.
The Rings of Power has the fanbase of every Lord of The Rings lover, films and books alike. The Halo series was a highly anticipated movie by every gamer out there who, in their youth, spent hundreds of sleepless nights grinding behind their screen. And, well, the last season of Game of Thrones had millions of fans who watched all the previous seasons of course.
But then. Every single one of these managed to completely fuck up by pissing off their audience and not thinking—not even caring about what their audience wanted.
The Halo series barely has any resemblance to the original story, characters, and world that fans knew and loved from the games.
Game of Thrones managed to disregard some of the prior arcs and character-building that were built previously and made characters do things they never would’ve done with their personality, beliefs, and personal history just because it seemed useful to do so for the story.
And don’t get me started about The Rings of Power where the new show writers casually decided to do away with the decades of work Tolkien put into building the world and create his lore just because “they wanted to give add their own twist to it”—and publicly admitted to do so.
This is a common case of not thinking—not caring about your audience.
And it happens way too often.
Hollywood—and especially Marvel as of late—does it all the time. Think about how many films and shows with (badly written) heroical female leads you’ve seen pop up as of late. And how almost all of them completely flopped.
But this isn’t just limited to the movie businesses. No, no.
This is applicable to business as well.
Especially nowadays when it’s clear just how rampant the wave of newbie self-proclaimed masters, experts, gurus, and other nonsensical titles filled with people who don’t care about helping their audience.
In fact, most people who want to start a business come here with an idea of something they want to create, and only after it’s built do they ever think and wonder “Who can I sell this to?”.
When, in case it’s not obvious, it should be the other way around.
First ask yourself “Who do I want to help and what do they need?” And only when you’ve answered those two questions should you start creating something.
Always remember: market first, product second.
Which begs the question, how do you figure out what people want?
Well, for starters, if you happen to have an email list, it’s as simple as being in constant communication with your readers, writing entertaining and engaging emails, seeing which topics resonate, and if all else fails, simply asking them questions (which doesn’t mean you should always trust what people say—especially not if it’s about money or buying stuff, most people lie even though they don’t even realize it).
To get started writing these types of emails to stay in constant connection with your audience, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla