The difference between knowledge and expertise — and why some insights only come at 2 AM

I’ve read more marketing books than I can count.

Written one myself.

Absorbed frameworks, case studies, and step-by-step methodologies until my brain felt like an overfilled marketing library.

But there is stuff no book, course, or university can teach you.

Last Tuesday at 11:47 PM, I was reviewing ad performance for a client when something clicked.

The data showed our highest-converting audience wasn’t responding strongly to our carefully crafted benefit statements.

But many were responding to a throwaway line in the product description that mentioned a completely different consideration.

No framework predicted that. No course covered it. No AI tool suggested it.

It was pure marketing sense — the kind that only develops after you’ve launched enough campaigns to recognize patterns others miss.

There’s knowledge, and then there’s expertise.

Knowledge is knowing that social proof increases conversions.

Expertise is noticing that this particular customer segment trusts peer reviews but ignores expert endorsements — and pivoting your entire testimonial strategy accordingly.

Knowledge is understanding A/B testing methodology.

Expertise is having the gut instinct to test something counterintuitive that breaks conventional wisdom — and watching it outperform everything else.

Some of my best insights have come during unplanned 2 AM wakeful moments.

Moments when experience, intuition, and deep customer understanding converge into sudden clarity about what’s really driving behavior.

AI can brainstorm headlines. But it will never feel the subtle emotional shift when you’ve finally found the message that makes your ideal customer say “I need that.”

In I Need That, I write about how the best product marketers develop almost supernatural sensitivity to buyer psychology. It doesn’t come through studying any amount of theory, but through obsessively watching strange and surprising humans as they interact with real products.

That sensitivity can’t be downloaded or automated.

It gets revealed through surviving enough campaigns where everything you thought you knew turned out wrong.

From testing so many variations that you start recognizing the hidden patterns beneath the obvious ones.

From caring so deeply about your customers that you notice stuff others dismiss as noise.

I see this in my team members all the time, and it’s precious. They’re always thinking about the many little moving parts, the non-trackable adventures every customer is living.

The experiment: Trust YOUR marketing instincts this week, especially when they contradict best practices.

Test that weird headline that, on its face, shouldn’t work.

Try that audience segment that seems wrong on paper.

Follow that hunch about why people might be buying your product.

Oftentimes the best insights come from ignoring everything you’ve learned and listening to what you’ve absorbed through intuition and human instinct.

What’s your best middle-of-the-night marketing breakthrough?

Pop that reply arrow and share those lightning-strike moments when everything suddenly made sense.

Or reach out to my team of ace product marketing strategists at Graphos Product.