Snippets about: Marketing
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Turn Your Best Customers Into Your Biggest Advocates
Word of mouth is the holy grail of marketing for companies of one. A single trusted referral is worth more than thousands of dollars in paid advertising spend. While you can't directly control what people say about you, you can stack the deck in your favor.
Some ways to encourage customer advocacy:
- Proactively ask for feedback, then showcase positive reviews and testimonials
- Thank customers for referrals with a handwritten note or exclusive perk
- Make referrals a seamless part of your post-purchase follow-up sequence
- Create a formal rewards program incentivizing customers to spread the word
- Equip customers with shareable content like case studies and social media assets
In short, treat your customers like VIPs and they'll treat you like royalty in return. The little gestures add up to big returns.
Section: 3, Chapter: 10
Book: Company Of One
Author: Paul Jarvis
Branding Is What Happens After the Sale
Most small businesses mistakenly think "branding" means spending money on mass market image advertising. But true branding occurs after the sale, not before.
A brand is simply a collection of thoughts and feelings a customer has about your business. You create these impressions by:
- Delivering a remarkable product/service
- Providing memorable touchpoints and experiences
- Meeting and exceeding customer expectations
- Communicating with personality and values
- Engaging your tribe and community
When you focus on serving your customers at an exceptional level, you build brand equity. This powers word of mouth, allows premium pricing, and protects you from competitors.
So instead of spending on pre-sale brand advertising, invest in post-sale brand experience. Deliver a product worth talking about. That's how you build a great brand.
Section: 3, Chapter: 9
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Beware Of Relying Too Heavily On One Acquisition Channel
Many companies become overly dependent on a single major acquisition channel, which can lead to stagnation when that channel loses effectiveness.
For instance, online publishers like Upworthy and Buzzfeed rely heavily on Facebook's News Feed algorithm to drive traffic to their websites. This dependency becomes problematic whenever Facebook adjusts the algorithm, as even minor changes can significantly reduce the publishers' readership and advertising revenue. Thus, their growth is vulnerable to the volatility of this single acquisition channel.
Section: 2, Chapter: 9
Book: Hacking Growth
Author: Sean Ellis
Making Messages Memorable And Actionable
To make your message "sticky," pay close attention to its structure and format, not just its content:
- Break it down into the simplest possible terms so people can understand and absorb it
- Tell stories, use humor, and create curiosity to engage people's emotions
- Provide specific, concrete calls to action so people know exactly what to do
- Don't overwhelm with information; be succinct and prioritize the core message
- Constantly test and refine your approach based on feedback and results
The goal is to package your message in a way that makes it impossible to ignore and easy to spread.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Book: The Tipping Point
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Build a "Tribe," Not Just a Customer Base
Your goal is not just to make sales, but to build a loyal "tribe" of people who identify with your mission. To cultivate a tribe:
- Deliver a world-class customer experience, and exceed expectations and delight at every touchpoint
- Gather feedback and address issues promptly
- Build culture and community around your brand. Showcase your best customers
- Provide insider perks and surprises
When you have a tribe, sales and referrals happen naturally. You can also launch new offers to an enthusiastic, loyal base. Building a tribe takes time and careful attention. But it's one of the most valuable assets you can develop in your business.
Section: 2, Chapter: 6
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Aim For Omnipresence - Dominate Your Market
The most successful companies and individuals seem to be everywhere at once. This is called omnipresence. They dominate their market by being top of mind across multiple channels and mediums. Wherever prospects look, they see you. You can achieve this by:
- Advertising across multiple channels both online and offline
- Constantly generating PR and media coverage
- Partnering with well-known brands and thought leaders
- Having an active, valuable social media presence
- Speaking at events and hosting your own events
- Writing books, articles, blog posts, white papers etc. The goal is to become synonymous with your industry so you're always the first choice.
Section: 1, Chapter: 20
Book: The 10X Rule
Author: Grant Cardone
Why Teaching Is Your Most Effective Marketing Strategy
Many companies are afraid to share their "secret sauce" and hard-earned expertise. But in practice, teaching is often the most powerful way to attract loyal customers. Benefits:
- Positions you as a trusted authority and go-to resource in your niche
- Makes people feel they know, like and trust you before ever buying
- Attracts inbound leads and referrals from people who love your content
- Lets you test demand for and iterate on paid offerings risk-free
Don't think you have to give everything away for free. The goal is provide enough value to be truly helpful, while still having premium training and support to sell. Basically, your free content is the "what" and "why", your paid offerings are the "how" with hands-on guidance.
The more you share, the more people will want to learn from you. And the more they'll trust you with their money for the full experience. Teaching is a long-term play that keeps on giving in loyal fans.
Section: 2, Chapter: 9
Book: Company Of One
Author: Paul Jarvis
Bribe Prospects to Reveal Their Interest
Don't treat all prospects equally. Use an "ethical bribe" to get ideal potential customers to raise their hand.
For example, instead of a generic ad saying "Call us for a quote," offer a valuable free report, video, tool or sample that helps the prospect solve a problem. To get it, they give you their contact info. This allows you to:
- Spend more time/money nurturing high-probability prospects
- Build your database of interested leads to follow up with
- Avoid wasting resources on uninterested or unqualified people
Trying to sell to everyone is a losing strategy. Separate the high-probability prospects from the mass market so you can invest in them accordingly.
Section: 2, Chapter: 4
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Empathy: Your Secret Weapon For Customer Loyalty
Truly caring about your customers as human beings, not just walking wallets, is the foundation of great service. Empathy means putting yourself in your customers' shoes to understand their needs, frustrations, and desires. Then shaping your offering to best serve them.
When customers feel understood and cared for, price becomes a secondary concern. They know you have their best interests at heart. Empathy inspires loyalty that lasts.
Section: 2, Chapter: 7
Book: Company Of One
Author: Paul Jarvis
Don't Let Your Customer Outgrow You
As your customers grow, some will develop needs and ambitions beyond what your product can fulfill. If you try to satisfy them by tacking more and more onto your product, you can wind up with a complicated, overbuilt mess none of your customers can use.
Don't underestimate the continuing market for "simple." Let advanced customers graduate to more complex products when they must. Stay true to your product vision. Keep your product clean, simple and narrowly focused so new customers can always get started easily.
Section: 1, Chapter: 7
Book: Rework
Author: Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
Craft a Clear, Unique Selling Proposition
Develop a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that clearly answers:
Why should the prospect buy your product/service?
Why should they buy it from you specifically?
Your USP should:
- Concisely convey the unique advantage/benefit you offer
- Avoid clichés like "quality," "service," or claiming to be the "best"
- Focus on what the customer really wants (the end result), not just the features
- Be understandable in a single sentence
- Force an apples-to-oranges comparison with competitors
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Claude Hopkins - The Father of Modern Advertising
Claude Hopkins, one of the most famous advertisers of the early 20th century, created a national toothbrushing habit through his ads for Pepsodent toothpaste. His key insights:
- Find simple and obvious cues (like the tooth film that continually forms on teeth)
- Clearly define the rewards (like beautiful teeth)
- And claim that using your product is the best way to achieve those rewards
Through constant advertising, people began expecting the reward of a tingling clean feeling in their mouths whenever they encountered the cue of tooth film. As the cue and reward became linked in people's minds, brushing with Pepsodent became a daily habit.
Hopkins showed how new habits can be cultivated by focusing advertising on the cues and rewards that drive behaviors. But there was another component he didn't realize - the power of cravings.
Section: 1, Chapter: 2
Book: The Power of Habit
Author: Charles Duhigg
Nerds and Sales
"Nerds are used to transparency. They add value by becoming expert at a technical skill like computer programming. In engineering disciplines, a solution either works or it fails. You can evaluate someone else's work with relative ease, as surface appearances don't matter much. Sales is the opposite: an orchestrated campaign to change surface appearances without changing the underlying reality. This strikes engineers as trivial if not fundamentally dishonest."
Section: 1, Chapter: 11
Book: Zero to One
Author: Peter Thiel
Apologies Should Be Genuine, Specific, And Selfless
Canned corporate apologies that deflect responsibility do more harm than good. A real apology expresses genuine empathy for those impacted. It admits full fault. It acknowledges the real severity of the problem. And it focuses on making things right for the wronged party more than rehabilitating the company's image.
Infuse your apology with humanity, not legalese. Speak as an individual, not an institution. Replace "we regret any inconvenience this may have caused" with "I'm deeply sorry for the major disruption and pain we brought on you." Sincerity heals.
Section: 1, Chapter: 8
Book: Rework
Author: Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
Avoid the "Single Point of Failure"
Many businesses rely on a single source of leads - e.g. Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, or trade shows. This leaves them vulnerable if that one channel dries up.
For example, when Google made major changes to its Adwords platform, many advertisers found their cost per click suddenly increased 5-10x. Others who relied 100% on SEO had their traffic evaporate with algorithm updates.
The solution is to diversify and have at least 5 different pillars in your lead generation system. Don't put all your eggs in one media basket and build a "single point of failure" into your business.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
The Power Of Television Advertising
According to studies, most people need to see an ad at least 6 times before they remember it. Procter & Gamble and other consumer goods giants spend billions "hammering home" simple messages again and again until they stick.
In one famous study, a scientist tried to persuade college students to get tetanus shots with a campus booklet and only 3% did. When he added a map of the campus clinic's location and times shots were available, the vaccination rate jumped to 28%. That tiny tweaks made the message actionable and enabled it to tip.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Book: The Tipping Point
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Dropbox Grew From 100k to 4M Users in 14 Months With No Marketing Spend
Dropbox is a classic example of growth hacking success. With help from interim growth lead Sean Ellis, Dropbox:
- Created a referral program giving existing users 250MB of extra space for referring a friend, and giving referred users 250MB too. This offered a highly relevant reward for a storage product.
- Experimented extensively with the referral flow, optimizing all elements over many iterations.
- Grew from 100,000 to 4M users in just 14 months with these growth tactics, all with no traditional marketing spend on advertising, PR or promotions.
This demonstrates the power of growth teams focusing on product-led, viral growth tactics that can massively scale while keeping acquisition costs low.
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
Book: Hacking Growth
Author: Sean Ellis
You Can't Bore People into Buying
To create compelling marketing copy that emotionally moves people to action:
- Enter the conversation already going on in the prospect's mind
- Focus on their problems/desires, not your company
- Use language you'd use when talking to a friend
- Convey your authentic personality to build rapport and stand out from bland marketing
- Address "elephant in the room" objections to build trust
- Tell people who your product is NOT for to boost credibility
- Agitate the pain they want to avoid and pleasure they desire
Trying to look generically "professional" with your copy makes you invisible. Entertaining marketing that speaks to emotions gets read.
Section: 1, Chapter: 2
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Maximize Perceived Transaction Utility In Your Pricing
To make your prices feel fair and maximize consumers' willingness to pay:
- Position your offering as being "on sale" or "a bargain" compared to reference prices (e.g., "lista price," competitors)
- Articulate reasons why your price is fair given your costs, product quality, target market, etc.
- Avoid blatant cash grabs or price hikes that will feel like "rip-offs" (e.g., surge pricing during emergencies)
- Consider obscuring or shrouding certain costs to minimize "pain of paying" (e.g., shipping & handling)
- Make price increases feel fair by offering some additional value at the same time
Remember: perceived fairness is often more important than actual price level in driving purchase behavior. A bargain-hunting mentality keeps retailers like Costco in business. Focus first on perception, not just on the nominal price.
Section: 2, Chapter: 7
Book: Misbehaving
Author: Richard Thaler
Make It Up, Make It Real, Make It Recur
Successful businesses have three key roles covered:
- The Entrepreneur - Has the vision and creates the strategy. They "make it up."
- The Specialist - Executes the strategy and produces the core product/service. They "make it real."
- The Manager - Handles ongoing customer service, admin, finance, HR etc. They "make it recur."
Early on, the founder often covers all three. But to grow, you need to delegate the specialist and manager roles so you can focus on the high-level entrepreneurial work.
Most businesses are missing the manager piece. They deliver a great product but don't have systems for generating leads, onboarding clients, upselling, getting referrals, etc. As a result, growth is limited.
Section: 2, Chapter: 5
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Salespeople Exploit The Rule Of Reciprocity To Influence Customers
Haidt gives the example of Hare Krishna followers who would forcefully give flowers to passersby and then request donations. Most people, having accepted the small gift, would feel obligated to give something back in return. Salespeople use similar techniques like free samples or gifts to invoke an obligation in customers through the reciprocity principle. One must actively resist these influence attempts once recognized.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Book: The Happiness Hypothesis
Author: Jonathan Haidt
Transition from "Hunting" to "Farming"
Most businesses are "hunters" - they spend huge amounts of time and energy trying to get a new customer to buy immediately. This is extremely inefficient.
Instead, shift to a "farming" model where you plant seeds by capturing leads, then nurture them over time until they're ready to buy. This allows you to:
- Build a huge pipeline of future customers at various stages
- Focus your time/money on high-probability prospects
- Position yourself as a trusted authority instead of a pest
- Make the final sale a natural, low-pressure event
Capturing leads is all about casting a wide net, then filtering prospects based on their level of interest so you can invest in the most promising ones.
Section: 2, Chapter: 4
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Channel/Product Fit - Matching Your Product to the Right Growth Channels
Chapter 5 introduces the concept of Channel/Product Fit - identifying the optimal channels to reach your target customers with your product offering.
- Make an exhaustive list of possible channels - paid, organic, viral, PR, email, etc.
- Consider your business model and customer to prioritize channels to test. B2B products will focus on different channels than consumer apps.
- Prioritize 1-2 channels to start. Go deep before expanding to more channels.
- Experiment within each channel to optimize your customer acquisition. Track CAC and LTV.
The key is aligning your channels to your product, and focusing on the most effective channels while avoiding premature "channel sprawl" that dilutes your efforts.
Section: 2, Chapter: 5
Book: Hacking Growth
Author: Sean Ellis
Difference Between Front End and Back End
There are two components that make up the lifetime value of a customer:
- Front End - The initial purchase when a prospect first becomes a customer. Rarely profitable by itself. Goal is to offset acquisition cost.
- Back End - All subsequent purchases a customer makes after the first. This is where the real profit comes from in most businesses.
Many businesses focus only on making the first sale without a plan to re-sell to those customers. But the back end is where fortunes are made through upsells, cross-sells, recurring billing and re-activation of past customers.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Have a Systematic Way to Capture All That Good Data
"You need marketers who can appreciate what it takes to actually write software and you need data scientists who can really appreciate consumer insights and understand business problems." - Brian Monahan, former VP of Marketing at Walmart.com
Section: 1, Chapter: 4
Book: Hacking Growth
Author: Sean Ellis
"If You Confuse Them, You Lose Them"
"Understand a very important concept: confusion leads to lost sales. This is especially so when you have a complex product. Many business owners erroneously think that a confused customer will seek clarification or contact you for more information. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you confuse them, you lose them."
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Narrow Your Focus
Focusing your marketing on a narrow niche or target market, rather than trying to appeal to everyone, allows you to:
- Maximize the impact of limited marketing budgets
- Craft a more relevant, compelling message that resonates with prospects
- Dominate a category or geography in a way that's impossible by being general
- Make price largely irrelevant by specializing
Targeting everyone with your product or service is a terrible idea that leads to diluted, ineffective marketing. The riches are in the niches.
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Little Changes Can Cause Big Effects
The Stickiness Factor reminds us that small, seemingly trivial changes in the presentation or structuring of information can make a big difference in how much impact it makes. Don't underestimate the power of subtle "tweaks" to make your message or product more memorable, actionable, and compelling. Look for those tiny changes that can energize or reengineer your idea and make it tip. Examples in the book include:
- Adding a map to an anti-smoking ad made it much more effective
- Putting mirrors in a workplace cut employee theft
- Sesame Street became a hit by constantly tinkering with small elements of the show to maximize viewer attention and retention
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
Book: The Tipping Point
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Build An Audience Organically By Sharing Passion And Knowledge
The way to build an audience is to share passion and knowledge so generously that people keep coming back to learn more. Speak, write, blog, tweet, make videos - whatever medium showcases your expertise and enthusiasm.
Deliver information your audience craves. Make them smarter. Give them insights they can't find elsewhere. Help them so much with your free content that they'll line up to pay for your premium offerings later. An audience built organically through sharing beats one bought through ads any day.
Section: 1, Chapter: 8
Book: Rework
Author: Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
The Power Of Translation: Spreading Ideas Across The Chasm
There is often a "chasm" between the world of early adopters and the mainstream. Ideas often fail to tip because what's compelling to innovators isn't to the masses. To cross the chasm, epidemic ideas must be skillfully translated:
- The core concept must remain intact but the surface details tweaked for mainstream sensibilities
- As in a game of "telephone," as a message spreads, certain details and context are lost while others get amplified
- Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen serve as the "translators" repackaging ideas for each audience
"Mavens are data banks. They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it. But there is also a select group of people—Salesmen—with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing, and they are as critical to the tipping of word-of-mouth epidemics as the other two groups."
Good "idea translators" find a delicate balance: they tweak the packaging and details just enough to make it contagious without losing its original essence and authenticity.
Section: 1, Chapter: 6
Book: The Tipping Point
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Apple And The Celery Test
Apple not only communicates from the inside out, starting with WHY, but everything they do - their products, packaging, advertising, stores, etc - all serve as further proof of their WHY. Let's apply The Celery Test - if you're buying celery and rice milk at the grocery store, it's clear that you value health. Everything you say and do "proves" that you believe in healthy eating.
Similarly, Apple believes in challenging the status quo and thinking differently. Every product they release, from computers to iPods to iPhones, challenges the conventional thinking in that industry. Apple's marketing and messaging is aspirational and iconoclastic. Even their stores, with open layouts and approachable staff, aim to make technology less intimidating. Regardless of WHAT Apple makes, it always starts with WHY - and that clear sense of purpose inspires loyalty from customers and employees alike.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Book: Start with Why
Author: Simon Sinek
"The Money Is in the Follow-Up"
"Fifty percent of all salespeople give up after one contact, 65% give up after two and 79.8% give up after three shots. Imagine if a farmer planted seeds and then refused to water them more than once or twice. Would he have a successful harvest? Hardly."
Section: 2, Chapter: 4
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Improve Your Offer by Stacking Value
Craft an irresistible offer for your market by stacking immense value:
- Lead with the biggest, most unique benefit
- Provide reasons behind the offer to minimize skepticism
- Pile on bonuses worth more than the main offer itself
- Add an upsell for a related high-margin product
- Offer a payment plan to make the price feel smaller
- Include an unbeatable "double" guarantee that reverses risk
- Add authentic scarcity with limited time or quantity
The offer is one of the most important parts of your marketing campaign. A lazy "10% off" offer will fall flat compared to a value-packed, thoughtfully crafted offer.
Section: 1, Chapter: 2
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
The Power of "Shock & Awe"
When someone inquires about your product or service, most businesses respond in a minimal, boring way - sending a brochure, quoting a price, or directing to a website.
Instead, wow prospects and establish authority by sending a "shock & awe" package. This is a carefully crafted physical box that contains items like:
- Books, special reports and white papers
- CDs/DVDs explaining your methodology
- Testimonials, case studies and media mentions
- Product samples or trial offers
- Checklists, flowcharts and process maps
- Personality-revealing personal notes or gifts
Example: A landscape design company could send a package with a photo book of stunning projects, a time-lapse DVD of an installation, a book on water-wise garden care, testimonials, and a gift card for a free design consult. This blows away competitors still sending basic quotes.
Section: 2, Chapter: 5
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Get into the Mind of Your Prospect
Create detailed "avatars" to vividly visualize your ideal target customers:
- Give them names and find/create pictures to represent them
- Describe their demographics - age, gender, location, income, etc.
- Outline their day-to-day life and activities
- Identify their top frustrations, fears, desires, and problems to solve
- Note the emotions they feel and language/jargon they use
- Determine the media they consume - websites, magazines, influencers
Refer to these avatars whenever creating marketing content to intimately understand the conversation already going on in your prospect's mind.
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Use 'Decoy' Pricing To Drive People To The Option You Want
Introduce a "decoy" pricing option that is slightly cheaper but offers significantly fewer features to steer more customers toward your preferred plan.
Initially offering monthly and annual plans at SmartShoot, where 40% of customers opted for the annual option, the team added a slightly cheaper, less featured alternative to their $299 plan. This strategy resulted in a 233% increase in conversion rates, with 86% of customers choosing the $299 annual plan.
Section: 2, Chapter: 8
Book: Hacking Growth
Author: Sean Ellis
The Scarcity Effect
The Scarcity Effect is a well-studied phenomenon in consumer psychology that Eyal highlights. In one famous study, researchers put 10 cookies in one jar and 2 of the same cookies in another jar. Participants consistently rated the cookies from the nearly empty jar as more desirable. Even though the cookies were exactly the same, scarcity made them appear more valuable. Why?
- We fear missing out on experiences or resources that are less available
- If something is scarce, we assume others must know it's good and are snapping it up
- The pain of losing something is greater than the pleasure of acquiring it
Many companies leverage the scarcity effect to boost sales using tactics like:
- Promoting "limited time offers"
- Highlighting items "selling out fast"
- Offering exclusive access to certain customers
- Showing when "only a few items are left" in stock
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Book: Hooked
Author: Nir Eyal
Give Them What They Want But Also What They Need
There's often a big difference between what prospects want and what they actually need to solve their problem. As an authority, you need to give them both.
For example, a prospect may want "six-pack abs" but need a sustainable fitness & nutrition plan. Sell them on the exciting end result they want, but deliver what they need to actually get that outcome.
A framework for this:
- Identify the symptoms the prospect is aware of and desperately wants to fix
- Diagnose the underlying root cause that's responsible for those symptoms arising
- Prescribe the full treatment plan required to solve the root problem
Don't just be an order taker. Be a doctor who guides the prospect to the best solution for their situation.
Section: 2, Chapter: 5
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib
Unlimited Budget for Marketing That Works
The goal of marketing is not "branding" or getting likes on social media - it's to generate leads and sales profitably. This means:
- Ruthlessly tracking ROI on all ad campaigns
- Cutting losing campaigns and reinvesting in winners
- Spending unlimited amounts on campaigns that consistently yield positive ROI
Effective marketing is like having a money printing press. Restricting it with an arbitrary budget is like having the ability to buy $100 bills for $80 but limiting how many you'll buy. If a marketing method isn't producing a positive ROI, improve it or drop it. But don't cap spending on winners.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Book: The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Author: Allan Dib