THREAD: The top 0.1% of marketing mental models.

Compressing a 6-year career into the best 8 ideas:

1. Contrast Is A Drug

• Rolls Royce stopped exhibiting at car shows

• They started exhibiting at private aircraft shows

• "If you've been looking at jets all afternoon, a £300,000 car is an impulse buy. It's like putting the sweets next to the counter" - @rorysutherland
2. The Best Content Involves A Red Pill

• "If you want to build a good podcast, following, or blog - you've gotta create your red pill"

• Hand society something they're not hearing anywhere

• Society says blue pill. Your content says red pill.

(@finnscave via @ShaanVP)
• The irony is that the red pill metaphor is itself a red pill - once you see it, you can never unsee it.

• The best content creators on the internet all have their own red pill, which makes their content so enticing.

E.g. @jockowillink's red pill:
• Society's Blue Pill: Writing is a boring activity from school

@david_perell's Red Pill: Writing online is the fastest way to accelerate your career
• Society's Blue Pill = Trust the traditional finance system

@APompliano's Red Pill = Blockchain is the future
3. The Law Of Shitty Clickthroughs

• The first banner ad ever had a clickthrough rate of 78%.

• In 2021, the average varies between 0.05%-0.16%.

• "Over time, all marketing strategies result in shitty clickthrough rates." - @andrewchen
• Most of the rewards of marketing channels go to early adopters

GymShark = Used influencer marketing before the term existed

PayPal = Used "Earn $ for signing up" before the term existed

Go fast. Entropy will occur - and only the wealthy can afford to keep playing.
4. The Most Underrated Marketing Channel

• "Your unboxing experience is the only marketing channel with a 100% open rate." - @TaylorHoliday

• When I first read this, I felt like such a moron.

• I'd spent years neglecting the most important marketing channel.
@TaylorHoliday has a fantastic "3 M framework" for unboxing:

1. Mission - Help customers understand why you exist

2. Magic - Unexpected moment that delights the customer

3. Money - How do we turn them into a repeat purchase or referral
5. Weird > Average

• If you optimize for the mean, you optimize for nobody.

• The average person doesn't exist - it's just a blended mean of 7 billion people.

• If you design an idea for them, you design an idea for nobody.
• In contrast, if you design for the extremes - it can then cross over to the mainstream.

E.g.

TikTok 2016 = Lip Syncing for teenagers
TikTok 2021 = Global short form video platform

GymShark 2012 = Vests for gym bro's
GymShark 2021 = Fitness attire for everyone
6. Costly Signalling Theory

• "The most efficient way to send a wedding invitation would be by email." - @rorysutherland

• A beautiful handwritten invitation by post contains the same message as an email - but the cost and effort signals how serious you are

Contrast below:
7. Linear Commerce - The Merging Of Media and Commerce

• "Brands will develop publishing as a core competency, and publishers will develop retail operations as a core competency". - @web

• This foresight from @web will be looked back upon like "software is eating the world"
You can already see this playing out...

• Nelk Boys + Logan Paul launching 8 figure clothing brands organically.

@balajis idea of a "founding influencer" to enhance distribution.

• Hubspot acquiring The Hustle.
• Paid advertising is just acquiring attention

• If there's an organic media machine that acquires attention for free, they rely less on paid advertising

• And if the organic media machine ever uses paid advertising, it's miles cheaper (I've seen this on so many ad accounts)
8. Simplify

• "The more you simplify, the better people will perform. People cannot understand and keep a track of a long complicated set of initiatives...

Use a framework people can repeat without thinking about." - @rabois

You can change the world through a sentence...
If you enjoyed this, I occasionally send out a newsletter.

It contains:

1. Clouds - Mental Models + Big ideas

2. Dirt - Tactics + Leveraged tools

100% high signal. 0% spam.

Check it out ---> https://t.co/gZLFoqxVV0
Notion document with all the resources here:

https://t.co/T1SggDjFxp
Last but not least:

@GoodMarketingHQ always has some 🔥 when in need of ideas.

More from George Mack

I get DM's from founders with the same specific problems.

Here's a public list of marketing tools I recommend:



1. Twemex

Twitter Advanced search on steroids.

Whenever you visit someone's account, see their most popular Tweets of all time in order.

H/T @Julian for this

https://t.co/8P2YJ3Jrf0


2. Good UI

Historical log of successful and failed A/B tests from the likes of Amazon, Netflix, Google

3. Blisk

See how your website looks across every device.

Got an Android user complaining how your website looks but you only have an iPhone? Use Blisk.

4. Really Good Emails

Struggling with email ideas?

Library of thousands of quality emails to get inspo from.

More from Marketing

I get DM's from founders with the same specific problems.

Here's a public list of marketing tools I recommend:



1. Twemex

Twitter Advanced search on steroids.

Whenever you visit someone's account, see their most popular Tweets of all time in order.

H/T @Julian for this

https://t.co/8P2YJ3Jrf0


2. Good UI

Historical log of successful and failed A/B tests from the likes of Amazon, Netflix, Google

3. Blisk

See how your website looks across every device.

Got an Android user complaining how your website looks but you only have an iPhone? Use Blisk.

4. Really Good Emails

Struggling with email ideas?

Library of thousands of quality emails to get inspo from.

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