🤫 The Secret Rule Big Brands All Follow

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TACTICS

The 95:5 Rule

If your marketing is angled toward immediate conversions, you're wasting money.

Professor of Marketing John Dawes' 95:5 Rule suggests that 95% of your audience is not looking to buy your products at any given point in time. 

The smart play? 

Focus on being memorable. You’ll be the first brand they think of when they finally turn into buyers.

Why It Works:

1. How people search. People use their memories when buying, rather than an open search. 

2. Build trust. Unfamiliar brands get much lower click-through rates. Familiarity is built over long periods of time, with consistent messaging that’s not all “buy now”.

3. You’ll still convert. Good ads made for cold audiences will convert warm audiences, but good ads made for warm audiences won't convert cold.

Steps To Implement It:

1. Calculate your buyer’s market. If your customers buy your type of product every 2 years, 50% are in the market yearly, and 13% quarterly. If you’re not sure how often they buy, ask your customers: “How frequently do you buy X?”. This should tell you how many people you can potentially convert at any given time, and therefore how much you should invest in acquisition. 

2. Adjust campaign expectations. If only 10% of category buyers are in the market in a quarter, that’s the max amount of customers you can fight for. Your campaigns might get you a bigger share, but not anything beyond that number. This should give you a better idea of what to expect in return for your investment and help you plan long term. 

3. How long does it take for memory-building ads to pay off? A long time. But if you acquire real estate in customers’ minds, you’ll gain an enduring advantage which other brands will have a hard time catching up to.

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DATA POINT

81%.

The share of product discovery that happens on social media.

Remember when your mom used to flip through those fashion magazines? It was 90% ads, really. She might have spotted her next perfume there. 

Well, those days are long gone. 

The lion’s share of product discovery now happens on social media. Sprout Social’s 2024 Social Media Report breaks it down for us. 

Top channels for product discovery (% of population that discovers products through that channel)

Understanding that social is the #1 place for visibility is a serious competitive advantage for brands today.

EVERYDAY STUFF

Rephrase copy without limits

Like how they said it? Make it yours. 

Want to say it better? Run in through here. 

It’s quicker than asking ChatGPT to “rephrase this, but better”.

MARKETING CULTURE

FOMO was nearly FOBO

The year was 2004 at Harvard Business School.

While Zuckerberg was creating Facebook blocks away, first-year student Patrick J. McGinnis was trying to do it all — social events, presentations, conferences, weekend trips, lectures, classes. 

But he couldn't keep up, constantly worrying that something better was happening somewhere else… And other students too.

He didn't invent the feeling, but he named it: Fear Of Missing Out.

(Originally known as FOBO — Fear Of A Better Option — luckily that didn't catch on)

McGinnis shared the acronym with his friends, study groups and even published a piece in the school newspaper, but he thought that was the end of it (remember, this was pre-social media).

But unknown to McGinnis, the term took off. FOMO started popping up on campuses across the US, and was referenced in both Businessweek and a New York Times bestseller in the late 2000s.

In 2013, it was added to the Oxford Dictionary, and then Merriam-Webster in 2016. Everyday joes, celebrities and even Obama tweeted about FOMO.

All from a common fear translated in a dorm room. 

MEME-Y

GAMES

Can you find the connections?

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