🎵 You have got to give

👋 What's growing: Starbucks’ loyalty rewards program. They launched it in 2009 and now get 60% of their sales from its members. The main reason is because they integrated it with their app where users can already pay, reload their balance, place orders ahead of time, and skip the line—all while automatically earning loyalty points and rewards. 

Reduce friction, people. 

TRIVIA

What does it cost to run one 30-second TV ad during the Superbowl (American football)?  

A) $500,000 USD  

B) $3 million USD  

C) $5 million USD  

D) $15 million USD 

Scroll to the bottom to find out!

TACTICS

Give your customers an opportunity to give back. To you. By giving.

Gary V is famous for sharing free content all over the internet — but it’s all part of a shrewd strategy. He’s actually exploiting a psychological tendency for people to want to give back.

Give for free and you can guilt people into buying from you. Don’t say “buy”, say “give back”.

Why It Works:

1. The reciprocity effect. When people receive something valuable for free, they feel a subconscious desire to give back.

2. Switch the pitch. Asking people to “give back” instead of “buy” appeals to a different part of their brains, and puts you in a less saturated category. 

Who’s does it:

1. Wikipedia. They offer free information but often run donation campaigns that remind users to help them continue to provide value. Their pitch is: “we humbly ask you to defend Wikipedia’s independence”. Powerful. 

2. YouTube creators with Patreon. Many creators use YouTube as their “free” content outlet, while keeping the best on Patreon behind a paywall. 

3. The better freemium apps. They offer a fully functional free version of the app, which then allows them to go with the “support us” pitch rather than the “please buy”. 

Steps to Implement it:

1. Figure out what you can give away for free. Provide free trials, tools, or content that solves a problem for your audience.

2. Remind them of the effort behind the free offer. Subtly remind the audience of the time, resources, or expertise that went into creating what you gave away.

3. Once there is demand, switch the pitch. After offering the free value, introduce a product or service that allows the audience to “give back” by purchasing.

UNTAPPED ROI

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MARKETING CULTURE

The first mass media

Coins. 

Few things traveled the world like a coin did. 

They could switch hands countless times, cross borders and propagate symbols. 

So what did Julius Caesar do? He went and put his face on it. Imagine being a Chinese merchant at the time and the strange-looking foreigner pays you with a fat gold coin with a guy’s face on it. You might wonder who that is and what he did to get his own coin. 

Many an emperor used coins to cultivate an image of themselves or their empire, from symbols of peace and wealth, to religion and even affiliation with the gods - e.g. Alexander the Great with Hercules’ lion headdress on one side, and Zeus on the other.

DATA POINT

Brands Are Jumping On Gen Z Slang All Over Socials — No Cap

But what’s slay today might give people the ick tomorrow. 

So how do you walk the fine line between cool and cringe when it comes to jumping on trends?

Learn how to win over Gen Z customers, with or without ‘unhinged’ marketing. This and every other thing worth talking about in marketing at Spotlight 2024.

MEME-Y

FREE RESOURCE

Is content part of your strategy?

It can be tough to organise across channels and time.

Maybe that’s why you haven’t started…

Either way, here’s an awesome Content Strategy Template you can use.