“Marketing isn’t about ads. It’s about breaking the human brain and making them love you for it.”
– Seth Godin
Nice. You sure you looked at the picture? The screenshot?
When I say marketing is hard (looking at you, 6-month bootcamp grads tryna start an agency), this is what I mean.
See that smudge? That’s a disruptive design technique, an attention hack. It made me stop, made me screenshot, even made it into my "worthy stuff" folder. Hell, it even got the numbers.
But it did nothing.
You don’t even remember the brand. I sure as hell don’t.
that’s the difference between an attention hack and a real brand hook.
a real hook? you just get it.
Tudum. (Netflix.)
Ba da ba ba ba. (McDonald's.)
your early Spotify Wrapped insta. (chef kiss 😘)
Shopee pee pee pee. (Yeah, even that.)
branding so strong it’s burned into your brain.
and sometimes? It’s not even the ads. it’s the product itself.
I was reading a thread about getting the new Apple M4 Pro, but 90% of the comments weren’t about the specs. They were all people flexing how their 6-year-old Apple device still works perfectly fine. And I get it, really.
I’ve got an i7-13th Gen/RTX 4060 sitting right there, but I’m still using my 2018 MacBook Pro.
that’s branding through experience. No jingle, no logo, just a product that makes people talk about how good it is for free.
This is where i ask you to come read me talk cock every now and then.
now let’s talk actual marketing.
people still think marketing is just ads.
bro. Early-stage growth? You’re not here making things look cute, you’re building a revenue engine.
And for fuck sake, how many levels of stupid do you need to be to think making an ad like this is the move?
how delusional are you, man? from the bottom to the top.
Also, bringing back good product experience, how is this….sigh.
not trying to rant but if your "marketing strategy" doesn’t end with a discussion about lowering CAC and increasing LTV at the same time, you’re playing yourself.
shit, I should’ve made this shorter. Oh well. Too late now.
but you wanna see real marketing?
there was this STEM teacher on YouTube making $300/month. Then she uploaded the same videos to Pornhub and suddenly, $1K/month.
a few weeks later? same girl, same story, same copy, now she’s saying she’s a Harvard/Stanford/Yale STEM grad making $250K on OnlyFans.
😏😏😏😏
and the comments were wild (including me lol).
thirsty-ass guys with their real names and job titles, acting exactly how you’d expect.
she never replied. (She did send me an invitation to connect tho. jk jk.)
It’s been a month and i still remember her, Darcy….
#single4life
That’s marketing.
same copy, different platforms, different numbers. KISS and viral every time.
she didn’t chase engagement. She let the internet run wild.
she didn’t change her product. She changed her positioning.
she knew her audience. And they delivered (and made a fuckton of money).
and here’s the crazy part, fuck chasing after boring facebook/tiktok/insta reel ad for a bloody mineral water company, big marketing agencies are running end-to-end strategies and execution for these creators now. the money in this space is insane.
but if you think about it… it’s just smart business.
you find a problem.
you fix one part of it better than anyone else.
you make it transparent what you're doing.
and you print money.
and these days, you can do it solo. (unsolicited advice end of post)
and if I tell you this is just surface-level marketing? that there’s way more to learn?
because at the end of the day, there are only two types of people:
marketers.
the people we market to.
(also, if you’ve read through here and you need marketing/product/tech consulting, I’m looking for a gig, chat pls.)
even I’m learning new things every single day and honestly, that’s what keeps me going. because if you don’t, you’ll end up like Steve Jobs once said:
“You might get a very accurate picture, but it's only two-dimensional.”
marketing, business, life, knowledge, everything’s multi-dimensional. If you’re only looking at it from one angle, you’re already falling behind. Now thank you for reading my rant. If you like, share it with people you think are of the same mind with me.
so, bringing it back,
If you wanna start an agency, don’t.
and if you really wanna?
don’t be fucking boring.
