Eureka! I just had a great idea for a blog post… or wait.. maybe it’s short enough to be a Twitter thread. Y’know what? Twitter’s easier. I’ll just post it there. The instant dopamine hit of likes and retweets. The mystery of whether and when I’ll get replies. Re-loading the post every 5 minutes to
How to Invest in Episodic Content that Promotes Itself
By I’ve long been bullish on episodic content; in fact, I think it’s likely the best kind of long-term content investment most online brands can make. The challenges are consistent creation (gotta keep those episodes coming!) and finding the right marketing flywheel to bring in fans, subscribers, and amplifiers. But, these can be overcome by crafting
The Case for Permissionless Co-Marketing
By There’s a marketing tactic you’ve never heard of. It barely has a name yet. But, many of the best marketers are already practicing it. It’s called Permissionless Co-Marketing. It is the deliberate effort of aligning yourself with other brands by promoting them in your work. It’s the inverse of earned media — where you’re the
Hook, Line, and Sinker: A Model for Crafting Successful, Viral Content
By Despite studying content that overachieves for years, it’s only in the past few months that I’ve stumbled into a mental model I’ve called: Hook, Line, and Sinker. My goal here is to broadly encapsulate *why* overachieving content pieces hit their mark, and why similar, but underperforming pieces miss. First: when we talk about “content,” we’re
Influence Maps—The Best Marketing Framework You’ve Never Heard Of
By When you find a tool that massively improves your work’s effectiveness and dramatically cuts down on poor decision-making, there are two natural responses: “This is amazing! It’s gonna save me so much heartache.” “WTF?! Why didn’t anyone tell me about this before?” That’s exactly how I felt when I stumbled across the behavioral design field’s
The Best Damn Food & Drink Gift Guide 2021
By Welcome back to the best edible, potable guide to gift-giving the Internet has to offer. Like last year, we’ve assembled a lengthy list of food and beverage gifts from around the web. And, like last year, we have absolutely no ulterior motive. None of these links have affiliate codes, there’s no kickbacks, we’re just sharing
What if Performance Advertising is Just an Analytics Scam?
By “What the pandemic showed is we can take marketing down to zero and still have 95% of the same traffic as the year before. So we’re not going to forget that lesson.” – Brian Chesky (via Campaign) In 2020, AirBnB cut $542 million of performance advertising spend and saw no measurable falloff in attributable sales.
Shoot Your Shot: A Guide to Effective Cold Outreach
By “What response rate do you get with cold outreach?” In a recent SparkToro Office Hours, someone asked me this question. It’s at least 80%. Earlier this year, I had a 100% response rate with a batch of messages. My approach? I invest serious time qualifying my lead list and researching my audience before I send
Hustle Culture vs. Chill Work
By A few weeks ago, Wil Reynolds and I were on a video call together. I think I joined in a couple minutes after him, and the discussion was already starting: Someone on the call: “… just hustling” Rand: “Ugh, I hate hustle culture.” Wil: “Yo, Fish*, can you define hustle?” Rand: “Easy one. Hustling is
The Incentives to Publish No Longer Reward the Web’s Creators
By It’s been almost two months since my last post here. For those of you who pay attention to the digital marketing world, the infrequency of updates may be missed, but it’s likely familiar. Many, many web creators (those who publish, in any format, on their own sites rather than big tech’s platforms) who historically published