I like this idea from the Alt Marketing School newsletter:

Create an Objection Smasher page or post on your site. This landing page should list the top 5-10 reasons why people don’t buy your product or why they choose another business over yours.

You can’t be for everyone, so why not make it super clear who you aren’t for?

The marketing trend of 2024:

In: AI (& context)
Out: Control

Early this year this was based on lots of prediction posts and podcasts (& my own crystal ball).

As the year has unfolded it’s been based on reality.

If you’re chasing “better” analytics or attribution, you’re behind the curve.

Our culture leans toward the idea that we should intervene and that our results should be visible. To manipulate and control without really questioning why we are doing what we do. Much of the time, I have found you only need to fix things if they have been put out of kilter in the first place.

As in gardening, so in marketing.

The easiest way to prove you’re working is to do stuff. Pull levers, twist knobs, change settings, etc. But campaigns and messages take time.

Don’t change things for the sake of looking busy.

Algorithms as plants.

My major design goal here was…I wanted to push controls, as much as possible, down the screen. So I want the most frequently accessed things to be accessible when you’re holding the phone in one hand and you just want to hit something with your thumb. 

This is pretty common in apps now, it should be way more common on websites.

Respect the thumb zone (image via Smashing Magazine)

that’s really the single core question about the future of Generative AI - is this a new general purpose tool, where one product from one company does the work of hundreds of pieces of software from hundreds of companies, or is this a generic technology that will enable features inside products from hundreds or thousands of companies?

I lean towards the latter.

It’s easier to imagine AI turbocharging all kinds of existing tools and features than a general purpose AI platform that gets mass adoption.

I think most companies fear that they don’t have enough of a young person’s perspective. 

But…like so many things in this world, it comes down to trying to have a mix of old thinking and new thinking. 

The “youth” are like catnip for marketers, but it’s imperative to know who your actual audience is.

Your message needs to reflect your audience.

The manager looks at him and says, “HA! You think I am in the music business? No. I’m in the Iron fucking Maiden business.” The publishing industry? The retail business? These are not the businesses I am in–just like you’re not in the coffee industry or B2B. No, you’re in the business of you. You’re in the business of serving your customers in your city with your unique offering.

What matters is their relationship with their fans. That’s who they are in service of. That’s the job. And so it goes for all of us, whatever we do.

Everything is customer service.

Know who you’re serving and what they expect.

Business is a series of promises.

Success is based on delivering.

Word spreads because taste aligns…not because of wild interruption.

Find the stories that mesh.

Adobe’s holiday shopping predictions are in:

major discounts this season–up to 30% off listed prices–as retailers compete for consumer dollars

Biggest discount wins?

share of the most expensive goods is set to increase by 19% compared to pre-season trends—driven in large part by competitive discounts

Inflation and price sensitivity who?

I think post-election holiday shopping is gonna pop like a champagne cork.

This.

If you try to be for everyone, you end up being for no one.

Or, as Vonnegut said, “if you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”

We’ve been preparing all our clients for this:

The vast majority of political ad spend happens in the month prior to the election.Bottom of funnel, so to speak. Expect prices to be higher up to Election Day in early November, then drop off sharply, leaving an opening. Take advantage. 

After that, consumer spending is expected to skyrocket. Lots of people will be online engaging in discourse. Screentime will be up, which means CPMs will be down and CTRs up. Get on it. 

Thinking about God promotes greater acceptance of Artificial intelligence (AI)-based recommendations.

…

when God is salient, people are more willing to consider AI-based recommendations than when God is not salient.

…

God salience reduces reliance on human recommenders and heightens willingness to consider AI recommendations.

What does this suggest about human psychology and behavior?

Roku announced a self-serve ad platform which include two ad types I want to test:

3. Action Ads: Marketers can easily generate interactive video overlays on their own, allowing viewers to send themselves a text message while watching their video ad.

4. Shopify Checkout: For the first time in CTV advertising, Shopify merchants can now launch self-service shoppable ads that allow consumers to check out directly on-screen using their Roku remote.

YouTube confirms advertisers can broadly target your paused screentime: “As we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response, we’ve since widely rolled out Pause ads to all advertisers,”

Pause ads for all.

A format I really want to try. And one that I think rewards humor and breaking the 4th wall more than most.

85% of registered voters surveyed trust podcasts more than any other news and information source, including newspapers (print or digital), TV (broadcast or cable), AM/FM radio, and social media.

Audio is the only mass medium that bypasses the eyes, which means it is processed differently by the brain.