A business enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation

-Peter Drucker

100M Offers Made Easy by Ben Preston 📚

A good overview of the $100 Million Offers approach with some “how to use with AI chat” tips. A good place to start if you’re looking for an entry point to mess around with LLMs for marketing task acceleration. Otherwise, you might get an idea or two on how to tweak your prompting approach.

Here are the non-prompt bits I highlighted:

An irresistible offer is more than just a sales pitch or a marketing gimmick. It’s a carefully crafted proposition that captivates your audience, solves their deepest problems, and compels them to take action.

The flow of your offer should mirror the natural progression of your prospect’s thoughts. It should start by addressing a problem they relate to, present your solution as the answer, and provide evidence to support your claims. Finally, it should guide them to take action, whether it’s making a purchase or subscribing to your newsletter.

An irresistible offer isn’t just about what you sell; it’s about how you package and frame the value you provide to your customers.

I won’t recreate the prompt verbatim here (if you’re interested, just check out the book), but the general flow is:

• Classic role playing prompting opening: “Act as Alex Hormozi…”
• Ask the LLM to rate your offer using Alex’s 4-part value equation framework (from his book $100 Million Offers) and outline the framework (TBD if you can skip the outlining, give it a shot)
• After rating, take the scores generated from each step and calculate the offer equation
• Ask it to provide advice on increasing each of the 4 scores as well as two alternate offer ideas

Follow up prompt:

• Tweak the offer, however necessary, to reach the optimal offer score of 1,000,000

Other recommendations for prompting include:

• List Unique Selling Points
• Craft a Unique Value Proposition
• Generate headlines, hooks, & stories
• Map the offer structure as a sales letter / landing page
• Add a dash of scarcity / FOMO to the offer
• A/B testing ideas & analysis
• Additional data analysis
• Customer segmentation

Is the US Economy Headed for a Slowdown?

If the US consumer is the engine driving the economy, then some funky noises are coming from underneath the hood.

It seems everyone rushed to get their spending done before Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China hit

The pull forward was always likely to obscure the underlying trend early on.

Markets Are Finally, For Real, Pricing in An Economic War

suggesting investors are officially pricing in a lower-growth future after weeks of possibly misguided optimism.

a steep selloff that first rocked markets on [March 3-4], pricing in a future of higher import costs, potential inflation and the disruption of once-integrated supply chains.

Inflation Cooled in February. Now Come Tariffs.

So the good news: Inflation may be calming down. The bad news: Likely-inflationary tariffs are just starting to hit now, meaning this may well be just the calm before the storm.

“There’s no disinflation momentum right now,” [Nationwide chief economist Kathy] Bostjancic added. “We are predicting a little bit of a bump up in the coming months because of these tariffs.”

GDP estimates are being revised downward too.

Walmart is trying to pass tariff costs onto suppliers. It’s not alone

However, this approach has proven difficult. Many suppliers have resisted, resisting price cuts and calling for changes in production. Some have even been urged to move production outside of China, with countries like Vietnam seen as potential alternatives.

Canada to impose 25% retaliatory tariffs on $21 billion worth of U.S. goods

The new tariffs cover steel and aluminum, as well as other U.S. goods including computers, sports equipment and cast iron products

The new Canadian duties are on top of the 25% counter-tariffs that Ottawa already slapped on $30 billion worth of U.S. goods.

Marketing is the act making a promise—or a series of promises. Good marketing delivers on that promise. Bad marketing pisses people off.

Daring Fireball breaks down how Apple Intelligence broke Apple’s promises.

The fiasco is that Apple pitched a story that wasn’t true, one that some people within the company surely understood wasn’t true, and they set a course based on that.

You can stretch the truth and maintain credibility, but you can’t maintain credibility with bullshit.

Apple either drank its own Kool-Aid or forgot who its real customers were.

A slew of earnings reports last week from the consumer discretionary sector raised the specter of sapped spending as executives discussed the possibility of increasing prices on goods to offset the costs of tariffs on shipments from Canada, Mexico, and China.

Retail roulette continues

via The Daily Upside

Word of mouth is always the best marketing…but after your first impression doesn’t go as planned, it’s the only type of marketing that makes a difference.

So make it cool and less risky for your fans to re-tell their friends.

-Gabe the Bass Player

I love this ad

Not because it’s especially good or cool.

Because instead of rambling on about features or tech specs, it frames things in terms of the emotional benefit to the customer.

Shoppers don’t care about the technical stuff until they’re about to make the purchase.

Grabbed tacos with some coworkers last week from a restaurant that opened in an old UPS Store space. Even if we hadn’t known (we only knew because one of the crew remembered it being there), it would have been obvious as soon as we walked in.

All the UPS Store fittings were still there—counter, table, shelves, carpet—with some thematic decorations and touches layered over the top.

This wasn’t a place to sit and eat, it was a grab-and-go counter. And it was delicious (bonus points for having beef tongue tacos, not often seen on menus around here).

They could have put money into renovations and appearance, or they could focus on the food—the actual product.

I’d go back, so I guess they focused on the right thing.

Plus, the absurdity of the interior makes it more likely that I’ll talk about it and remember it.

“Hey, let’s go get tacos at the old UPS Store.” 🌮

More findings from Podscribe’s recent podcast performance report:

• Ads bought per episode (“episodic”) outperform buying across shows (aka “run of network”)—more conversions on more efficient spend
• Host-read ads drive more purchases but cost effectiveness might be a wash
• Mid-roll ads are more efficient per impression, pre-roll are on a per dollar basis—and post-roll are trash
• Longer ads deliver better performance, especially on a per dollar basis

New study sheds light on the role of sound and music in gendered toy marketing

commercials aimed at boys, the soundtracks tended to be louder, more abrasive, and distorted, reinforcing notions of masculinity through harsher soundscapes. In contrast, ads targeting girls featured softer, more harmonious music, reinforcing traditional associations with femininity.

[music-primed gender schemas] merge aesthetic and gendered meanings, priming listeners to associate certain sounds with masculinity or femininity. In the context of advertising, this can reinforce narrow conceptions of gender roles, which, in turn, shape children’s perceptions of what is ‘appropriate’ for boys and girls

According to the first author, toy commercials can be described as “semiotic bombs,” packing multiple layers of meaning into short bursts of sound, imagery, and language.

Don’t just zig when your competitors zag, try zigging when your brain zags. Doing the opposite of what “feels right” or “normal” or “standard.”

People love free samples. Is the marketing opportunity of the future free tastes?

Novel technology intends to redefine the virtual reality experience by expanding to incorporate a new sensory connection: taste.

“The chemical dimension in the current VR and AR realm is relatively underrepresented, especially when we talk about olfaction and gustation. It’s a gap that needs to be filled and we’ve developed that with this next-generation system.”

Free smells too!

via ScienceDaily

Smaller is better. At least when it comes to podcasts for ad performance.

Smaller podcasts consistently are more efficient at driving visitors per impression

smaller podcasts are more effective per dollar spent

smaller shows may have more committed, niche audiences that are more connected to the host

Which makes sense, since podcasts are basically audio-first influencer channels. It’s about audience engagement, not size.

More nuggets:

• 16% of site visits occur within 24 hours of hearing an ad
• 40% within a week
• 80% within 23 days

via Inside Audio Marketing

I like this Quality Cliff model from Animalz.

A baseline of quality is needed for any piece of content to “work.” But at some point you’re polishing for the sake of procrastination or perfection, not performance.

Of course, there is no universal benchmark or threshold.

Consistently undervaluing the need for quality risks dismal results; pursuing quality at all costs winds up expensive and over-engineered. You need to evaluate every topic and campaign on a case-by-case basis.

Just like Steve Pratt says about creative bravery:

It is relative to every brand. There’s no universal scale of creative bravery.

What’s creatively brave for you could be a way of thinking about it.

Most of it is thinking about who the end consumer of the content is—whether it’s a podcast or a video or an email newsletter—is this something that they’re actually going to look forward to and appreciate. Is this going to create value for them. Is this something that is coming from you but not about you.

What is a gift we can give that can only come from us that is intended and designed for the people you’re trying to reach?

Stated even clearer:

Is this brave enough to get into the attention fortress?

Using video as an example. There is a minimum viable quality if you want your video to “work.”

TikTok and the rise of “authentic content” has dropped this bar, but it still exists. Lighting, angle, story, and speed are probably the core 4 to hit the minimum.

• Can we see the subject of the video?
• Can we figure out what it is?
• Can we figure out why you made the video? What are you trying to tell us about the subject?
• Is it slow enough that we can keep up but fast enough that we don’t lose interest?

But there’s a lot of ground to cover between that minimum and the maximum of a Super Bowl commercial or branded blockbuster film.

The decision you need to make is: do you need a top 5 Super Bowl commercial this year? Or do you just need a short-form vertical video that will get people to pay attention and maybe engage a bit?

And be clear about why you need what you decide. Whether it’s vanity, cachet, or KPIs. (Or Deb in accounting.)

Minimum viable (for the performance you want) is usually the better choice than maximum available.

Be brave. Or be ignored.

Be weird.

Ad frequency is a common consideration for advertisers (this being the number of times a person is shown the same exact ad).

We know it takes more than one interaction, but how many is too many?

The paper Battle of the Brand: Brand Attachment Inoculates Against the Negative Effects of Ad Repetition has some interesting findings.

The Toleration Range

2-5 ad exposures seems to be the sweet spot before it becomes annoying and negatively impacts brand perception. (At least for traditional media, digital is a different ballgame.)

Brand fans can tolerate a higher frequency.

stronger personal brand attachment slows ad wearout

Identity Threat

The study found that people sometimes perceive repeated ad exposure as a threat to their identity.

Everyone experiences in negative thoughts about a brand as frequency increases. BUT people with strong brand attraction generate more positive thoughts about the brand in response.

Basically an identity protection response by the brain. “I’m a Starbucks person so I can’t be too annoyed by this Starbucks ad.”

The antidote to ad wearout is personal connection.

Are you going to get out of the way and stop making things that are about you and instead start making things that are from you, that people are looking forward to and value?

A question from Steve Pratt that more companies need to ask themselves about their marketing.

Especially owned channel / content marketing.

People don’t just want to know what you make. They want to know what you’re made of.

At Blue Ion, we’re big into help brands uncover, articulate, and share their mission, vision, and purpose. Which means we’re always collecting compelling thoughts about these ideas.

I like these from Dr. Michael Gervais

Vision

Vision is like this compelling future that I see, I imagine, and it is so compelling and beautiful and electric to me that I want to work towards that future state.

Purpose

Purpose is the deep why that you’re here.

To get deeper, ask another why.

Is SEO for AI all about vectors?

Instead of relying on exact keyword matches, search engines now use vector embeddings – a technique that maps words, phrases, and even images into multi-dimensional space based on their meaning and relationships.

3 strategies mentioned:

• Add semantic topic modeling to your keyword research mix
• Focus on where topic meets intent over keywords
• Make good content (which means make it for humans, not bots)

Of course, the best way to find out what AI might think about your content is to use AI to tell you.