MY BEST MARKETING LESSONS: 7 LESSONS THAT MADE ME A BETTER MARKETER

Morning!

It’s been quite the week.

A few years ago, I would spend hours studying how Steven Bartlett & Dom McGregor grew SocialChain and dream of a day when I could do something similar.

It’s safe to say I haven’t built the next SocialChain (yet), but this Friday we did get to sit down with Dom McGregor as he advised us on how to take the company to the next level.

A pretty cool moment and some great advice given.

So in honour of a week where I learned a lot, I thought I’d use this breakdown to share 7 of the best marketing lessons I’ve learned over the last 5 years.

A little change from usual, let me know if you enjoy it.

Should take 4 mins to read!

P.S. Listen to the audio version of this breakdown HERE.

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION

BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY

There are 1 million and 1 ways to get better at marketing.

• You can read books.

• Chat with industry leaders.

• Experiment with your own campaigns.

And I can confidently say I have spent 100s of hours doing all 3 of these things over the last 5 years.

• I’ve written 158 marketing strategy breakdowns.

• I’ve written 1000+ marketing posts for LinkedIn.

• I’ve chatted with 20+ true industry leaders.

I’m still no David Ogilvy, but I’d like to think I’ve been able to absorb my fair share of marketing lessons.

But here’s the sad reality… out of the 1000s of marketing lessons I’ve digested over the last few years, under 1% have been useful in my day-to-day life.

The other 99%? Well, they were all farcical hacks & tricks that either died with age or simply weren’t effective.

So today, I wanted to share 7 of the lessons that genuinely made me a better marketer.

From a simple one-liner from David Ogilvy to hard-hitting advice from Harry Dry.

Here are 7 lessons to make you a better marketer:

Lesson 1: Amateurs Write Short Copy (David Ogilvy)

I read this line 12 months ago, yet it still haunts me every day.

“Only amateurs use short copy.”

Today, we live in an age where every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a marketing degree preaches that you need to write shorter copy.

Shorter paragraphs. Shorter sentences. Shorter lines.

Cut. Cut. Cut.

Yet David Ogilvy, arguably the greatest advertiser to ever live says that short copy is for amateurs???

Oof!

In his book, 'Ogilvy On Advertising’ Ogilvy asks:

”If your life depended on it and you had to write a letter to a prospect that convinced them to buy, how long would it be?”

My answer = Anything but short.

This doesn’t mean that all short copy is bad. Of course, if you’re writing a headline or some ad copy it may be best to have a short punchy line.

But what I think Ogilvy is saying here is don’t shorten your copy and think you’re making it better. If your writing is great, keep writing.

After reading this I quickly applied it to my LinkedIn content.

I stopped focusing on shorter posts and began to write over 300-word posts.

Since then I’ve gained around 10,000 followers and tripled my reach & engagement.

Maybe Ogilvy was on to something?

Lesson 2: Up The Stakes (Steve Jobs)

Last summer, I wrote one of my most viral pieces ever on the infamous Steve Jobs.

Nearly 1 million people read it.

But while the entire breakdown was good, there was one key lesson I learned while researching Jobs which stuck by me.

→ Up the stakes.

One of the things Jobs did better than anyone else was up the stakes of his launches.

Example:

In the first line of his 2007 iPhone release speech, jobs said:

He didn’t say Apple was launching a new mobile phone, he said Apple had “Reinvented the phone”.

But not just that… it was a “Revolutionary product” that will change everything.

You see how he made it so much more than just a phone?

This is one of the many reasons Apple products had so much hype behind them back then.

After learning this lesson I started adding 100x the stakes to all of our launches and every single one has been a wild success.

The key to getting people to listen to your launch? Up the stakes.

Lesson 3: Use “The Trott Three” (Dave Trott)

Earlier this year I stumbled across the best marketing lecture I’ve ever seen.

I came across it after reading this tweet from Harry Dry:

I needed to learn more about this “Dave Trott” character so I went searching for his work.

That’s when I stumbled upon what I call “The Trott Three”.

Here’s how it goes…

Trott says that inherently all advertising is just a conversation, and the best have these 3 elements

1/ Impact
2/ Communication
3/ Persuasion

Trott maps them out into a funnel structure like this:

Dave says that if you strolled into most advertising departments the entire team would be focusing on the bottom section - persuasion.

“How can we make this ad push more people to take action”.

But Dave says great ads, have all 3:

1/ Impact: If your ad has no impact, then nothing happens - because it never ends up on the customer’s radar. 

2/ Communication: If your ad makes an impact but no one knows what you’re saying… again, nothing happens.

3/ Persuasion:  It’s only when an ad has an impact, communicates what you want to say and THEN lets people know why they should take action… then something happens!

This is such a simple way to look at all advertising and I absolutely freakin love it.

Impact → Communication → Persuasion.

The Trott 3.

Etch that into your brain!

Lesson 4: Be Where The Attention Is (Richard Branson)

Richard Branson is one of my favourite billionaires on the planet, but he’s also taught me a lot about marketing too.

One of the key concepts I learned while studying him was the idea that you need to be where the attention is.

His infamous “BA can’t get it up!!” blimp campaign is the perfect example of this in action:

At the time Virgin Atlantic was in a heated feud with British Airways.

The pair were competing for British customers and BA had launched a series of attacks on Virgin.

Including having their reps impersonate Virgin employees and trying to get Virgin customers to switch their flights to BA.

Pretty crazy.

Then one day Branson got a call at 5 am saying there was a big story on the news - the London Eye was stuck on the ground.

With British Airways being proud supporters of the London Eye, Branson quickly pulled together a blimp with the words “BA CAN’T GET IT UP” on it and had it fly over the downed London Eye.

The downed London Eye was already front-page news, so the second the blimp arrived Branson was able to steal all of that attention.

I think people call this “Newsjacking” nowadays.

But the most important thing to realise is that it’s easier to get attention when you place your brand where people are looking.

Lesson 5: Be Uncomfortably Honest (Bill Bernach)

This campaign was one of the most successful of all time, yet it goes against everything most marketers believe in.

While most marketers spend millions trying to show how great they are, in this campaign, Bernbach admits that Avis aren’t perfect.

In fact, they’re even 2nd best in the industry.

But this brutal honesty is priceless for 2 reasons:

1/ It works as a pattern interrupt
2/ It builds trust

We are so used to ads that big up products that when you see a headline admitting they’re 2nd best, you instantly get curious.

Why are they admitting this?
Why are they running an ad like this?

The next minute they’ve read to the end of the ad, while:

A) Trusting you.
B) Understanding your value prop.
C) Wanting to buy from you.

A very unique but effective way to approach a headline.

Sometimes you have to admit you’re not perfect so the world sees how great you really are.

Lesson 6: Create An Us Vs Them (Dan Weiden)

Ever noticed how everyone compares Apple to other computers? But never compares a brand like HP or Dell to all other computers.

It’s Apple Vs. the industry - and this isn’t by mistake.

In 2006, Apple was a pretty big player in the computer space. But they were still having problems differentiating themselves from other computers.

That was until Dan Weiden created the “I am a Mac” campaign.

The campaign was simple.

The man on the right was:

• Trendy

• Young

• Healthy

The man on the left was:

• Corporate

• Old

• Traditional

And had just caught a “virus”.

The ad starts with the guy on the right saying “I’m a Mac”, while the man on the left says, “I’m a PC”.

Again, it’s a simple ad with just 2 men in a white studio. Yet it perfectly creates this conflict of:

A) Modern-day innovators and young tech guys who use Macs

Vs

B) Stiff corporates who use the classic computers

This is also masterful differentiation.

Notice how you refer to all other brands of computers as “Laptops” or “PCs” yet with Apple products you call them “Macbooks” or a “Mac”.

It’s the computer equivalent of saying “Let me GOOGLE it”.

Lesson 7: Make It Falsifiable (Harry Dry)

Finally, we have one of my favourite copywriting lessons - that I still haven’t fully embodied.

“Make it falsifiable.”

This one came as a tough lesson after I got this message on Twitter from Harry about my website headline.

It’s safe to say he wasn’t impressed.

But at the time, I couldn’t really grasp what he was getting at. How could I make it a “falsifiable claim”?

Well, on a recent podcast with David Perrel, Harry made this even simpler when he said:

Here’s a great example he shared that explains it too:

So many marketers (including myself) have spent hours trying to think of clever copy.

But Harry says you should just write the most interesting fact.

Who knew facts were great headlines?

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:

• Ryan Holiday’s writing process. (See here)

• A simple breakdown of improving copy. (See here)

• A place I spend too much of my time. (See here)

TL;DR

Lesson 1: Amateurs Write Short Copy
Lesson 2: Up The Stakes
Lesson 3: Use “The Trott 3”
Lesson 4: Be Where The Attention Is
Lesson 5: Be Uncomfortably Honest
Lesson 6: Create An Us Vs Them
Lesson 7: Make It Falsifiable

I can quite confidently say that these 7 lessons completely changed my approach to marketing, and they deserve a lot of credit for any success I’ve had so far.

Amongst that bunch are some of the best marketers of all time and I’m just grateful we all get a chance to pick their brains in some way or another.

Hopefully, you learned something from this.

If you did, why not share this with a friend? I appreciate it : )

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

WAIT… BEFORE YOU GO

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THAT’S ALL!

This has been a breakdown of my 7 best marketing lessons. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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