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- MEME MARKETING: THE ART OF STICKY IDEAS
MEME MARKETING: THE ART OF STICKY IDEAS
How Hubspot & Semrush make millions through meme marketing...
Niall Ratcliffe
December 22, 2024
Morning!
We’re 3 days away from Christmas, but while everyone else is getting excited for Christmas… I’m obsessing over memes.
I used to think they were stupid images people posted online. Today, I realise they’re one of the most useful tools to spread key ideas across the internet.
In this breakdown, I’m going to brain dump all of my research from the last few weeks. From which brands are effectively using memes to how to approach campaigns to include more memes.
This isn’t a very Christmassy edition, but it is a good one.
Let’s get into it!
You can listen to the audio version HERE.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION
BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY
We just hired someone who is a meme expert… they don’t call themselves that but it’s what they are.
6 months ago, if I saw someone posting memes on social media I would have thought they had no idea what they were doing. Today, I realise that if you understand memes you understand people - and when you understand people, you become a great marketer.
They’re no longer just funny pictures you post online, they’re a way to communicate concepts and ideas to millions of people.
Google defines a meme as, “an image, video, or piece of text, typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users.”
And if you read that and don’t see it as a huge marketing opportunity, well, you’re probably in the wrong industry.
One of my favourite marketers, George Mack calls them “sticky ideas” and as a marketer I want my ideas to be sticky. Going into 2025 I’m not sure there are many better ways to create a sticky idea that spreads than a meme.
So today, I’m going to break down exactly how to use meme marketing and show you some of the brands that have built mass followings and generated millions in revenue through it.
Let’s start with a few frames to look at memes:
Frame 1: The “What’s the meme?” Question
I think at this point we can all admit that if you want to get a message out to millions of people in 2024/2025 you have to turn social media.
The issue is, a lot of companies fail at socials because they’re trying to communicate messages that are over-complicated.
Take Hubspot for example, how in the world do you communicate that you have a CRM and sales software tool that will help save sales & marketing teams hours of their time?
Answer: You use memes.
Because a meme isn’t just a funny relatable picture, it’s how you condense a complex idea into one simple, sharable image.
Now, when I am trying to clearly communicate the message behind a campaign or an idea I’m trying to share I always ask myself, “What’s the meme?”
Because when I know the meme behind my idea, I know how to communicate what I am trying to say in its simplest, stickiest format.
I did this with last week’s newsletter when trying to explain “The New Idea Trap” - when you constantly try and write about new ideas vs making old ideas better. It probably would have taken me 2-3 paragraphs to explain, or I can find the meme… which is exactly what I created (see below).
Frame 2: What’s the most relatable piece of content?
The best sales tip I ever heard was this:
“When you walk into any room, remember that everybody has an invisible sign around their neck saying ‘make me feel important’”.
How do you do that?
1/ You listen to them.
2/ You show them you understand them.
People who are great at sales are masters at those two things, yet so many marketers overlook them.
Recently when I’m working on content I am constantly asking myself, “What’s the most relatable piece of content I can create this week?”.
I’m looking for a piece of content that:
1/ Shows my audience I understand them.
2/ Shows I listen to their problems.
3/ Talks in a way they communicate.
More and more I’m realising that most of the time the only thing that ticks all of those boxes is a meme.
Take this silly meme that Hubspot posted:
On the surface, it’s just a stupid joke. But beyond the surface, it’s a viral post that showed millions of people that Hubspot understands them.
Let’s go back to that checklist I mentioned before…
1/ Shows my audience I understand them.
The meme is funny because those who saw it related to it - which also subconsciously tells them that Hubspot understands them and their jobs.
2/ Shows I listen to their problems.
Hubspot has clearly been listening to people talking about how they are locked in for Q4 trying to grind out their yearly targets before the end of the year.
3/ Talk in a way they communicate.
Just take a look at this comment underneath the meme:
THAT is why memes like this are powerful.
When you post memes people relate to they no longer see you as some big software corporation, they see you as their best friend.
And people prefer to buy from best friends.
Okay, that’s enough frames to look at memes through - let’s take a look at how you can market with memes.
HUBSPOT: Building On Shared Interest
I’ve referenced Hubspot a lot in this breakdown because they are so darn good at using memes in their content strategy. But what makes their strategy so great is that they “Meme” around a shared interest.
On our recent webinar, Dom McGregor explained that communities are built around shared interests. When a group of people are all interested in the same thing.
So how did Hubspot get 4.1M sales & marketing professionals to follow them on social media?
They shared memes about their jobs + trends they were talking about:
Like this one about social media and Barbie with 3600+ likes and millions of views.
Or this:
Comparing characters from the film The Hangover with different areas of the organisation.
These memes are magnets for attracting their ICP and by the 4.1M followers they have and the $ 37 billion market cap - it’s clearly working.
Which leads me to ask “What’s the meme here?” so I went and created one:
Semrush: Optimising For The Group Chat
Marketing gurus love to tell you that you need to optimise your content for likes, comments, or reach. The reality is, you need to optimise your content for the group chat. Meaning, it needs to be as shareable as possible for your ICP.
And that’s exactly what Semrush does with their memes.
Just these 2 memes alone have 500+ reposts, 7000+ likes, and millions of impressions.
But what you can’t see is the number of group chats or Slack channels they got shared in - my guess is 1000s.
Because I can already see the message people send, “Literally us.”
In this breakdown, I’ve talked about how memes are great ways to communicate, how they’re great for simplifying messages, and how they are great ways to create relatable content…
But the no.1 hack of using memes is how shareable they are.
They aren’t built for just social media, they are built to be shared everywhere.
In WhatsApp groups.
Across other platforms.
In work Slack channels.
All it takes is one screenshot and your meme can be shared in 1 million different places.
It’s the ultimate piece of content, disguised as a joke. I’m going to be leaning into them more and more in 2025 and you probably should too.
🌱 THE GREENHOUSE
Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:
TL;DR
1/ Ask: “What’s the meme?”
2/ Go for reliability.
3/ Build on shared interest.
4/ Optimise for the group chat.
I still need to find a balance of using more memes but not narrowing a brand down to just being “funny”. It’s a tough mix, but I think brands like Hubspot and Semrush have nailed it.
They now have millions of followers and have built 2 of the biggest B2B businesses in the space.
If you want to improve your marketing in 2025, you need to start to understand memes and hopefully, this breakdown helped you with that.
If it did… why not share this breakdown with a friend?
Until next Sunday.
— Niall
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