SAM PARR: MEDIA-FIRST MARKETING

Morning!

Here we are again. Another Saturday. Another newsletter to write. Another day where the clock is ticking.

I swear time is just flying by at the minute. I blink and another week is gone.

But this week I heard a line that has stuck in the back of my mind, “Everything trickles down from attention”.

(I think it was Chris Donnelly who said it.)

Every week I see more & more businesses dominating because they get more attention than their competitors.

But what if someone was manipulating & repeating this at scale at the highest level?

Well, there is…

His name is Sam Parr and here is how he does what I call “Media-First Marketing” ↓

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION

BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY

In 2014, Sam Parr started an events business named ‘HUSTLECON’.

The concept started pretty simple:

• Sam would cold email interesting CEOs & entrepreneurs and ask them to come and speak.

• He’d then tell his friends around San Fransisco about the event.

• Then rinse & repeat.

Pretty darn simple. But as time went on, Sam realised he needed to take his marketing up a notch to keep selling tickets.

So he decided to start writing blog articles and sending them out as emails.

Again, Sam’s concept was simple:

• He’d write great articles on the people speaking at his events.

• Share it with his email list + on his socials.

• More people would buy tickets to the event.

At the time, Sam was just trying to push more people to his event.

But what he didn’t notice is that he’d just discovered the media-first approach that major corporations were going to invest billions in over the next decade.

That probably became clearer to him in 2021 when B2B software giant, HubSpot, came in and bought his ‘The Hustle’ newsletter for ~$27MM.

(Quite the payout for what started as a way to sell event tickets.)

Why did Hubspot pay 8-figures for a newsletter?

For one simple reason, to get millions of eyes on Hubspot.

No one wants to hear what Hubspot has to say, it’s obvious they are trying to sell to them. But a media brand that is renowned for delivering amazing business content? Millions will subscribe.

Media → Then monetize.

This approach is slowly becoming more popular with companies, and Sam Parr has quickly jumped on the trend with his new company - Hampton.

Here’s how he’s doing it and why I think it’s going to help him build a $100M company:

(Plus examples of other brands following suit)

Step 1: Understand What Your ICP Consume

The irony of aiming for attention is that going viral often has no impact on your business.

Sam’s company Hampton is a private, highly vetted community for founders, entrepreneurs, and CEOs.

Their minimum requirements to enter are:

Now, that’s a pretty high-level audience to get the attention of.

So you know what wouldn’t help Sam:

• Going viral on TikTok

• Posting generic sh*te on LinkedIn

• Or popping off on Instagram or Pinterest

If he wants their attention he has to understand what they consume.

So that’s exactly what Sam figured out…

The No.1 medium they consume?
↳ Podcasts.

The thing they are most interested in?
↳ Money + how best to handle money.

The type of content they enjoy?
↳ Deep dives. High-level. Usually long-form. With people they can relate to (high-net-worth individuals).

So what did Sam do?

He created ‘MoneyWise’.

A podcast where high-net-worth guests give exclusive insights into their personal finances and lifestyle.

AKA: media directly made for his ICP.

Step 2: Creating The Right Media Brand

Sam Parr has 287,000 followers on Twitter. He is also a co-host of My First Million - a podcast with 500k+ subscribers on YouTube.

So why in the world has he started another podcast? Why didn’t he just push Hampton through his personal brand?

Great question.

For me, there are a few reasons:

1/ It’s not very personal - With the separate podcast, Sam can clearly advertise and push people towards Hampton every single episode (that’s what’s expected with podcasts).

But with his personal brand, he can’t push people to his company every week… that’s not very personal is it? He’d lose followers, lose trust, and eventually lose his pull when it comes to his brand.

2/ It limits Sam to the company (and the company to Sam) - What if Sam wants to create another company or write a book? While he pushes that Hampton would suffer.

Relying solely on the personal brand is great to a certain point. But Sam expects Hampton to be a $100M+ company. It could never get to that reliant on his own personal brand.

With MoneyWise, Sam can step away from the company (or the podcast) at any time and they’d both continue to thrive.

3/ Allows You To Keep Being Media First - Building a separate media brand allows Hampton to operate ‘MoneyWise’ like a media brand.

• They can tailor content to their ICP.

• They aren’t dictated by Sam’s personal interest.

• They can scale attention with paid marketing.

Step 3: Creating A Media Growth Loop

Like everything, this approach has its downsides.

In this case, the biggest issue is that you are now trying to grow two things:

• A media brand

• A company

Both obviously quite difficult to grow.

But that’s before you take into account the unique growth loop you can create between the pair.

Get your team to talk about the media brand → Have the media brand push the company → Push customers to check out the media brand.

Not easy to do by any means. But when you get it right, the benefits can lead to some very quick growth.

Which is exactly what Sam has done with Moneywise & Hampton - both have become massively popular and grown extremely quickly.

BONUS: Who Else Is Doing This?

As much as I am a huge fan of Sam Parr, he is not the first (or the last) person to try this. This is something more and more companies have been experimenting with over the last few years.

My favourite example of this:

PENN X BARSTOOL

In 2023, PENN Gaming acquired a majority stake in Barstool Sports for ~$388MM.

They wanted the attention of young adults who were interested in sport and Barstool was the perfect media brand that housed that audience.

Very similar to The Hustle X Hubspot, but in a different industry - this time it was sports gambling.

While the testing phase of this media-first approach is well on its way, I have a feeling we are just getting started.

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

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

• An awesome thread on business growth. (See here)

• My new favourite newsletter. (See here)

TL;DR

Step 1: Understand What Your ICP Consume
Step 2: Create The Right Media Brand
Step 3: Create A Media Growth Loop

I know this breakdown wasn’t exactly rocket science, but hopefully, it opened your eyes to an interesting bit of marketing that I’m seeing companies leverage.

It’s very similar to the approach we discussed a few weeks back with The Ad Professor (see here). But this time, just on a much bigger scale.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you today.

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

WAIT… BEFORE YOU GO

If you’ve read this far, why not see how else I can help you:

• Follow me on Twitter for more marketing stuff.

• Connect with me on LinkedIn to follow my business journey.

• Want to work with me? Start HERE.

THAT’S ALL!

This has been a breakdown of Sam Parr’s marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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