TIM FERRISS: 6 TIMELESS MARKETING LESSONS

Morning!

I’m flying to Barca for work on Tuesday, then to the USA for a wedding on Friday.

So I’m writing this while embracing the last glimmers of peace before a very chaotic week.

But before I finally kick back & relax, it’s time to learn about one of the greatest marketers alive today…

Tim Ferriss. 

A man who has literally done everything: Forbes 40 Under 40, early-stage investor/advisor with Uber, Facebook and Shopify as well as being the author of five #1 New York Times bestsellers.

What is at the core of all of his success?

Great marketing.

Here are 6 marketing lessons from one of the greatest marketers of our time:

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION

BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY

In August 1995, a young nerdy kid named Tim Ferris stepped onto the Princeton campus for the first time.

But Ferriss didn’t have the fun college life that he had hoped.

Instead, he ended up in a "very, very dark place" and even contemplated suicide.

It was at this point that Tim began spending time studying the human brain, psychology, and health optimisation.

After college Tim pursued this further in his first business venture BrainQuicken - an athletic supplement company.

It was during this period that Tim realised that when he took time off, his business was actually performing better.

So he began writing about the lessons he was learning and put them together in his first book "The 4-Hour Workweek."

After endless rejections, Ferriss finally landed a small book deal, but neither him or his publisher expected it to do much.

But then it launched… and sold ~2.1 million copies.

The world was shocked, his publisher was shocked, but Tim?

Not at all.

Because he’d just put on a marketing masterclass.

But what were his marketing secrets and what can we learn from him?

Well, I spent the last 4 hours studying every marketing hack, tactic, and trick Tim uses.

Here are 6 that every marketer needs to know:

Lesson 1: Shake Hands

When Tim finally got his book deal for 4 Hour Work Week it wasn’t the finish line, it was the start.

Because all his publishers agreed to do was print & post his book.

Getting people to buy it? That was on Tim.

But rather than doing the classic book tour or podcast tour, Tim took a completely different approach.

He knew that bloggers influenced his target audience. So he figured out where those bloggers hung out — conferences. Then made a list of all of the conferences he could attend.

But he didn’t go to them to talk on stage or pitch his book.

Instead, he spent his time in the cocktail bar after events getting to know each blogger personally.

He’d ask them genuine questions, get to know them, then when the time was right… offer them an advance copy of his book.

The result: He had 1000s of bloggers pitching his book to their audiences.

When talking about this strategy Tim said:

It wasn’t scaleable. But it was leveraged.

Because for every 1 blogger he met, it meant 1000s of people would see his book.

Lesson 2: Promise Outcomes

As much as Tim’s in-person approach to his book marketing was fantastic, all it did was get his book in front of people.

So what made them buy?

My answer: His outcome focused book titles

Nearly every single book he has released has a very clear outcome-focused promise on the front of it.

Just take a look:

No fancy titles, no trying to be clever with the copy, no big words.

It’s this is what you’re going to get from reading my book.

And THAT is why so many people pulled the trigger.

Lesson 3: Have A Cheat Code

In 2006, Tim knew that if his book was going to be a success he had to start building a community. So he started a blog.

Today, Tims blog has 3-4 million unique visitors every month.

You can’t exactly credit it for his initial book, but you can definitely credit it for all of his future sales.

It’s essentially a cheat code.

He has millions of people that love him and are willing to buy whatever he puts out.

So when he does release something… they buy it straight away.

The irony is, so many brands and entrepreneurs still fail to action this for themselves.

Lesson 4: Market To The 10%

One of the most interesting things I heard Tim saying while I was researching him was that he never creates content that 100% of his audience enjoys.

I thought it was an unusual statement, but what he said next made a whole lot of sense.

Everyone always thinks about getting in front of millions or creating stuff that millions enjoy.

Yet Tim (with one of the biggest audiences on the planet) purposely only creates stuff that a subset of his audience will love.

It just goes to show, you don’t want broad market that everyone can engage with.

You want narrow marketing that resonates within your niche.

Lesson 5: Ask… A Lot

As much as I’m an admirer of Tim’s macro approach to marketing, he’s also very very good at the technical stuff.

As I was spending more and more time on Tim’s blog while researching, it became very clear just how often Tim made an “Ask”.

At the top of every blog article → Subscribe for his newsletter

Scrolling down a blog → He’ll offer a free resource

Come back to his blog after a while → Another free resource

But the simple (yet great) thing Tim does is never present these as an ask, instead they come across as a helping hand.

It’s not “Please subscribe to my list” it’s, “Here are 17 questions that changed my life”.

It feels like he’s giving, giving, giving.
In reality, he’s asking, asking, asking.

Either way, the guy knows how to get people into his ecosystem!

Lesson 6: Launch Big

At this point, you get that Tim is unbelievable at book launches. But there are so many little things that he does that I’d have to write a book to cover all of them.

So, for lesson 6 I thought I’d quickly touch on 3 ways Tim Ferriss “launches big”.

• Creates a trailer: Trailers = something big is coming. They build hype, they get us excited, and they make us pull the trigger! So Tim creates one for every single book he releases. (See one of his early trailers HERE)

• Overload Amazon: Tim’s book 4 Hour Body had 140 5-star reviews in 24 hours. How? Because he sent out 1000+ advanced copies and emailed all of them to put in their review on launch day.

• Offer Incentives: In the build up to the 4HWW launch Tim offered his audience $4,000,000 in bonus gifts (all that were donated as a sponsorship deal). The campaign led to 15,000 pre-orders over the span of three days.

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

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

• Tim Ferris on emails. (See here)

• My thoughts on the state of content. (See here)

• Breakdown of Sahil Bloom’s YouTube approach. (See here)

TL;DR

1/ Shake Hands
2/ Promise Outcomes
3/ Have A Cheat Code
4/ Market To The 10%
5/ Ask… A Lot.
6/ Launch big.

When you look at all the clever angles he takes on book launches, it really isn’t a surprise Tim’s sold millions of books.

The guy is a very very very good marketer.

I’ve never really consumed too much of his content prior to writing this, but it’s safe to say I’ll be consuming it from here on out.

So much to learn from him.

Hopefully you found this as interesting as I did.

Have someone or something you’d love me to break down next week? Hit reply and let me know :)

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

WAIT… BEFORE YOU GO

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• 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 Tim Ferriss’ marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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