“Oh wow!” (In a good way)

That’s the reaction you must draw from your customer who’s getting bombarded with paid ads and organic content 24x7

3 notes to self on marketing today:

▪️ Marketing is just sales at scale

▪️ People audition your first 10 seconds to quickly decide if they want to give you more attention or not

▪️ You want to avoid “indifference” by all means and aim for “oh wow!”

Some examples:

Some other rough notes on

Invert invert invert

Charlie Munger

How to make interesting and engaging videos on social media?

First — here is what bad ones look like:

Takes too long to get to the point (rambling start)
Impossible to know if there is dopamine in it (cloudy value prop: what’s in it for me?)
Leaves a bad taste in my mouth (needlessly controversial, goes against your values and beliefs and tribal code of conduct). Loses reputation and admiration instantly. Opposite of an enlightened being. You think the creator is just an idiot. Like Trump, D Vassalo, Andrew Tate
Slow, dull and boring without twists and “pleasant surprises”
Nothing for me to share with my friends.. it’s not a “gem I found” or “strong and key belief I can get behind”
Lack of a strong emotion
Lack of a strong relevance or personalization to me (for ex: tips for dentists)

Now when we invert these, you get:

Opens strongly, the first 15 sec
Clear and bold promise of dopamine (and delivery thru the video)
Brief but filled with pleasant surprises / incongruities so the brain thinks “oh wow!” This is novel
Emotion packed: inspiration, aspiration, fear, hate, love, gratitude, courage, etc (Mom ad by P&G)
Relevant and clear (calls out directly or has life style elements related to me)
Leaves a great taste in your mouth, share worthy bc it is about a tribal belief or rare nugget

Now let’s do content posts on X and Li:

The bad posts:

Doesn’t respect the platform styles and rules (looks like amateur)
Feels like no big effort was put in. Phoned it in. So not worth my full attention. Like a cheap jacket at H&M should only cost $40. The low effort post is only with 1/10 of people’s attention.
Value prop is unclear - what’s in it for me? Why should I care?
Not authentic, just phony or superficial. No human side. No risk involved.
Feels like a monologue w no engagement .. like a boring TED talk
Boring, dull and no surprises
The creator isn’t proud enough to share w his or her friends in DMs ( at least 10) for the value it brings
Too long to read. Sentence structure is difficult to grasp. Not written in 3rd grade language.
No image or video

Here’s what the great posts have:

The goal of your advertising should be…