This is Marketing Mondays #9.

Here are some bites this week:

  • The dilemma of decision – A bad marketing decision is better than no marketing decision.  
  • Why discounting is lazy  – And how we experienced that in Underdog Ad Con.
  • Underdog Ad Con – Is in 4 days! Now is the time to decide.

🎯 1,000 of marketing tactics.

  • Let's start a TikTok channel. Engagement is crazy there!
  • No, let's send our potential clients a proposal disguised as a gift.
  • It's better to run LinkedIn messaging ads directly to decision-makers.
  • Drop flyers to houses within a neighborhood.
  • Partner with cafes and run an event.
  • Oh wait.. I saw a cool marketing tactic the other day. I think we should try it.

– Discussed in every marketing meeting ever.

Choosing a marketing strategy is the same as setting proper goals. It comes down to asking a simple question.

If we put 10X effort into it, will it:

  1. Get us more customers?
  2. Make our customers worth more?
  3. Increase our business value?

Simple example: Should we invest money into creating & running a blog? Suppose we 10X our effort into it, will it get us 10X more customers? No? Let's look at other priorities first.

Whatever it is – decide!

It's better to make a bad marketing decision than make no decisions at all.

🎙️ Video takeaway of the week:

People will be people. We can dream of a world that we want. Honest. Direct. But people will be people. People need a reason before they'll take action. Successful marketers must be able to play the game.

I shared some marketing tips on organizing an event. Whether you're running an event, conference, workshop, or meet-up – you'll find some nuggets in this one.

Listing some of the tips from the video:

  1. Don't give out free tickets.
  2. Go for quality, then quantity.
  3. Provide food, always.
  4. Be different. Look for every way to stand out.
  5. Scarcity works. People will be people.
  6. Build personal relationships.
  7. Personalize your marketing.  

Watch the video on YouTube or listen on Spotify.

🏷️ Stop discounting.

What do you signal to customers when you discount your products?

Hey, our products not that valuable to begin with.
  • Does Apple ever give discounts?
  • Is there ever a flash sale at Rolex?

It's hard to own a Rolex. It's high-priced. Stores only sell to certain types of people. There are limited quantities.

Because of that, people highly value a Rolex watch. What comes easy (or cheap) is often not as valuable.

When we marketed Underdog Ad Con, we had a no-free-tickets policy.

Some community partners that I worked with insisted that I give away some free tickets. I said no, and instead offered to give away some discount coupons instead. The same discount coupon was given to some communities – of over 100k people large when added up.

To date, guess how many coupons were used?

Out of 120+ tickets sold. We had 3 coupon uses. 3!!

From my experience, discounting isn't worth it.

Discounting your products will only signal to customers that you're cheap.  

Unless you sell a commodity. Because price becomes the only differentiator when there is no difference between two products.

Bonus: But... what beats free?

What if my competitors are all giving things away for free? How can I be competitive if I don't plan to do free?

The only thing that beats free – is speed.

Let's say you're getting married this Saturday. You bought a pair of shoes online. The store provides free shipping, but the shoe arrives in 7 days. Or pay $5 and the shoe will reach you tomorrow.

Speed wins free.

🌟 Nuggets

Some quick bites we found around the internet that you might like.

👀 Watch: The story of hard work.

Over the weekend I binged on Ed Sheeran's documentary – The Sum of It All.

It's an amazing show behind-the-scenes of the work, hustle, and grit Ed Sheeran put into his work. On the surface, we see an overnight success. But behind, it's just a lot of hard work.

I hope the documentary inspires you as much as it did for me.

Continue putting in the work. Show up. Do something your future self in 10 years will thank you for.

In fact, you see hard-work stories like this everywhere. Here's one from the controversial NameWee.

DailyCMO updates.

1. Underdog Advertising Conference this Friday!

Over 120+ have signed up and will be attending the conference. If you're still on the fence, now is the time to decide.

Apart from the amazing speakers who'll be sharing their advertising lessons – the networking opportunity will be crazy valuable. Why? Because the people attending actually paid for their own tickets.

No freeloaders at Underdog Ad Con.

Ticket prices will not be increasing anymore. Get a ticket at RM299

You can read about the lessons I've learned marketing Underdog Ad Con here.

2. Join our early-stage community on Discourse.

I hung out with my buddy and weight-loss coach, Chun Yan, last week – and we talked about the lack of a non-toxic marketing community in Asia.

Imagine being able to:

  • Bounce ideas with other marketers. (Without being judged)
  • Build landing pages, run ads, write copy together.
  • Get answers & help whenever you feel stuck.

Where would you go right now to get unstuck? So the idea is to build a safe, non-judgemental community – with no bullying.

Nobody knows everything. But together, we know a lot.  

So we went out to build a community for that purpose on Discourse. It's early. But I foresee it'll become a helpful community of marketers and entrepreneurs in the months to come.

Click here to get early-access to Daily CMO's community.

Hope you enjoyed the newsletter. When you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

  1. Don't miss the opportunity to meet people from companies like Zus Coffee, Alterseat, OVER, TIME dotCOM, and more at Underdog Advertising Con. There are participants from really successful companies attending too.
  2. Freelancing can be the solution to building more income. Get Freelance Profit (currently discounted) and build a successful freelance side gig.1-
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