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- Want to grow? Pick a villain.
Hey there, and welcome back to Marketing Qualified. Have you been watching the Olympics in the background all week while you work? We definitely have. Before you get back to it, let’s chat about some gold-medal-worthy marketing concepts:
Want to grow? Pick a villain. Why villain marketing is a great growth hack.
The science of swag. We break down study findings about the types of freebie items people prefer.
😈 Want to grow? Pick a villain.
Villain marketing is a major growth hack.
Choose something as your villain, then go after it in your marketing. Hard. The more cutthroat, the better.
We recommend choosing a concept or category to be the villain.
If your company makes a B2B sales tool, maybe your villain is the traditional sales cycle.
If your company deeply believes in content-first marketing, maybe the idea of old-school lead generation is your villain.
If you’re a cyber security company, maybe a lack of employee education about cyber risks is your villain.
If you’re selling a cold email tool, maybe bad/outdated data is your villain.
Use your marketing channels to fight the villain. Say why it’s terrible. Say why your way is better.
Over time, people will start to side with you. You’ll become the hero.
Quick disclaimer: there might be rare cases where you can pick a person as your villain, but be VERY careful doing this. It might drive some short-term engagement—after all, who wouldn’t stop and watch a fistfight playing out right in front of them? But it could damage your brand in the long term.
Most of that engagement will be fake, and you might end up looking like a bully. Nobody likes a bully.
If you want to give villain marketing a try, stick to attacking ideas, not people.
📰 In the news this week.
🍪 Google scraps plan to remove third-party cookies from Chrome.
🥇 How much do Olympians make?
🔮 3 timeless ways to future-proof SEO.
🤖 Why Big Tech wants to make AI cost nothing.
🧪 The science of swag.
No, we’re not going to teach you how to look cooler or pick someone up at a bar. That would be the science of swagger. 😉
This section is about the science of swag… AKA freebies, tchotchkes, that stuff you leave with a bagful of every time you go to a conference.
Sendoso recently published a study explaining what types of swag items are the best. Since free swag is still prevalent in the B2B world, we found it pretty interesting.
Here’s what they found…
1) Make it useful.
65% of respondents said they’re most likely to keep an item if it’s useful. Think items like water bottles, backpacks, and jackets.
The more practical the item, the more likely someone is to keep it and use it often.
The study even found that an item being useful was rated more important than an item being premium. 65% said usefulness was important, but only 29% said premiumness was important.
That said, if you can offer an item that’s useful and feels like a luxury, that’s even better. Think things like Ray Ban sunglasses or Apple Airtags.
2) Make it clever.
When it came to branding, most respondents (38%) said they preferred items with a clever saying or cool design.
This was closely followed by a preference for subtle branding, like a small logo (33%).
However, only 8% of people said they prefer no branding.
So don’t be afraid to make the swag items your own, but know that the more creative & clever you can be, the more popular the item will be.
3) Make it sustainable.
No one likes unnecessary waste. And that remains true when it comes to company swag.
67% of respondents strongly agreed/agreed that sustainability was important for companies to consider.
So, if you give away cheap plastic trinkets, you may be doing more harm than good to your brand’s reputation.
Instead, consider items made from recycled materials or items that help users cut down on their waste, such as reusable water bottles or cloth grocery bags.
😂 Marketing meme of the week.
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