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+ A Free Marketing Idea 💡

Hey, Must Readers 👋!

This weeks newsletter has 11 must-read stories for you to enjoy and share with friends and colleagues.

Subject Line Explained: August 19th is world photo day, there were over 1.43 trillion photos taken in 2020 so there must be great photo’s to share apart from a selfie or something random that just stays on your camera roll. The image below was taken by me in Santa Monica a few years ago. Sometimes it’s nice to have a special picture that reminds you of amazing times🐬

Must Read Articles Of The Week

  1. WTAF Is Strategy 🧠 Strategy has always been something many are not taught properly and causes a lot of anxiety within businesses as soon as things become unclear. Read what strategy actually is and why you need to know that a department or team strategy is not strategy at all. - Read the full article (Pair with last week’s most read post - the difference between mission, vision, strategy, tactics)Share

  2. How PQ Is The New Intelligence ♟ You will have heard of IQ and recently EQ (emotional intelligence) has become an agreed and important leadership quality, introducing the ‘third intelligence’ political intelligence, why PQ is so important within the business world and why it’s an intelligence that needs work and development. - Read the full explainer 

  3. Why 10 Seconds Is So Important 🕰 Communication is the most important skill we have in business and usually the hardest to crack, this article is a good reminder that waiting for ten seconds might be the best thing to do - Read the full article  (Pair with this article: fight, flight or freeze) 

  4. Speed And ‘Convenience’ Is Hitting Beauty 💄  I have spoken many times about the demand for rapid delivery, in ten minutes is becoming standard in groceries in large cities in 🇬🇧 and 🇺🇸 and now it is becoming a battleground in beauty with huge brands like Estée Lauder and Sephora, partners like Uber (Eats) are going to pressure industries to trial this delivery method while charging a high fee on delivery. The demand for products is always going to be high the question will be is quicker delivery (within 30 minutes) essential? Or are we forcing on-demand instant delivery because we can and food saw an uptick? - Read the full article 

  5. Copy Cat Brands 😤 In 2021 we would have thought that there is plenty of opportunities to develop your own product lines and be unique and not just copying your competitors (btw keep, kill, cure, copy is a good audit to run regularly). Amazon, H&M and Zara are all known for being legal copycats & Target’s MO, copy entire product lines and companies and sell to their audience. Find out why (private labels) and how it works for them - Read the full breakdown 

  6. Why Cashews Are So Expensive 💴 A good explainer of why cashews are so expensive and the impact on the workers

  7. Why Do Humans Kiss? 💋 168 cultures around the world and in many lip-to-lip kissing is not seen as intimate, the scientific breakdown and insights might surprise you why kissing is not always seen as we do in the West - Read the full story

  8. The Difference Between Time & Attention 👁 The importance of time is well documented, the fight for attention has been something that has been written about for three to four years, however, Basecamp Jason Fried has written a great blog post about the important difference and why time maybe is not the right metric, maybe attention (I would reframe as headspace) is a better metric - Read the full blog

  9. Make Money In Music 🎵 DistroKid has featured on must reads a handful of times, it’s a fascinating business model, charging $19.99 each month for uploading your music to different services, now with over 2m paying customers, DistroKid is showing many how to actually make money in music versus many who never make anything. DK has just taken a huge investment to value their services over $1b. Any industry can be disrupted if you know how it works and answers specific problems - Read the full story

  10. Online Trolls 😠 The internet has been a life-changer, a generation changer, however, due to the scale of large websites and apps, we are experiencing more trolling than ever before. Especially with engagement and comments being treated as the highest priority in many of the app algorithms. Is there much can do about it? Or do we have to accept that the default negative way strangers talk to us or comment on us? Or should we expect more from “humans”? If people you know are trolls on email or IM should we just expect 💩 troll responses? - Read the full article

  11. InStore Experts > Celebrity Athletes Campaign 👏 Many Brands are going all-in celebrity and influencer talent to promote their products, Nike has been making the move away from large endorsement deals of late and have put back faith in building confidence to in-store expert and promote their own staff. This is a smart ad by Nike and likely will build local confidence back in their in-store experiences.

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Free Marketing / Growth Idea 💡

While we are taking a break on the future state of podcast, I thought I would share something…This simple idea is for anyone who works for rapid delivery apps (Jiffy, Weezy, Getir, Gorillas) & food delivery apps (UberEats, Deliveroo, JustEat).

  • These brands should promote free to customers (low-value orders of $/£10-$/£20) out via push notifications, for the first 10 who claim the orders via a simple form or button click. Easy to track, easy to implement, low-risk marketing activity.

  • Why?

    • Low friction for you and your existing customers

    • Low-cost marketing - £100-£200 cost

    • Drive interest in you as a brand and into your restaurants or services

    • Easy load to handle with your fleet of partners, riders / drivers etc

    • Build affinity

    • Can be local-based or national

    • Stand out in crowded market especially as all of the ad

This would work for a number of industries...

"Quote Of The Week”

“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Thanks for reading again this week Must Readers, go & have a great weekend!

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