The Paradox of Exceptional Marketing
Rand Fishkin | Individual Contributor | Moz

Why is the Night Sky
So Quiet?

The mathematical odds of Earth
being the only life-bearing planet in the galaxy are exceptionally low. Milky Way Galaxy: 200-400B Stars ~100B Planets ~11B Earth-like Planets Orbiting Sun-like Stars SOURCE: Planetary Habitability Laboratory

13.8 BILLION YRS AGO If
life can form on other planets (or if meteors/ comets can pass life between planets), there are millions of life-bearing candidates.

Two Possibilities: 1) We’re alone
(for now) 2) We’re unable to perceive whomever else is out there (and they’ve decided to ignore us)

Type III Civilization A civilization
colonizing enough of the galaxy to be perceptible to us here on Earth doesn’t take long on a cosmic time scale.

If any such civilization existed
in the last 13 Billion years (and their wave emissions lasted long enough), we could perceive them today.

Something must be filtering out
any life that could colonize the galaxy

The Great Filter Commonly achieved
evolutionary leaps The Great Filter An evolutionary leap that no civilization has passed (yet?). Type III Civilization Species Origin

Maybe We’re the First?

Maybe We’re Extremely Rare?

Or, Maybe, We’re F#@%d

Fermi’s Paradox

It is no good to
try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge. -Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

To Learn More Read: Wait
But Why – The Fermi Paradox

A Similar Paradox Exists in
the Web Marketing World

The Average New Startup Won’t
Last 2 Years source

The Web is Huge 200+
Million Active Websites

Most People Will Only Ever
Visit 200-2,000 (1-10 in a Million)

The Millions of Search Results
Beyond Page One Are Practically Invisible

Recent Data Suggests Searchers Are
Less Biased By Position #1, But As Unlikely As Ever to Visit Page 2+

Nearly Every Web-Connected Human Adopted
Social Networking in Its First 7 Years of Existence

But standing out in the
ever-increasing stream of social sharing is an enormous challenge.

Avg Brand Engagement Data Via
Forrester Research Rate 4.21% 0.073% 0.069% 0.035%

There are ~100X as many
non-spam emails sent each day as there are Facebook messages and posts

Data Via Mailchimp’s Benchmarks

5.3 Trillion display and retargeting
ads are served annually: 1,700 per Internet user per month.

In North America, less than
1 in 10,000 ad views result in a click

Being Signal, Rather Than Noise,
Is An Immense Marketing Challenge

Our Job: Take Companies from
INVISIBLE KNOWN & LOVED

But, those immense marketing challenges
stand in our path U s

We Need to Identify, Understand,
and Break Through These Filters if We’re to Create Lasting Companies & Great Marketing

Six of Marketing’s Great Filters
AUDIENCE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE SERENDIPIT Y FLYWHEE L COS T MESSAG E

Ability to Reach the Right
Audience

Eric couldn’t have been more
literal! Tip #1: If You Have Great Customers Today, Find Ways to ID & Target Their Clones

Long before anyone searches for
this They search for this Tip #2: Know What Your Audience Does Before They Search For You/Your Solution

Even one person passionate about
the service can get it in front of many others Tip #3: Even a Small Element of Virality is Worth Repeated Investment and Testing

Mark was among the first
to create a comprehensive guide to Ello. Timing + content = domination. Tip #4: Early Adoption Gives an Unfair Advantage

Crafting a Message that Resonates

Tip #1: My Best Content
and Stories Always Resonated Offline Before I Made Them Online.

If you know that this
headline works better, change your page title and social shares, too! Tip #2: Apply The CRO You Learn in Paid Media to Your Inbound Efforts

Tip #3: Consistency of Message
Matters. Consistency of Format is Boring.

Tip #4: Powerful Messages Are
Simple

Tip #4: Powerful Messages Are
Simple

Tip #4: Powerful Messages Are
Simple

Fitbit isn’t selling “what,” they’re
selling “why.” Tip #5: Promoting Your Self/Company is Hard. Promoting a Cause/Mission is Far Easier.

Cost of Customer Acquisition

Paid Marketing Spend + All
Marketing Salaries + All Marketing T&E + All Brand-Focused Spend Sales Spend + All Marketing Tech Costs + All Sales Salaries + All Sales T&E + Deal-Closing Spend + All Sales Tech Costs Tip #1: Break Out Costs of Marketing vs. Sales

Tip #2: Spend Early in
Unpaid Marketing Channels Trying to build competence here early is far easier than building it after your paid marketing machine is running.

Tip #3: Measure Acquisition Channels
by CLTV (not just conversion rate)

A free trial may initially
show worse converting customers than a demo, but if you follow up w/ right-looking trialers, you can drastically improve close rates & CLTV Tip #4: If Possible, Enable Customer Qualification that Scales Without Salespeople

Enabling Serendipity

Dinner Volunteering Tip #1: Increase
the Potential Vectors of Exposure Conference Phone Call Coffee Email Reply Things You “Really Don’t Have Time For”

And that’s probably why the
Batman won’t show up Tip #2: Things You Hate Probably Won’t Bring Serendipity

Tip #3: Know Something About
People Before You Interact Fullcontact FTW!

A Story: Some Recent Serendipity

Find Your Competitive Advantage

Tip #1:

“We could make a better
Tip #2: Consistently Ask “Could We Do That 10X Better?” version of that” “We can do something 10X better than any of these”

Strengths Weaknesses Facebook Video Social
Ads LinkedIn Twitter Google+ Trade Show Booths Spending time getting up to speed on these may be a SEO Retargeting PPC net loss. Content Community Email Affiliate Display Partnerships Whitepapers Content/Native Ads Tip #3: Don’t Get Bogged Down By Your Weaknesses

Strengths Weaknesses Facebook Video Social
Ads LinkedIn Twitter Google+ Trade Show Booths Hitting cruise control on SEO Retargeting PPC Content Community Email Affiliate these, rather than pressing an advantage could seriously hurt, too. Display Partnerships Whitepapers Content/Native Ads Tip #4: Don’t Get Complacent About Your Strengths

A Flywheel That Scales Without
Friction

Get links Grow authority Grow
network Rank for slightly Amplify Publish more competitive terms & phrases Earn search traffic

Plan for a traffic graph
like this and you’re doomed. Tip #1: Anticipate the First Few Revolutions of Any Marketing Flywheel to Be Insanely Challenging

This is much more realistic.
(via Crain’s Detroit) Tip #1: Anticipate the First Few Revolutions of Any Marketing Flywheel to Be Insanely Challenging

Get links Grow authority Grow
network Rank for slightly Amplify Publish more competitive terms & phrases Earn search traffic Our social efforts never grow our audience… that’s what’s missing. Tip #2: Relentlessly Search for Your Flywheel’s Friction

Because Moz has had a
lot of success driving organic traffic, re-targeting is a huge additional force on our flywheel Tip #3: Once a Flywheel is Moving, Any Additional Force Pushes it Faster – Leverage Those Forces!

There’s
Another
Possibility

There is a Type III
Civilization, But They’re Not Friendly. Type III Civilization The Great Culling To prevent competition, a civilization may be killing off any who make it too far. Species Origin

“(Messaging extraterrestrials is) deeply unwise
and immature… The newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand.” - Carl Sagan (source), 1934-1996

The 800lb gorilla competitors do
not, however, appear to be the great filters in our world. Source Competitors: 19% Competitors beating you in your own marketing channels: <19%

Marketing (especially through inbound channels)
appears to be a rarely contested and, thus, uniquely powerful way to build a competitive advantage and barrier to entry.

The Paradox of Exceptional Marketing
Rand Fishkin | Individual Contributor | Moz