Monday Memo
A Byte of Knowledge
There's a crazy, but true story about how Norway changed the sushi industry forever.
Now, when you think of Sushi...
You probably think of Japan. Not a Scandinavian country over 5,000 miles away.
You see, about 40 years ago Norway had more farmed salmon than they knew what to do with.
They needed a new market. Somewhere like Japan.
Why? Because local Japanese salmon had parasites. The only way to get rid of them was to cook it...
So it wasn't used in sushi very often.
But the perception of raw Norwegian salmon was that it was cheap. It was too pale, too fatty, not up to their standards.
The Norwegians went on an all out marketing blitz to change this.
They ran an avalanche of ads touting the purity of their waters...
With the narrative: Norwegian salmon comes from the cleanest, coldest corner of the world.
This helped combat the perception that salmon was unclean and had parasites.
Popular Japanese cooking shows like "Iron Chef" and famous chefs like Yutaka Ishinabe began endorsing Norwegian salmon on national television.
The Norwegians even realized they couldn't just peddle a one-size-fits-all salmon if they wanted to win over Japan. So they bred an superior quality fish called 'Aurora Salmon'
And guess what?
It worked.
Fast forward to today, and salmon is a sushi staple from L.A. to London to Tokyo.
But this story isn't just about fish. It's a masterclass in changing hearts and minds...
And in upending long-held beliefs through the power of bold, audacious marketing.
As entrepreneurs and marketers, that's our job. To find those "conceptual gaps," as Joe Lonsdale puts it. To look where others aren't looking and see golden opportunities.
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Something to Ponder
Back in 1985, Steve Schwarzman started a little company called Blackstone with just $400k.
Fast forward to today?
The investment firm is managing over $1 trillion in assets.
Yes, you read that right. $1 trillion with a "T".
So what's the secret sauce behind Blackstone's meteoric rise?
One of them is their focus on hiring "10 out of 10s."
Schwarzman puts it like this...
"Eights just do the stuff you tell them. Nines are great at executing and developing good strategies. You can build a winning firm with 9s. But people who are 10s sense problems, design solutions, and take the business in new directions without being told to do so."
In other words, while 8s and 9s are solid performers, it's the 10s who are the true game-changers.
They're the ones who see opportunities others miss. They're the visionaries who dream up innovative solutions. And they're the driven self-starters who propel the business to new heights.
Schwarzman continued...
"The culture we would need in order to attract these 10s would by necessity contain certain contradictions. We would have to have all the advantages of scale, but also the soul of a small firm where people felt free to speak their mind."
Is your business a magnet for top-tier talent?
Have you cultivated a culture that the best of the best are dying to be a part of?
Where they'll have the freedom to innovate, take bold risks, and do their greatest work?
We Asked – AI Answered
Our Question:
" To answer this question: How do daily 'deals' websites like Brad's Deals (https://www.bradsdeals.com) make money? What's their business model and what makes them successful?"
ChatGPT's Answer:
The Core Business Model:
• Affiliate Marketing: At their core, deal sites like Brad's Deals make money through affiliate marketing. When a user clicks a deal link on their site and makes a purchase from the retailer, Brad's Deals earns a commission on that sale.
Commission rates typically range from 1-10% depending on the retailer and product category. Some industries like fashion and beauty tend to pay higher rates than others. Sites often negotiate increased rates with retailers as they grow their audience.
• Cookie Durations: When a user clicks an affiliate link, a cookie is dropped on their browser to attribute the sale to the deal site. Cookie durations (how long the site gets credit after the click) can range from 24 hours to 30+ days. Longer cookies help deal sites capture more commissions.
• Link Monetization: Beyond traditional affiliate links, deal sites also monetize via sub-affiliate networks like VigLink and Skimlinks which automatically turn normal retailer links into trackable affiliate links. This allows them to monetize retailers they don't have a direct relationship with.
• Ad Revenue: While affiliate commissions are the main revenue source, deal sites also often show display ads which can provide supplemental income. As their audience grows, they can charge more for ad placements.
Why The Model Works:
• Solves a Pain Point: Consumers are always looking to save money and find the best deals. But searching for coupons and comparing prices across dozens of sites is time-consuming. Deal sites do that hard work and aggregate the best offers in one convenient place.
• Retailer Benefits: For retailers, deal sites are a great customer acquisition channel. They only have to pay a commission if a sale actually occurs. Deal sites allow them to offload some of their marketing efforts.
• Audience Demographics: Deal-hunting consumers are a retailer's ideal target audience. They have high purchase intent and are ready to buy if the price is right. So the traffic deal sites send converts well.
• Network Effects: As a deals site grows its audience, it becomes more attractive to retailers who want exposure to those shoppers. This allows the site to secure better exclusive deals, which in turn attracts more consumers. It's a virtuous cycle. The largest player becomes very hard to disrupt.
Keys to Success:
• SEO Dominance: Deal sites live and die by SEO. Rankings studies have shown that sites like RetailMeNot and Groupon dominate the first page for a huge number of "coupon" related keywords. This is driven by a combination of domain authority, on-page optimizations, and the fact that Google tends to prefer deal sites for these terms.
• Branded Deal Pages: Many deal sites create dedicated landing pages for each major retailer (e.g. "Best Buy Coupons"). These pages are optimized to rank for "[Retailer] deals" keywords and act as honeypots to attract that retailer's customers. RetailMeNot has over 50,000 of these branded pages driving a significant portion of their search traffic.
• Content Marketing: Top deal sites produce a huge volume of articles and buying guides targeting keywords consumers search during the purchase process (e.g. "best vacuum cleaners"). By capturing this traffic and funneling it to relevant deal pages, they are able to monetize users across the entire marketing funnel.
• Personalization: Showing users deals on the specific retailers and products they are interested in can dramatically increase conversion rates. Many deal sites now employ machine learning and big data to build personalized recommendation engines.
• Urgency & Scarcity: Displaying the number of users who have engaged with a deal and having countdown timers for offers ending soon taps into powerful psychological principles that drive purchases. Sites A/B test the optimal messaging and placement to maximize urgency.
• Retailer Partnerships: Many large retailers now provide deal sites with exclusive offers not available anywhere else. For example, RetailMeNot has exclusive partnerships with brands like Kohl's and Macy's. These "manufactured deals" are extremely valuable for driving both consumer excitement and affiliate commissions. Some deal sites also allow retailers to pay for top placement in their category pages and email alerts.
• Mobile Considerations: With mobile commerce sales now accounting for over 50% of total ecommerce revenue, deal sites have doubled down on their app strategies. Many now have app-exclusive offers and in-store coupons only accessible via their mobile apps.
This drives app downloads and opens up valuable new advertising inventory. The most innovative deal sites are also exploring integrations with mobile wallets to close the attribution loop between online engagement and offline purchases.
GOT 15 SECONDS?
Thanks for reading the Monday Memo.
Until next time!
The AI Marketers
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