TLDR Marketing 2024-05-24

Bold and colorful aesthetics are this year's key trend for fashion, beauty, home decor, and food. Maximalist fashion will dominate with Y2K and 90s beauty trends making a comeback, including bold bobs, braids, and fruit-inspired nails. Home decor will embrace “dopamine decor”, featuring vibrant and personalized designs inspired by eclectic vintage styles and Nancy Myers' signature warmth. Summer entertaining will see a rise in tea parties and themed dinner parties, inspired by the new Bridgerton season. Food trends will focus on innovative recipes for mangoes, avocados, and sourdough experiments.

Food manufacturers are adjusting their strategies to cater to the dietary changes of the increasing number of consumers on weight-loss drugs. Major companies like Nestlé and WeightWatchers are introducing new product lines and programs specifically designed for people taking GLP-1 drugs, focusing on portion control and healthier ingredients. Analysts recommend that brands adapt by increasing prices, promoting healthier products, and responding to the shifting demands of a health-conscious consumer base.

Pixar tailors unique voices and tones for each social media platform it uses to engage specific demographics effectively. On Threads, it adopts a trendy, experimental tone, while TikTok content is aimed at Gen Z with trend-heavy, ‘TikTokish' content. X is used for company updates and trends targeting millennials. Its Instagram account features polished content for a broader audience, and its Facebook focuses on global millennials. This approach increased overall engagement by 47% and resulted in a 126% increase in followers aged 13-25.

Testimonials on websites are typically buried, too long, or too vague. To make your testimonials more visible, ensure some social proof is above the fold, consider using one as a headline, and make them easy to consume. Make them more effective by showing the target audience that the testimonial writer is one of them, having a testimonial next to each major benefit, avoiding general testimonials and shooting for ‘too many' of them if possible.

Existing customers are the best source of feedback for new releases and timely feature launches can help with long-term retention. However, the GTM strategy overlooks existing users too often in favor of new user acquisition. PMs and PMMs should begin collaborating on problem alignment and customer segmentation as soon as designers start working on the feature. From there, the PMM should start sketching out preliminary messaging and GTM tactics in the PRD. As the feature progresses, the PM and PMM should continue to collaborate on messaging, rollout strategy, awareness tactics, and post-launch analysis.

This post provides a framework for determining product positioning based on the customer's stage in the buying journey. At each stage, the customer is evaluating a different set of questions, which means your product has a different set of competition. The post walks through how Gong, a revenue intelligence platform, could apply this framework to its positioning.

Snap has announced a series of enhancements to its ad system aimed at providing improved results for all ad partners. This includes new ad formats that use its full-screen display to showcase ad offers and messaging. The platform has also implemented a streamlined app download experience for app advertisers, enabling users to install apps without leaving Snapchat. Snap is offering a new way to bid on click-through conversions within seven days called “7/0 delivery optimization” and is testing an option to bid on the value of purchases driven, not just the quantity of purchases. Additional improvements are covered in the blog post.

Image-only emails are visually stunning and a source of great design inspiration. However, they present accessibility issues and can be challenging to read on smaller mobile screens. They also often face rendering problems and slow load times and perform poorly in inbox searches. It's important to combine images with HTML text to balance aesthetics and functionality.

This case study discusses how Hunter, an email outreach platform, reached over 4 million users in a competitive market through innovative product development, a strong product/market fit, and a product-led growth model. The company leveraged inbound marketing, SEO, and word-of-mouth virality to drive early growth, while continuously enhancing its core features and launching new ones like Hunter Signals to meet evolving customer needs. Hunter maintained competitiveness and sustained user growth over time by focusing on analytics, reducing friction in the user experience, and employing strategic product marketing.

Companies that dismiss TikTok as merely a platform for teenagers are missing out on a significant business opportunity. TikTok's algorithms precisely understand user behavior, making it a powerful tool for tailored content delivery. The platform has been able to forge a deep connection with its users, with over half of them saying they're more likely to trust brands after learning about them from TikTok creators (versus advertising from companies). A US ban of the app could hinder American companies from learning and adapting these technologies, ultimately affecting their competitive edge in the market.

Creators on LinkedIn have experienced a 35-55% decline in impressions, follower growth, and engagement over the last few months.

A screenshot of Liquid Death's cheeky copy for its cart abandonment email.