Uber

Idea sex positioning

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“Star Wars on Earth”

That was the initial four-word summary of Top Gun, in the mind of its producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

I’ve read much of Hollywood works this way.

Take an existing successful idea… combine it with something else… and boom, you got yourself the next Avatar (“Dances with Wolves in space”).

James Altucher calls this idea sex.

It’s not just a way to make the next Hollywood blockbuster. It’s also a great way to come up with new business ideas. For example:

I once found the “S&P 500 of the vacation rental industry.” The company is called AirDNA, and just from that short description, it’s pretty clear what it does. From what I could find, AirDNA revenue was $8 million a year.

Instacart was “Uber for groceries.” So much so that last year, when Uber launched its grocery delivery service Cornershop, Instacart sued. No wonder Instacart is feeling territorial. The 2020 valuation for Instacart was over $13 billion.

But what if you’ve already got a business are you’re not looking to launch a new idea?

You might still be able to use idea sex to give your business better positioning.

Just look for an analogy. Ask yourself what your business is similar to, or could be similar to.

“The Best Buy of the adult industry.”

“The Louis Vuitton of festivals.”

“The Nike of e-sports.”

You might have to change what you do a bit… or drop some things you thought were core to your business.

But do it right, and you will have powerful positioning. And that means you will make more money, with less work.

Ok, so much for positioning. Now on to the pitch:

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The latest run-ins with ad fraud

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Back in February of 2020, Kevin Frisch, the former head of performance marketing and CRM at Uber, said the following:

“We turned off 2/3 of our spend, we turned off 100 million of annual spend out of 150, and basically saw no change…”

It turns out that a bunch of sites, apps, and ad network were coming up with clever ways to cheat Uber of their advertising dollars.

You might think, “Stupid Uber. That’s what happens when you’re a giant corporation and you don’t know the basics of direct response.”

That may be so.

But I also read about a modest-sized company, headphones.com, which went from $1,200 in daily ad spend to $40… with no change in sales. This was in 2020 also.

So what’s my point?

I’m not sure… I just found this pretty shocking. I wanted to share it with you mainly because I worry that even small marketers can launch campaigns that do nothing… and the culprit might be fraud.

Also, i want to tell you about a seemingly well-behaved duck in this space of large and shady advertising vultures.

I’m talking about Amazon.

Yesterday, I told you about the lead-gen value of putting your book out on Amazon.

But what if your book doesn’t sell? No leads generated then, right?

Well, Amazon allows you to advertise your book.

I’ve been doing it with my 10 Commandments book ever since I published it back in September.

As of today, I figure over 50% of my book sales came from these ads.

And here’s where it gets interesting:

My average cost of selling a book is around 50%. In other words, when I spend $1 in ads, I sell $2 worth of book.

I would do that all day long, because the royalties from Amazon a typical kindle book are 70%. In other words, of those $2 worth of book sales, $1.40 are yours to keep, at a cost of $1.

So is Amazon a well-hidden way to print money with book sales?

Sadly, no. Because on most days, Amazon never gets to spending even my modest ad budget.

That’s why I say they seem to be well-behaved — at least for now — and that’s why Amazon ads (specifically book ads), might be something for you to look into.

Last thing:

I write a daily email newsletter about copywriting and marketing, much like what you’ve just read. In case you’d like to sign up for it, here’s where to go.