Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribeNeed marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hireNike's market cap peaked at $280 billion in 2021 and has lost $223 billion since. Eric walks through Trung Phan's breakdown of how it happened: McKinsey advised Nike to eliminate its running, basketball and soccer categories, the marketing budget moved from brand advertising to programmatic retargeting, and hundreds of wholesale partners were cut for a direct-to-consumer bet that collapsed when shoppers went back to stores. Neil on why consultants who never ran a business should not be running yours, and why a kid asking for Nikes is what good brand advertising looks like. Then LeBron James' Polymarket partnership and why both hosts call it brand eroding, and the shirtless YouTuber Eric calls the Sam Sulek of e-commerce.

Key takeaways◾Nike cut what worked (categories, brand ads, retail partners) for what was easier to measure◾A brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room; retargeting does not build it◾It takes decades to build a brand and five minutes to erode it

Chapters00:00 Nike lost $223B: McKinsey killed the categories01:32 Consultants who never ran a business04:06 Locked in: adapt or die04:34 Nike swapped brand ads for retargeting06:36 Why kids wanted Nikes07:59 Neil's Tesla09:16 Nike burnt its wholesale partners10:07 LeBron x Polymarket: a brand-eroding move13:07 The Sam Sulek of e-commerce15:22 What views actually matter

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribeNeed marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hireWil Reynolds of Seer Interactive says agency owners are dishonest about how business is really going, and that most have been flat for three or four years. Eric reads the post and Neil agrees the downturn started around 2022 and is the longest he has seen, then explains why NP Digital kept growing anyway. Eric's take: the agencies dying are the ones still doing what they did five years ago, and tough markets are exactly when adaptable founders win the deals against the holding companies. The episode closes on the part of being a founder nobody talks about: watching the people you trained go on to build their own companies, why mindset separates the people who survive the downs, and why a business win feels the way it does.

Key takeaways◾Be honest about how business is going; it keeps leads and opportunities flowing to you◾The agencies in trouble are still running the 2021 playbook; adapt or die◾You can't train mindset, and hard years are what build it

Chapters00:00 Agency owners are lying about how business is going (Wil Reynolds)01:41 Neil: why NP Digital is still growing03:54 Eric: adapt or die, the invisible hammer07:06 Flat for 4 years? You're doing the same thing08:06 The burn-victim YouTuber: keep going10:34 If you're going through hell, keep going11:14 The best part of being a founder12:44 Mindset: people can't handle the downs13:48 The business high

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribeNeed marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hireEric asks Neil to finally explain digital PR and how it helps with AEO and SEO. Neil gets there via a Huawei phone with a screen on the back, how ByteDance ran AI inside Lark two years before the rest of us, where America really ranks in K-12 education (34th, per Google AI Mode), what China mandates instead, and the FOMO playbook behind Alpha School's marketing. Then the answer: digital PR is the new link building, you're optimizing for the mention, not the link, and you want your product included everywhere the models read. They close on the only marketing advantage that compounds: consistency.

Key takeaways◾Digital PR is optimizing for the mention, not the link. That's what the models read◾America ranks 34th in K-12; China mandates 9 years and tracks 40% into vocational paths◾Consistency compounds. Grey-hat wins evaporate, and one channel is never enough

Chapters00:00 What is digital PR, actually?00:27 Huawei's phone with a screen on the back01:07 ByteDance and Lark were doing this two years ago02:43 America is 34th in K-12 (Google AI Mode)05:36 Compulsory schooling: US vs China06:14 Alpha School's FOMO marketing10:28 Digital PR: optimize for the mention15:15 Consistency compounds

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribeNeed marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hireNew Ramp data says 80% of OpenAI and Anthropic's enterprise revenue comes from 1% of their customers, a concentration risk unseen in any other software category. Eric and Neil dig into what that means for the AI trade and for every company betting on it. Then Tomasz Tunguz's five-year writing data: AI didn't reduce his editing, it raised the quality floor, and the weakest posts gained twice as much as the strongest. Plus ICONIQ's headcount report (the 100%+ growers added 133% more headcount while the 50-100% band cut hiring almost in half), YC's product-market-fit data on user conversations, and a detour into foldable phones.

Key takeaways◾1% of customers drive 80% of OpenAI and Anthropic's enterprise revenue. That's the risk◾AI raises the floor of your work, it doesn't shrink the effort◾10+ user conversations a week is the most predictive variable for finding PMF

Chapters00:00 80% of AI revenue from 1% of customers (Ramp)03:29 AI productivity raises the floor (Tunguz)04:55 ICONIQ: who's still hiring in 202609:07 YC data: the one variable that predicts PMF13:03 Foldable phones and the China gap

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribeNeed marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hireEric introduces the new AEO: Autonomous Engine Optimization, the AI harness Nick Eubanks used to grow a 12-week-old website, and why every sales call and customer conversation inside your company is a page waiting to be published. Then the self-improving product has arrived: Amplitude's Wave agent found its own problems and shipped fixes worth +160% engagement and a 6% to 9% onboarding lift. Eric and Neil also pick apart OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra launch, the five things that took Andrew Warner's new YouTube channel to 937,000 views in a month, how B2B buyers now find agencies through Claude, and why the best salespeople sell like doctors.

Key takeaways◾AEO now means autonomous: content creates, drafts and ships itself with a human in the loop◾Self-improving products are live: Wave found and fixed real conversion problems on its own◾On YouTube, info calls, retention data and trending topics beat subscriber counts

Chapters00:00 The new AEO: Autonomous Engine Optimization03:07 Self-improving products: Amplitude's Wave agent06:44 OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra launch misstep11:37 Andrew Warner: 937K views in a month16:48 How buyers find agencies through Claude21:18 Sell like a doctor