From: gregisenberg
Traditional marketing funnels are considered “entirely the wrong way to think about marketing” in the modern era due to their deceptive nature regarding actual customer buying behavior [00:00:07]. Instead, a new paradigm called “digital gravity” is proposed [00:00:21].
Digital Gravity: A New Marketing Paradigm
Digital gravity describes how brands are built and companies grow by accumulating “digital mass” on the internet [00:02:03]. The more digital mass a company has, the more influence it exerts within its niche or sphere [00:02:09]. This mass is built through consistent content creation and marketing across all platforms where customers are present [00:02:14].
Instead of the linear journey of a funnel, customer interaction is more akin to a comet getting “sucked back in” for multiple rotations before finally “touching down” (making a purchase) [00:01:22]. The “digital gravity” model emphasizes continuous marketing rather than campaigns with a start and stop [00:06:01]. The goal is to constantly add mass to the company, shifting the mindset of how marketing is conducted [00:06:13].
Leveraging AI and Technology for Scale and Automation
Modern marketing relies heavily on using AI to scale and automate marketing tasks to increase reach, efficiency, and impact.
AI-Powered Ad Creation
For B2B companies, a key strategy involves importing scraped customer emails into ad platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads to run custom match lists [00:10:53].
- AI Avatar Ads: User-generated content (UGC) AI avatar ads are recommended, focusing on pain points experienced by the target audience [00:11:16].
- Tools: HeyGen is used for creating the AI avatar due to its quality [00:11:30]. Eleven Labs provides the voice [00:11:47].
- Strategy: Create numerous variations (e.g., 100) of the ad with different hooks, settings, backgrounds, and content, focusing on various pain points [00:11:52]. The best-performing variations (lowest CPC) receive the majority of the ad budget, with a portion reserved for continuous testing [00:12:11].
- Storytelling with AI Avatars: The angle for AI avatar ads should be a problem-solution orientation within a storytelling format, similar to the “Hero’s Journey” cycle [00:14:08].
Automating Cold Email Outreach
Cold email remains a viable marketing tactic when approached strategically [00:18:28].
- Tools: Mail Reef is suggested for sending large volumes of cold emails (e.g., 50,000 emails for $400/month) from specialized AWS servers [00:14:38]. Smartlead or Instantly AI are also recommended as cold email sending software, allowing multiple email accounts to be managed [00:14:56].
- Domain Isolation: It is crucial to use separate domains for transactional emails (from the core app domain), newsletter emails, and cold emails to prevent a compromised domain from affecting critical communications like password resets [00:15:42].
- Content: Cold emails should align with the problem-solution orientation used in ads [00:17:13].
AI-Driven Content Generation and Repurposing
Creating vast amounts of content is crucial for building digital mass. Technology greatly assists in this process.
- Podcast Creation: Record customer conversations and feedback, formalize them, and turn them into a podcast [00:21:45].
- Repurposing Content:
- Tool: Swell AI is an example of a software built to automate content repurposing from video podcasts [00:28:14]. It can extract pain points, generate transcripts, create blog posts, white papers, clips, show notes, and media assets [00:27:58]. This process, which once required a team of five, can now be managed by one person or a virtual assistant [00:28:24].
- AI Remixing: For consumer marketing, variations of high-performing UGC content can be remixed using AI [00:43:49]. ChatGPT can change scripts, HeyGen creates videos, and Eleven Labs handles audio [00:43:55]. CapCut can be used for green screen removal to place AI avatars over app visuals [00:44:02].
Data Scraping for Audience Identification
Identifying and reaching the target audience at scale is facilitated by data scraping tools.
- Email Scraping: For B2B, tools like Apollo.io can extract thousands of emails (e.g., 10,000 for $99/month) based on industry filters [00:10:13]. LinkedIn can also be used for this purpose [00:10:13].
- Influencer Identification: For consumer marketing, YouTube allows scraping of emails from creator bios within specific categories [00:46:28]. Tools like IGleads.ai can scrape emails from Instagram accounts based on hashtags or keywords [00:48:51].
Programmatic SEO with AI
As a website gains domain authority, programmatic SEO can be implemented for consumer products to rank for longtail keywords.
- Strategy: Scrape top-ranking content for target keywords, use AI to create a blog post outline, and then write the post section by section using AI tools [00:51:24].
- Scale: Publish a large volume of articles (e.g., 10,000), allowing AI to write them initially [00:52:20]. Once a page receives traffic, a human SEO or content specialist refines the content for readability and to meet Google’s ranking criteria [00:52:48].
- Conversion: Implement calls to action (CTAs) within the article (e.g., after the first paragraph, and a popup at 25-50% scroll rate) to drive app sign-ups [00:53:29]. Website visitors are then pixeled for remarketing [00:54:01].
Case Study: Sunflower Sober App
The Sunflower Sober app, a sober tracking application, exemplifies strong consumer growth through the integration of AI. It includes an AI-powered sponsor feature that drives “unbelievable” engagement [00:54:40]. Their acquisition strategy heavily relies on Facebook ads at an effective price point [00:54:53].