I send this out roughly once a month.

The thing that caught my eye most recently is the distinction between “growth” and “maintenance” marketing.

Most marketing is focused on maintenance. The objective is to wrap an established brand in cotton wool and keep it protected until the current round of executives retire.

The marketing you see daily is primarily maintenance marketing.

Big brands. Big budgets. Big creative.

They’re telling you they’re still around and it’s still ok to buy them.

But the more interesting marketing is growth marketing. How to use marketing to unlock a market and build new brands.

Because that’s what it’s ultimately about, right? Owning a brand.

A brand is a money-making machine.

People are drawn to it. They pay more for it. Competitors envy it. Investors acquire it.

And you don’t build a brand by simply running your operation, or having sales work the phone. You need marketing to do it!

This is undisputed.

But building a (new) brand, through marketing, is not so easy. In fact, it is a bit of a mystery.

If the exact recipe existed, we would all be doing it successfully.

But there are some pointers:

• Stand out. Dammit, stand out. Brands aren’t built on blending in.
• Be vocal. The louder you shout, the more attention you get.
• Be available. Do absolutely everything to drive maximum distribution.
• Go broad. Targeting too tightly limits market size, so do the opposite.
• Listen. Because listening to your customer means you know how to talk to them!

Growth marketing requires a discipline that's contrarian to most entrepreneurial businesses; hence it hardly ever succeeds.

The application is almost always fumbled because the founder is either too arrogant, or too agitated.

Maybe that’s the secret. Calm Consistency!