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Quick writing tip for ya. Seven days a week working will burn you out. However, I’ve got a feeling the baddest writers in history wrote nearly every day… at least a few minutes.

Now. The Main Thing I’m slinging at you today covers three proven ways marketers can use football philosophies to your advantage. After that, you know the Week’s Wrap-Up is waiting for ya.

Appetizer: Don’t stick to any one platform, says this dude with 2.5 million followers.

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The Main Thing

Football Philosophies That Translate to Marketing

I’ll keep this short and sweet. 

If you’re not stealing time-tested philosophies and strategies from arenas outside of your own, you’re missing out. 

Am I about to spit Greek philosophy at you? Nope. I don’t have a degree in philosophy. No degree in anything, matter of fact.

What I do have is half a lifetime of football wisdom from countless hours I paid close attention to the NFL.

The result is lots of insights you can use to grow your business and make your marketing stand out from the crowd.

3 Things You Should Emulate from the Football World

#1 “He could take his’n and beat your’n. Or take your’n and beat his’n.” Quote about Bear Bryant, saying he could whip your team with his players or take the other coaches’ players and beat his own team. 

Something to think about with your marketing tools. What if you lost access to one of them? Digital tools die off regularly. What if the AI tool you’re using to write all your content (gross) gets sued into oblivion?

Are you the thing that makes your marketing top-notch? Or is it your tools or employees? Maybe study up on Alabama’s famed coach to find out what made him able to be the best regardless of the assets he had.

#2 The forward pass. 100% of football plays were running the ball before a few innovative folks tried throwing the ball forward (Knute Rockne, Eddie Cochems, Bradbury Robinson, and John Heisman).

Throwing the football seems like a no-brainer now. Not in the dark ages, though. A few individuals had to push the envelope to get it in the game. Without the added excitement of passing, baseball could’ve stayed America’s Pastime instead of the NFL and college football dominating.

Marketers should be pushing the envelope. Make things exciting for your audience. That means taking risks. No, not waiting until another brand like Liquid Death does, and then feeling safe to copycat them! Make the first move.

What’s that look like? Hell if I know, but it could mean having the guts to use AI images that look exactly like Marvel characters! If you believe AI companies will win those lawsuits, why not? Not legal advice - I’ve no law degree either, in case that ain’t clear.

#3 Run the same play until the defense proves they can stop it. In other words, keep doing what’s effective.

Saw this principle highlighted at a high school playoff game. The home team’s PA guy got frustrated by the visiting team’s basic running attack.

“It’s the same play over and over!,” he shouted over the stadium speakers. It was. And it worked all night. Credit to a great offensive line and this slippery running back. 

You can carry that principle into your marketing efforts. If you have an ad that’s crushing it, why stop running it?

• Because it’s no longer fresh?

• Shiny new ads are tempting?

• You’ve seen it a million times because you wrote it?

There is a pile of brands that killed campaigns that were still working. Dos Equis comes to mind. They replaced the “Most Interesting Man in the World” with another actor. Beer ads aren’t soap operas! Can’t just stick a warm body in there to replace an iconic character. 

More Where That Came From 

Want more gridiron insights that transfer to marketing? Scan through this post I did a couple years ago. It shows how you can use the playbook of the greatest coach of all time.

And if you think I just wanted to spout off about football, you’re exactly…

…wrong🙂‍↔️. Snatching legit insights from other arenas is something many smart people swear by. Including Charlie Munger, noted investor and Coke guzzler.

Moving on. Let's ram our heads into This Week’s Marketing Wrap-Up like an angry Tom Rathman back in the 90s…

Please share Inbox Hacking with a fellow marketing genius or business owner. I appreciate you reading and sharing. 

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin.

Your impact is measured not by what you do, but by what happens to other people when you do it. ~John Jantsch