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- 🔥Generate what your audience wants most (like these 5 brands do)
🔥Generate what your audience wants most (like these 5 brands do)
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🔥Generate what your audience wants most (like these 5 brands do)
Let’s stop crying about Humpday. Or if you’re into pity parties, I’ll join you in the misery.
After a good cry, we’ll get to today’s Feature Story → how to give your target market what they want most. It’s there for marketers willing to hand it out to the needy masses. I’ve got proof.
After that come the following sections:
The Knowledge Base
Self Help (go small)
Facts & Stats (dark social)
Get Hacking (millions love this)
Appetizer: Are you using the Compromise Effect to sell more?
Now, let’s get on with today’s Feature Story…
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Feature Story
Give Your Target Audience Hope (they want it real bad)
Since I live next to Athens, home of the Georgia Bulldogs, I’ve been forced to care about football again.
Last Saturday night, I saw one of the things that’s always baffled me. Georgia fans.
They have eternal hope.
Before their recent success, it had been nearly 40 years since the football team won a National Championship.
1980 was a long time ago, yet UGA fans acted like they won Titles on the regular.
You could say they were delusional. And you’d be right.
Or you could say they were forever hopeful. Generation after generation of Bulldogs fans thinking each new season would be the ONE.
What kept that hope alive?
A few good seasons. Some star players - so good they were first-round NFL draft picks. And stories about the glory days.
You can find similar things that give your audience hope, no matter what you’re selling… proven by 5 big brands coming up below.
Glory Days Did Return to Athens, But…
Kirby Smart brought UGA back to the promised land.
A home-grown kid raised in the North Georgia mountains and a hard-nosed defensive back who played at UGA himself.
With Smart running the show, Bulldog Nation has seen its beloved team win 3 SEC Titles and back-to-back National Titles.
However.
The Dawgs still can’t beat Alabama.
Kirby Smart has lost 7 out of 8 times versus Bama. Not good! And should be demoralizing to fans.
Yet, last Saturday night, you’d think Smart had never lost a game. To anyone. Ever!
Georgia fans were fired up. 100% hopeful their team would beat Bama in their home stadium.
That hope faded after the Tide went up 14-0, then never gave up the lead, despite the Dawgs making it competitive late in the game.
Even with the loss, I guarantee next time UGA faces Bama, Georgia fans will be just as hopeful and convinced their team will win.
Without any evidence to back up that hope.
So, what gives them hope?
Not the lone win Smart managed.
It’s not even the high-caliber players they reload with every year now. Nor Smart’s dominant record against all other teams that don’t rhyme with Bama.
What provides hope to delusional Georgia fans is emotion and tradition.
Where does it come from?
It’s a top-down thing.
Coaching staff
Administration
Alums
Players
Current students
Kids of alums
And it recycles year after year. No matter what.
You have to have that same attitude when it comes to what you’re selling or promoting.
Keep the Hope Fire Burning
Brand | The Hope Message | How it Drives Sales | |
1 | Dove | Hope for a broader, more inclusive definition of beauty and self-esteem. | The brand's focus on self-worth and confidence gives customers a powerful emotional reason to buy, repositioning personal care from a vanity product to a tool for empowerment. |
2 | Nike | Hope for personal achievement, success, and breaking boundaries (The spirit of overcoming a challenge). | The "Just Do It" message sells the potential within the customer. The gear is the tool to help the consumer realize their highest athletic or personal aspiration. |
3 | Patagonia | Hope for "saving our home planet" and the possibility of a sustainable future. | By framing purchases as an act of environmental activism and offering lifetime repair, they sell the hope of a livable future, driving deep loyalty and a willingness to pay a premium. |
4 | TOMS | Hope for a better life for those in need through social impact (cause marketing). | The "One for One" model allows the customer to feel that their transaction is an act of generosity and hope, directly linking their purchase to a tangible positive difference. |
5 | Headspace | Hope for mental clarity, reduced stress, and inner peace (Personal wellness). | The brand sells the hope of a less anxious, more mindful life. The app subscription is positioned as a pathway to achievable inner transformation and a better quality of life. |
One, if you don’t believe in what you’re selling, it’s best to move on to something you do believe in. Tough to fake enthusiasm.
Two, you can’t have off-days. If you’re low-energy, then how can you ever fire up the people you’re trying to get on your bandwagon?
Selling Gatorade? Then, make couch taters believe they can run a marathon.
Three, you’ve got to have a short memory so you can move on from let-downs.
If your ad campaign was a dud, forget it like Deion Sanders used to forget the times he got burned by a receiver (it happened). You just bounce back like Prime Time on the next play.
Your audience will only remember the successes if you keep getting back up and giving yourself a shot at making a “big play” (e.g., an ad that produces a ton of sales).
The Bottom Line
I don’t care what industry you’re in, the buyers you’re aiming at want someone to give them hope.
Could be a mom looking for a safer SUV or a dad looking for a better hunting bow.
Could be a broke 25-year-old looking for personal finance advice that uses motivational language that stokes hope in a younger generation that needs different motivation than older generations.
Hope. Figure out how you can create it and rekindle it endlessly for your audience.
Onward now to The Knowledge Base, including the perfect video ad length…
The Knowledge Base
Cut your video ads to this length for 40% more traffic
🙄Meet the new sketchy hustle→ buying “brand mentions”
Sales tip of the day for demos
🤖Tool for insights on price changes, product launches, positioning shifts
Tried being an anti-influencer yet?
🪗Ways to squeeze results out of your dwindling traffic
Create a quick landing page - without a full website
⌨️Latest blogging benchmarks, word count & frequency trends
Updated job board in podcasting
👇Coming up - what’s Dark Social?👇
Self-Help
Nothing wrong with focusing on enormous problems…
…if you have a legit chance to solve them.
Those global problems are usually distractions, though, keeping our minds occupied and avoiding the work involved with tackling close-to-home problems we could actually solve.
Facts & Stats
 Slice… Average marketing budgets make up 7.7% of company revenue in 2025 (Gartner). |  Untracked… Dark Social: The sharing of content through private channels like messaging apps or email, that can't be tracked by traditional analytics tools, making attribution difficult. |  Now… Demand for 2-hour delivery surged from 34% to 65% over the past two years (Capgemini). |
Bonus: The use of ________ in the retail industry has increased to 58% & is predicted to grow further by the end of 2025. Answer at end of email.
Get Hacking
A specific strategy to implement today
Next time you’re in a time crunch for making a fresh social media post or a video, do this.
React to something new. Some other brand’s recent post or video. Or a video on a news or sports site. Connect it to your topic.
“Reaction content” is the fastest way to create content. And it’ll always be fresh if you react to something that just happened, and proof it works is…
In-game announcers for live sports. Most of what they say about the action is cliche and obvious to fans watching. However, the play-by-play and color commentary is consumed by millions of people each time a game’s televised. Why?
The audience craves extra insights and infotainment in addition to action on the field. And every once in a while an announcer has a legendary reaction that matches the moment they’re reacting to.
Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with your peeps - it’s sugar-free but stings a bit.
Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin
Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: Use of geofencing in the retail industry has increased to 58% and is predicted to grow further by the end of 2025 (LLC Buddy).
“To not look at the data is foolish, but to look at the data as having all the answers is even more foolish.” ~Tim Kurkjian
