The BIGGEST Marketing Ideas of 2024 🔥 (cheat sheet)
Hot tactics from Slack, Miro, Airbnb, Twilio, Okta, mmm, Readwise and more
Hey, Tom here 👋
Welcome to a special edition of Marketing Ideas 🎊
In two words, today’s biggest marketing trend can be defined as… low budget. It’s clear that tight budgets are still in play in 2024, but it’s FAR from doomsday.
🔥 Here are the 18 hottest organic marketing ideas of the moment:
Let’s dive into each one. Ready?
💥 BUZZ GENERATION
1) Be funny in gray areas (e.g. Slack)
The Pitch: Use humor and quirky language, especially when you are not expected to be funny. Research shows that humor can reduce stress, boost engagement, and strengthen brand attachment.1
Slack masters this by adding humor everywhere (in places where others would’ve acted more seriously), like discussing space-time linearity in their App Store “Bug fixes” release notes, being too personal with Slackbot prompts, and laughing at error messages. These funny easter eggs are shared by users online, generating buzz.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Old corporate BS is out; the internet craves excitement, unexpectedness, and humor from companies. This approach is all about leveraging every single stage you have for communication (like release notes), screaming: “We get you and we are here to entertain—unlike those old tech companies.”
2) Share A/B test results (e.g. Blinkist)
The Pitch: Make your company's story worth sharing by publishing internal insights and “behind-the-scenes” stories. The key is to resonate with your target audience. For example, if your niche is marketing: share A/B test results related to your marketing tactics. If your niche is cybersecurity: show the world how you protect yourself.
Blinkist, for instance, published the results of an A/B test they conducted on their onboarding UX, resulting in a 23% increase in conversion. Who loved it? Product Managers and founders, their highest-converting personas.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: People love peeking behind the scenes. Sharing how you make decisions humanizes your brand.
3) Create viral jobs (e.g. Airbnb)
The Pitch: Add unconventional job roles to your careers page and LinkedIn. Many companies went viral by promoting unusual job positions - like Airbnb hiring travelers to live a nomadic lifestyle. Beehiiv, Netflix, Tesla, and countless other companies did the same.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: In a competitive job market (and when unemployment rates are high), quirky job listings attract attention and generate word-of-mouth buzz.
4) Praise others based on your own data (e.g. Okta)
The Pitch: (1) Use your data to praise specific people or companies in your industry. (2) Share these accolades publicly.
Okta’s “Businesses at Work” report highlights the top-performing companies based on Okta's data. By celebrating the companies that grew the most in terms of business user adoption, Okta not only provides valuable recognition but also encourages those companies to share and spread the word about Okta’s brand. It’s a win-win.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: In a world full of ego and self-promotion, data-backed praise stands out and encourages reciprocation.
5) Exploit algorithm changes early (e.g. Nas Daily)
The Pitch: Be the first to create content using new social media features. Platforms often reward early adopters with increased visibility.
Nas Daily uploaded 600 daily videos with 100K views each. One random day in 2017, he posted just another video, and it blew up. This one video earned 25 million views, and ever since then—his videos did pretty well.
And it’s not due to a change in quality. Not at all. As he would later tell in his talks, it was because Facebook decided to double down on videos, and the algorithm change occurred that exact day. In other words, on January 4th, 2017, Nas Daily hit the jackpot when he posted a video on the day Facebook revamped its algorithm for videos. Timing is everything! Since Facebook wanted to grow this new platform among users, it gave lots of “love” to the supply side of the equation (the video creators).
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Major social media platforms will introduce numerous new features in 2024 to stay competitive. I’m mostly talking about platforms like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Reels (for short form B2C content), and Substack, LinkedIn (for long-form B2B content). Being an early adopter provides a unique opportunity for insane levels of traffic.
6) Engage in existing forums (e.g. DuckDuckGo)
The Pitch: Share personal stories and product inspiration in startup and entrepreneur communities like Reddit, Hacker News, and Indie Hackers.
DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg, launched the search engine on Hacker News with a simple post titled "What do you think of my new search engine?" This approach engaged the community, sparked discussions, and helped DuckDuckGo gain traction—by simply asking for feedback.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Traditional promotions in forums are losing their appeal. Personalized launch posts generate interest (use “I”, not “we”). This is probably the best time ever to engage in communities as a human, not a brand.
🌎 BRAND BUILDING
7) Create tons of SEO-rich product templates (e.g. Miro)
The Pitch: Develop product templates with SEO-rich descriptions, and feature each of them in its own dedicated web page. Allow users to develop templates as well. Then, collect all of those pages into a public template library.
Miro’s Miroverse boasts thousands of product templates with SEO-rich descriptions. It's a goldmine for users seeking specific solutions on Google, and also increases brand loyalty and community-vibes among existing users.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: SEO-friendly templates not only attract users with specific needs but also streamline onboarding.
8) Gather the top 1% advice in your industry (e.g. Amie.so)
The Pitch: Create a mini-website with industry-specific advice, curating the best insights without promoting your product.
Amie.so established itself as a productivity king with Productivity.so, a library of productivity tricks and tools. It's content-rich and brand-awareness gold.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Mini-websites with valuable content gain recognition on online directories and platforms like Product Hunt. Even if gated, the valuable content provided strengthens brand awareness.
9) Double down on LinkedIn employee advocacy (e.g. Wiz)
The Pitch: Encourage employees to share company news and campaigns on LinkedIn, providing them with personalized content and creating a supportive atmosphere.
Wiz maximizes employee advocacy during launches, conferences, and campaigns by providing employees with personalized post templates featuring their faces, teasing exciting content, and coordinating LinkedIn posts globally for the exact same hour. This approach encourages employees to engage and support each other's posts, creating a sense of competition and amplifying Wiz’s reach on LinkedIn.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: People prefer engaging with individuals over faceless companies on LinkedIn.
10) Maximize passive visibility (e.g. Readwise)
The Pitch: Increase “passive visibility” (=how much people see your brand randomly during their day) by making the product use itself public. Plan your UX in a way that promotes using it in public.
For example, Readwise cleverly encourages users to tag them on Twitter to auto-save threads, turning user actions into subtle endorsements and WOM marketing. It’s genius — if you search for posts with “@readwise,” you’ll always see recent ones from the last few seconds or minutes. Try it out yourself.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Users sharing your product without intention can be more powerful than word of mouth.
🧲 ACQUISITION
11) Reframe your competition (e.g. Asana)
The Pitch: Present your competition in a completely different category on your dedicated comparison page. Influence how customers perceive them.
Asana, for example, positions Trello in a completely different category on its comparison page.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: “X vs Y” searches on Google indicate high intent, and this framing can convince users to stay with you.
12) Offer concierge migration (e.g. ConvertKit)
The Pitch: Provide a free, human-led migration service to ease the transition from competitors.
ConvertKit offers a concierge migration service where they provide expert assistance to users migrating from other email marketing platforms. This hands-on approach reduces the friction of switching.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Human-assisted “white glove” migration stands out in a world dominated by AI migration solutions, enhancing acquisition.
13) Create interactive demos/playgrounds (e.g. mmm)
The Pitch: Create a dummy version of the product, aka playground / sandbox / interactive demo, where users can get a taste of it without any friction. The best CTA is “Try it yourself”.
mmm.page, a website builder, demonstrates its value by allowing users to literally edit their homepage — it’s the perfect interactive demo.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Our goal on the homepage is to get users to the “Aha” moment ASAP. A frictionless playground where people can play with a dummy product that allows them to understand its value immediately does exactly that.
14) Visualize the user’s POV (e.g. Brilliant)
The Pitch: Make people imagine themselves using your product (or clicking your button), and they will be more likely to do so. This can be done by visualizing the users’ point of view - like by showing a mouse cursor navigating the platform, or putting it in a well-known web browser mockup.
Check out this In a Nutshell (Kurzgesagt) influencer campaign for Brilliant (GIF below). It’s 100% made of mouse cursor navigations on Brilliant’s platform, simulating as if the viewer is already using the product. I love it.
In fact, Brilliant.org *always* showcases a cursor in their promotional GIFs and images—check out their homepage.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: People are more likely to act when they can vividly imagine themselves doing it. By giving them a mental preview of completing an action, like using our product, we can trigger desire.
15) Launch mini-tools from features (e.g. GitGuardian)
The Pitch: Turn existing features into standalone products (mini-tools) to attract users with no sign-up friction. Repurposing is key!
Just last year, GitGuardian launched "Has My Secret Leaked," a free mini-tool derived from an existing feature. With limited dev resources, they managed to boost their acquisition rates.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Free, no-signup tools are a hit on forums like Reddit and Product Hunt.
🧩 RETENTION
16) Introduce time-limited features (e.g. Thursday)
The Pitch: Include time-bound features to create a sense of urgency. For example, Wordle and BeReal enhance retention by being available for 24 hours (or 2 hours) only.
Thursday, the dating app, is only available on Thursdays, creating a virtual ticking clock that keeps users engaged.
Why It's Hot in 2024: Time-limited features keep users coming back for more.
17) Design custom mascots for power users (e.g. GitHub)
The Pitch: Reward power users with custom versions of your brand mascot. Then, showcase them in a hall of fame.
GitHub creates custom Octocat mascots for top users and displays them in an "Octodex." It's all about making power users feel special.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Everyone loves a personal touch from a big brand. It's fantastic for retaining loyal users.
18) Gamify your onboarding to the max (e.g. Twilio)
The Pitch: Create a gamified onboarding experience that rewards users for learning about your product.
Twilio created TwilioQuest, an 8-bit adventure game about Twilio, that rewards you the more you learn about the platform.
Why It’s Hot in 2024: Traditional onboarding can be boring. People skip it and might churn out the entire product. Gamification makes learning fun.
Which one’s your favorite? Let me know in the comments 🔥
See you next week ✌️
Tom
Huge thanks to my friend Kyle Poyar from Growth Unhinged for inspiring me to create this cheat sheet (the layout he invented is absolutely GENIUS ❤️)
Cheng & Wang (2014). Examining the energizing effects of humor on persistence behavior. Journal of Business and Psychology, 1-14.
I especially loved (#1) Be funny in gray areas because humour in general makes everything so accessible.
Love it. Hope for more