Marketers should create temporary, high-energy events rather than long-term, low-engagement communities. A time-bound "24-hour vault unlock" or a 30-day pop-up group generates urgency and a fear of missing out, driving significant participation that permanent online spaces often fail to sustain, even in "boring" industries.
At year-end, package content using superlatives like 'most downloaded' or 'most viewed.' This strategy leverages social proof, as consumers inherently trust what's popular with others. It works regardless of your audience size and taps into the 'catch-up' mentality prevalent during this season.
Instead of traditional marketing, using obscure channels forces your most dedicated fans to dig for information. This transforms them into evangelists who spread the word to the wider, more passive audience, creating an organic and powerful marketing engine built on scarcity and discovery.
Before investing in top-of-funnel marketing, ensure your core growth engine works. Gamma paused all other efforts and dedicated their entire team for months to perfecting the first 30 seconds of the user experience. This focus on the 'aha moment' was the key to unlocking true organic virality.
Viewer attention wanes just a few seconds into a video. To combat this, content creators should strategically insert a 'pattern interrupt'—an unexpected pop-up, a quick call to action, or a visual distraction—around the six-second mark to jolt the viewer and retain their engagement.
In a world of on-demand services, the advent calendar's structure of daily, limited reveals creates potent anticipation. This mechanic proves that patience and delayed gratification can be powerful marketing tools, creating more intense dopamine hits than instant purchases can provide.
Instead of a passive, open-ended affiliate program, create concentrated launch windows (e.g., one week) with a public leaderboard and prizes. This injects competition and urgency, motivating affiliates to push far harder than they would in a standard, always-on program.
In December, audiences are naturally reflective about the past year and looking ahead to the next. Running polls on social media related to year-end achievements or goals can generate 250% higher engagement than standard posts, sparking conversation and providing valuable audience insights.
Instead of treating social media as a long-term home, use it as a strategic tool to get your audience onto platforms you own, like an email list. The primary goal is to capture attention and immediately guide followers into your ecosystem, building a more resilient business off-platform.
Counterintuitively, dedicating budget to campaigns optimized for engagements, follows, and shares can be a powerful brand-building tool. This approach reaches more people less expensively than conversion campaigns, building an audience and 'searing memories' that lead to future demand, complementing direct response efforts.
Because AI products improve so rapidly, it's crucial to proactively bring lapsed users back. A user who tried the product a year ago has no idea how much better it is today. Marketing pushes around major version launches (e.g., v3.0) can create a step-change in weekly active users.