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Why Marketing Flywheels Work

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Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#21

Post by csallen »

libertine wrote: post #9

I'm not here to criticize the content, just the to vent a frustration as a marketer: Why does this industry keep repacking/renaming concepts just to sound like something new... it's like many get value out of perceived progress, when in reality it's just something that has been done for years. This makes me want to step away from this discipline honestly. Instead of trying to compact knowledge to try to make actual l…

Flywheels aren't a new concept. I first encountered them in Brad Stone's excellent book about Amazon, The Everything Store, which I believe was published in 2014. Stone explained how Bezos and crew discovered their flywheel in 2001:

> Bezos and his lieutenants sketched their own virtuous cycle, which they believe powered their business. It went something like this: Lower prices led to more customer visits. More customers increased the volume of sales and attracted more commission-paying third party sellers to the site. That allowed Amazon to get more out of fixed costs like the fulfillment centers and the servers they needed to run the website. This greater efficiency then enabled it to lower prices further. Feed any part of this flywheel… and it should accelerate the loop. Amazon executives were elated… after five years, they finally understood their business."

Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#22

Post by rsweeney21 »

hyko wrote: post #4

The term “Marketing Flywheel” doesn’t really enlighten anyone, because that’s not how flywheels work. Flywheels are a store of energy, not an energy multiplier. In a true marketing flywheel, you’d only ever get out slightly less than you put in. By that definition, I have been involved in many marketing flywheels to date.

Marketing flywheels power money printing machines, not electric turbines.

This article isn't meant to require an understanding of physics. It's meant to help people not familiar with marketing understand the principal of building momentum in a channel.

Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#23

Post by gk1 »

arkades wrote: post #18
libertine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you don't know what marketing is, I guess that any concept out of ignorance suits it, right? The same as someone saying that a web developer just copy and pastes code, or that a graphic designer just make squiggles in illustrator, and the list goes on. I recommend you start by here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing

Not the previous poster but: I've tried picking up things a cut above random pop books about marketing and haven't found any depth there. If you have any links to somewhere I can actually do a deep dive on marketing, I'd appreciate it.

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore is a classic for tech companies. It's not about the discipline of marketing, but more of a representation of what marketing looks like in practice. (And, perhaps to the astonishment of many, in practice it does not always look like a pyramid scheme.)

Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#24

Post by [deleted] »

libertine wrote: post #15
lbotos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is due to "generational" ideas? Old hat learns a strategy that works calls it X -> next gen explores and find that Y works -> next gen adapts flow X and calls it Z out of ignorance/thought leadership/etc.

But why some disciplines have a solid body of knowledge that's used as a foundation to build new things, yet this discipline is just wild cards after some point? It's not like there's lack of records of knowledge. Maybe it's like you said, out of ignorance/thought leadership/etc, I dare to add arrogance.

[deleted]

Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#25

Post by nunosbpereira »

threeseed wrote: post #5

No this is how the marketing industry works. Hubspot gets bored of using the term "inbound marketing" for everything they do. So they pivot to "marketing flywheel" which they popularised a couple of years ago. It results in a lot of mindshare and searches and so smaller players create their own marketing flywheel content in order to siphon away some of this traffic. It's all very cynical and contrived.

Exactly. Vendors have a vested interest in promoting these type of concepts.

"It's not a "marketing funnel anymore, it's a flywheel!", but when we look into it, it's practically the same thing.

Companies, in general, need to become more buyer-centric and focus less on creating abstract buyer's journeys, as if there was a predefined path to purchase that everyone follows.

Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#26

Post by gk1 »

libertine wrote: post #15
lbotos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is due to "generational" ideas? Old hat learns a strategy that works calls it X -> next gen explores and find that Y works -> next gen adapts flow X and calls it Z out of ignorance/thought leadership/etc.

But why some disciplines have a solid body of knowledge that's used as a foundation to build new things, yet this discipline is just wild cards after some point? It's not like there's lack of records of knowledge. Maybe it's like you said, out of ignorance/thought leadership/etc, I dare to add arrogance.

Same reason the field of behavioral psychology gets new names and explanations for the same concepts every year: It is not an exact science, and there are very few (if any?) first principles that everyone can agree on.

All we have are fuzzy concepts that require interpretation and constant refinement, and of course everyone's interpretation and method of refinement will differ.

The laws of thermodynamics don't need to be rehashed every year by some owner of a verified Twitter account. Marketing lacks that kind of foundation.

Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#27

Post by Enginerrrd »

libertine wrote: post #14
wffurr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Repacking/renaming concepts just to sound like something new..." maybe because it's marketing and that's what y'all do?

Well if you don't know what marketing is, I guess that any concept out of ignorance suits it, right? The same as someone saying that a web developer just copy and pastes code, or that a graphic designer just make squiggles in illustrator, and the list goes on. I recommend you start by here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing

I don't think they're saying that's all there is to marketing, rather that it is absolutely a marketing tactic.

Your analogies don't quite work, because they lack the self-referential component.

Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#28

Post by libertine »

csallen wrote: post #21
libertine wrote: post #9

I'm not here to criticize the content, just the to vent a frustration as a marketer: Why does this industry keep repacking/renaming concepts just to sound like something new... it's like many get value out of perceived progress, when in reality it's just something that has been done for years. This makes me want to step away from this discipline honestly. Instead of trying to compact knowledge to try to make actual l…

Flywheels aren't a new concept. I first encountered them in Brad Stone's excellent book about Amazon, The Everything Store , which I believe was published in 2014. Stone explained how Bezos and crew discovered their flywheel in 2001 : > Bezos and his lieutenants sketched their own virtuous cycle, which they believe powered their business. It went something like this: Lower prices led to more customer visits. More cus…

Like I said in the first sentence, I wasn't criticizing the content, neither I'm saying flywheel is a new concept.

Some call it flywheels, others call it engines, others call it funnel.

David Ogilvy didn't name it in 1963, with the Confessions of an Advertising Man, but the concept was there:

>Why did I write it? First, to attract new clients to my advertising agency. Second, to condition the market for a public offering of our shares. Third, to make myself better known in the business world. It achieved all three of these purposes.

My point is that some disciplines look into have closed concepts, marketing discipline doesn't.

Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#29

Post by libertine »

gk1 wrote: post #19
libertine wrote: post #9

I'm not here to criticize the content, just the to vent a frustration as a marketer: Why does this industry keep repacking/renaming concepts just to sound like something new... it's like many get value out of perceived progress, when in reality it's just something that has been done for years. This makes me want to step away from this discipline honestly. Instead of trying to compact knowledge to try to make actual l…

It didn't seem to me that the author is trying to coin a new phrase, or methodology, or specialty. They are just taking a known concept (flywheel) and explaining how they applied it at their company. And that's useful. Knowing about a concept is one thing, and knowing how to apply it to your situation is another. Articles like this help with the latter.

I didn't meant to criticize the content or the author, just the state of the discipline.

Re: Why Marketing Flywheels Work

#30

Post by jsonne »

libertine wrote: post #9

I'm not here to criticize the content, just the to vent a frustration as a marketer: Why does this industry keep repacking/renaming concepts just to sound like something new... it's like many get value out of perceived progress, when in reality it's just something that has been done for years. This makes me want to step away from this discipline honestly. Instead of trying to compact knowledge to try to make actual l…

I feel this. For whatever reason folks in our discipline have an extreme lack of self-confidence that is only multiplied by everyone only sharing their biggest wins. This seems to have people chasing new shiny objects and secret methods when the reality is that the only thing that "works" is just the fundamentals that we've had a solid handle on for a while. That's super boring to write about though. Not sure what the answer is but it is exahusting.
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