Rand Fishkin's presentation on the Fermi Paradox and how great filters relate to marketing activities. Presented at Conductor C3, Seattle Interactive Conference, and others.

1. The Paradox of
Exceptional Marketing
Rand Fishkin | Individual Contributor | Moz

2. Why is the Night Sky So Quiet?

3. The mathematical
odds of Earth being
the only life-bearing
planet in the galaxy
are exceptionally
low.
Milky Way Galaxy:
200-400B Stars
~100B Planets
~11B Earth-like Planets
Orbiting Sun-like Stars
SOURCE:
Planetary Habitability Laboratory

4. 13.8 BILLION YRS AGO
If life can form on other planets
(or if meteors/ comets can pass
life between planets), there are
millions of life-bearing
candidates.

5. Two Possibilities:
1) We’re alone (for now)
2) We’re unable to perceive whomever else is out there
(and they’ve decided to ignore us)

6. Type III
Civilization
A civilization colonizing enough of the galaxy to
be perceptible to us here on Earth doesn’t take
long on a cosmic time scale.

7. If any such civilization existed in the last 13 Billion
years (and their wave emissions lasted long
enough), we could perceive them today.

8. Something must be filtering out any
life that could colonize the galaxy

9. The Great Filter
Commonly achieved evolutionary leaps
The Great Filter
An evolutionary leap that no
civilization has passed (yet?).
Type III
Civilization
Species
Origin

10. Maybe We’re the First?

11. Maybe We’re Extremely Rare?

12. Or, Maybe, We’re F#@%d

13. Fermi’s Paradox

14. It is no good to try to
stop knowledge from
going forward.
Ignorance is never
better than
knowledge.
-Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

15. To Learn More Read: Wait But Why – The Fermi Paradox

16. A Similar Paradox Exists in
the Web Marketing World

17. The Average New Startup Won’t Last 2 Years
source

18. The Web is Huge
200+ Million Active Websites

19. Most People Will Only Ever Visit 200-2,000 (1-10 in a Million)

20. The Millions of Search Results Beyond Page One
Are Practically Invisible

21. Recent Data Suggests Searchers Are Less Biased By
Position #1, But As Unlikely As Ever to Visit Page 2+

22. Nearly Every Web-Connected Human Adopted
Social Networking in Its First 7 Years of Existence

23. But standing out in the ever-increasing stream of social sharing is
an enormous challenge.

24. Avg Brand Engagement
Data Via Forrester Research
Rate
4.21%
0.073%
0.069%
0.035%

25. There are ~100X as many non-spam emails sent
each day as there are Facebook messages and posts

26. Data Via Mailchimp’s Benchmarks

27. 5.3 Trillion display and retargeting ads are served annually: 1,700
per Internet user per month.

28. In North America, less than 1 in 10,000 ad views result in a click

29. Being Signal, Rather Than Noise,
Is An Immense Marketing Challenge

30. Our Job: Take Companies
from
INVISIBLE KNOWN & LOVED

31. But, those immense marketing
challenges stand in our path
U
s

32. We Need to Identify, Understand, and Break Through These Filters if
We’re to Create Lasting Companies & Great Marketing

33. Six of Marketing’s Great Filters
AUDIENCE
COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGE
SERENDIPIT
Y
FLYWHEE
L
COS
T
MESSAG
E

34. Ability to Reach the Right Audience

35. Eric couldn’t have been
more literal!
Tip #1: If You Have Great Customers Today,
Find Ways to ID & Target Their Clones

36. Long before anyone
searches for this
They search for this
Tip #2: Know What Your Audience Does Before
They Search For You/Your Solution

37. Even one person passionate
about the service can get it in
front of many others
Tip #3: Even a Small Element of Virality is
Worth Repeated Investment and Testing

38. Mark was among the first to create a comprehensive guide to
Ello. Timing + content = domination.
Tip #4: Early Adoption Gives an Unfair
Advantage

39. Crafting a Message that Resonates

40. Tip #1: My Best Content and Stories Always
Resonated Offline Before I Made Them Online.

41. If you know that this headline works better, change
your page title and social shares, too!
Tip #2: Apply The CRO You Learn in Paid Media
to Your Inbound Efforts

42. Tip #3: Consistency of Message Matters.
Consistency of Format is Boring.

43. Tip #4: Powerful Messages Are Simple

44. Tip #4: Powerful Messages Are Simple

45. Tip #4: Powerful Messages Are Simple

46. Fitbit isn’t selling “what,”
they’re selling “why.”
Tip #5: Promoting Your Self/Company is Hard.
Promoting a Cause/Mission is Far Easier.

47. Cost of Customer Acquisition

48. Paid Marketing Spend
+
All Marketing Salaries
+
All Marketing T&E
+
All Brand-Focused Spend
Sales Spend
+
All Marketing Tech Costs
+
All Sales Salaries
+
All Sales T&E
+
Deal-Closing Spend
+
All Sales Tech Costs
Tip #1: Break Out Costs of Marketing vs. Sales

49. Tip #2: Spend Early in Unpaid Marketing
Channels
Trying to build
competence here early
is far easier than
building it after your
paid marketing
machine is running.

50. Tip #3: Measure Acquisition Channels by CLTV
(not just conversion rate)

51. A free trial may initially show worse converting
customers than a demo, but if you follow up w/
right-looking trialers, you can drastically improve
close rates & CLTV
Tip #4: If Possible, Enable Customer
Qualification
that Scales Without Salespeople

52. Enabling Serendipity

53. Dinner
Volunteering
Tip #1: Increase the Potential Vectors of
Exposure
Conference
Phone Call
Coffee
Email Reply
Things You “Really Don’t Have Time For”

54. And that’s probably why the
Batman won’t show up
Tip #2: Things You Hate Probably Won’t Bring
Serendipity

55. Tip #3: Know Something About People Before You
Interact
Fullcontact FTW!

56. A Story: Some Recent Serendipity

57. Find Your Competitive Advantage

58. Tip #1:

59. “We could make a better
Tip #2: Consistently Ask “Could We Do That 10X
Better?”
version of that”
“We can do something 10X
better than any of these”

60. Strengths Weaknesses
Facebook Video Social Ads LinkedIn
Twitter
Google+
Trade Show Booths
Spending time
getting up to speed
on these may be a
SEO Retargeting
PPC
net loss.
Content Community
Email
Affiliate
Display
Partnerships
Whitepapers
Content/Native Ads
Tip #3: Don’t Get Bogged Down By Your Weaknesses

61. Strengths Weaknesses
Facebook Video Social Ads LinkedIn
Twitter
Google+
Trade Show Booths
Hitting cruise control on
SEO Retargeting
PPC
Content Community
Email
Affiliate
these, rather than
pressing an advantage
could seriously hurt, too.
Display
Partnerships
Whitepapers
Content/Native Ads
Tip #4: Don’t Get Complacent About Your Strengths

62. A Flywheel That Scales Without Friction

63. Get links Grow authority
Grow network Rank for slightly
Amplify
Publish
more competitive
terms & phrases
Earn search
traffic

64. Plan for a traffic graph like this
and you’re doomed.
Tip #1: Anticipate the First Few Revolutions of Any
Marketing Flywheel to Be Insanely Challenging

65. This is much more realistic.
(via Crain’s Detroit)
Tip #1: Anticipate the First Few Revolutions of Any
Marketing Flywheel to Be Insanely Challenging

66. Get links Grow authority
Grow network Rank for slightly
Amplify
Publish
more competitive
terms & phrases
Earn search
traffic
Our social efforts never grow our
audience… that’s what’s missing.
Tip #2: Relentlessly Search for Your Flywheel’s Friction

67. Because Moz has had a lot of
success driving organic traffic,
re-targeting is a huge
additional force on our
flywheel
Tip #3: Once a Flywheel is Moving, Any Additional Force
Pushes it Faster – Leverage Those Forces!

68. There’s
Another
Possibility

69. There is a Type III Civilization,
But They’re Not Friendly.
Type III
Civilization
The Great Culling
To prevent competition, a civilization may be
killing off any who make it too far.
Species
Origin

70. “(Messaging extraterrestrials is)
deeply unwise and immature…
The newest children in a strange
and uncertain cosmos should listen
quietly for a long time, patiently
learning about the universe and
comparing notes, before shouting
into an unknown jungle that we do
not understand.”
- Carl Sagan (source), 1934-1996

71. The 800lb gorilla competitors do not, however,
appear to be the great filters in our world.
Source
Competitors: 19%
Competitors beating you in your own
marketing channels: <19%

72. Marketing (especially
through inbound
channels) appears to
be a rarely contested
and, thus, uniquely
powerful way to build a
competitive advantage
and barrier to entry.

73. The Paradox of
Exceptional Marketing
Rand Fishkin | Individual Contributor | Moz