Marketing Against the Grain

🕸️ Not even Spider-Man can shortcut good marketing 

Jackie Widmann, VP of Marketing at BERO Brewing, shares three core marketing lessons from building Tom Holland's non-alcoholic beer brand. Key insights include the importance of narrow audience targeting, positioning a product as additive rather than a substitute, and the fact that celebrity backing doesn't replace rigorous marketing strategy. The newsletter also promotes a State of AEO Report covering how brands should adapt to AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

AEO without ownership is just expensive guessing

A survey of 250 B2B marketing decision-makers reveals that 57% plan to increase AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) investment in the next 12 months, yet only 8% have incorporated AEO metrics into their reporting. Additionally, 41% of organizations lack clear AEO ownership — either no one is responsible (26%) or responsibility is distributed across teams with no single lead (15%). The newsletter recommends building reporting infrastructure and ownership frameworks before scaling AEO spend.

Forget "cutting-edge technology"  

This newsletter features behavioral psychology lessons from Phill Agnew, host of the Nudge podcast, applied to marketing campaigns. Key insights include why algorithmic reach underperforms borrowed audiences, why concrete language is 8x more memorable than abstract phrases, and why showing social proof visually beats merely claiming it.

LinkedIn > YouTube

Wistia's 2026 State of Video report reveals LinkedIn has surpassed YouTube as the top platform for B2B video sharing. Key findings include longer webinars (30-40 minutes) seeing 70% higher engagement, 48% of teams increasing distribution budgets, and overall video budget growth slowing with only 49% planning increases (down from 57% in 2024). The newsletter also links to content on YouTube subscriber count becoming a vanity metric and audience distribution strategies from MrBeast's content strategist.

What could you do with 800 more hours?  😩

HubSpot's Product Marketing lead program manager Jamie Hill shares how his team built a process map that saved 800 hours of labor while managing Spotlight, a twice-annual event launching 200+ product updates with 750+ marketing assets and 500+ stakeholders. The newsletter outlines how chronic pain points like late decisions, frequent changes, and coordination overhead drove the team to overhaul their marketing workflow framework. Hill's approach involves a structured process map and decision matrix to eliminate manual fire-fighting and scale to any business size.

👑  Stop trying to be famous

🦄  But where's the whimsy? 🧚🏿‍♀️

Marketing Against the Grain analyzes The Devil Wears Prada 2 movie campaign as an example of the "Bring Back the Whimsy" trend. The campaign features exclusive merchandise including sunglasses, a limited-edition Runway Magazine, wine tumbler, and a viral red handbag-shaped popcorn bucket. The newsletter argues that authentic joy and fun, rather than trying to be cool, creates shareable content that cuts through noise.

Be honest about your limitations

"Meta is a beast"  

Newsletter growth consultant Manny Reyes shares data-driven insights from six years of running Meta ads for newsletter growth, including advice for James Clear's Atomic Habits newsletter. The guide covers why brand elements hurt ad performance, why Meta works even for B2B audiences, and how to manage scaling challenges as budgets increase.

The quiz that pays for itself in 7 days

Joanna Ericta built The Assist newsletter from 10,000 to 300,000 subscribers after being furloughed from ZipRecruiter during COVID. The newsletter monetizes immediately through a quiz-based welcome sequence that aims to hit 100% revenue-to-ad-spend within the first seven days, while maintaining audience trust by declining irrelevant sponsorships like betting platforms.

Approach social media like the pros  ✨

Marketing Against the Grain is promoting their 2026 Social Media Resource Vault, which contains comprehensive guides, templates, and tutorials for social media growth across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The resource pack includes their master guide to social media growth, expert platform-specific tips, and a content calendar with strategy sheets.

The AI search trust gap no one's talking about

Marketing Against the Grain surveyed 200+ B2B decision-makers on AI search preferences, revealing that trust signals and click drivers operate differently in AI-generated search answers. The research shows pricing information drives clicks even when it doesn't build trust, while citations and brand recognition serve different psychological functions.

What actually cuts through 75k unreads  ✂️

Matt McGarry, founder of GrowLetter and former growth marketing manager at The Hustle, shares three key strategies for effective email newsletters. He emphasizes treating newsletters as products rather than content channels, increasing engagement through strategic hyperlinks, and calculating lifetime value by subscriber source to optimize acquisition spending.

🐺  Instagram growth tips (screaming huskies not required)

Marketing Against the Grain released a report on Instagram engagement based on survey data from 600+ marketers. The report reveals that engagement remains the top priority for brands, Reels content grew 71% in the past year, and daily posting increased from 29% to 56% of marketers.

Are you afraid of Reddit?  😨

HubSpot's marketing team reveals their strategy for earning 11,000 branded mentions per month on Reddit through authentic community engagement. Jenny Sowyrda, HubSpot's senior manager of Community Programs, explains how brands can successfully participate in Reddit communities by treating them like formal social events where respectful behavior is essential.

Downloads are a lie  🎙️

Dan Misener, co-founder of Bumper, explains why podcast download metrics are misleading as more consumption happens on platforms like YouTube and Spotify where downloads aren't tracked. He advocates for data-informed approaches using platform-specific analytics and emphasizes that successful branded podcasts should feel like valuable gifts to audiences rather than promotional content.

👑  What a queen can teach about authenticity  💅

Marketing Against the Grain newsletter highlights the Staples Queen, a Staples employee creating authentic behind-the-scenes TikTok videos that showcase lesser-known store services like custom mug printing and laminating. The newsletter emphasizes that the most effective brand content is coming from employees closest to the product rather than marketing departments, with authenticity being the key strategy.

YouTube is a ... search engine?  😮

A survey of 200+ B2B decision-makers reveals that 64% discover YouTube content by searching directly rather than browsing algorithmically, making YouTube function more like a search engine for B2B buyers. 50% of buyers trust brand videos that acknowledge product tradeoffs and limitations, while 42% want direct competitor comparisons and real user content over polished brand productions. The newsletter argues brands should optimize YouTube content around specific buyer queries and lead with honest, balanced messaging rather than promotional polish.