Market Verb Newsletter 17 (Feb 01-08)

Part 1 — Marketing Tip / Style

Marketing Strategy: Tricks

Many brands, such as Swiggy (more specifically Swiggy Instamart), offer free delivery on purchases over ₹299. This subtly nudges customers to spend more just to qualify for free delivery. In a way, it’s a form of manipulation—profit through tricking, you could say.

Interestingly, the delivery fee itself is usually quite small, often not even half the total value of the purchase, yet the psychological pull of “free” convinces buyers to add more items to their cart.

Part 2 — Brand Story

Brand Story: The Fall of Yahoo!

Yahoo started as a major search engine—at one point, even more popular than Google itself. However, instead of strengthening its winning position in search, Yahoo shifted focus toward becoming a media company.

Meanwhile, Google concentrated on improving search quality, relevance, and connections to major websites, while Yahoo invested in weaker, unfocused products. Over time, this lack of clarity and focus caused Yahoo to lose its ground—and eventually, its dominance.

Part 3 — Two Great Books

Quiet – by Susan Cain

Quiet argues that the world is built for extroverts, while introverts quietly drive creativity, leadership, and deep thinking.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck –by Mark Manson

This book explains that a good life isn’t about caring less—it’s about caring only about what truly matters and letting go of everything else.

Part 4: Two Great Voices

Fredrik Idestam, Founder of Nokia:

“Anything that can be connected, will be connected.”

Han Xu, Founder of XP-Pen:

“Every creator deserves professional tools, not just professionals.”

Part 5 — This Week’s Actionable

Go through the reviews your customers have written or submitted and actively make changes based on their suggestions.

It works. Trust it.