skyscraper technique

Definition

Finding top-performing content in your niche and creating something demonstrably better, taller, and more comprehensive to outrank it. The marketing equivalent of one-upping your neighbor's Christmas lights.

Example Usage

They published '10 Email Tips,' so we used the skyscraper technique and created '147 Email Tips With Case Studies and Templates.'

Origin

Coined by SEO expert Brian Dean of Backlinko

Source: SEO and content marketing methodology

Related Terms

Beginner

opt-in

When someone explicitly gives permission to receive marketing communications, theoretically because they actually want them. A legal requirement dressed up as customer courtesy.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

ad fatigue

The phenomenon where repeated exposure to the same advertisement causes declining performance as audiences develop immunity to your creative genius. Your ad doesn't suck; people are just tired of your face.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Advanced

ascription

In data analytics and sociology, the act of assigning credit, blame, or characteristics to a person or thing based on analysis rather than self-identification. Marketers use this to decide who deserves credit for a conversion, while sociologists use it to study how society boxes people into categories they didn't choose. Both involve making assumptions that may or may not reflect reality.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

Influencer

A person with a large social media following who gets paid to pretend they organically discovered your protein powder. The modern equivalent of a billboard, except billboards don't have existential crises about their engagement rates.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

youtube

The video-sharing behemoth that transformed from a humble startup into the verb we use for watching literally anything online. Originally just a platform for uploading cat videos and people hurting themselves, it's now a critical marketing channel where brands desperately try to 'go viral' and influencers hawk protein powder. Every marketer's presentation now includes a 'YouTube strategy,' which usually means posting their TV commercial and hoping for the best.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

cross-selling

Suggesting complementary products to customers based on what they're already purchasing. It's the retail equivalent of being a helpful friend, if that friend worked on commission.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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loi

laughing on the inside...