Mental Model Atlas

Creating and communicating value so the right people choose you — demand creation, not decoration.

Segment the market, target a group, position for it — in that order, always.

Strangers narrow to buyers stage by stage; its real job is showing where the leak is worst.

Product, Price, Place, Promotion — the checklist for locating which lever you're actually pulling.

Demand pulls: retention flattens, word of mouth compounds. Scale marketing after, not before.

Every touchpoint before, during, and long after purchase — churn hides in stages funnels don't draw.

People can't predict their own buying. Trust commitments and behavior, not survey kindness.

Being thought of in buying moments, across many moments — the memory contest brands actually compete in.

Easy to find, easy to buy. Multiplies with mental availability; either at zero zeroes the sale.

Colors, sounds, characters that trigger the brand without its name — recognition infrastructure.

The situations that trigger category buying — brands grow by being remembered at more doors.

Small brands have fewer buyers who are also slightly less loyal. Loyalty follows size; penetration leads growth.

Share of voice above share of market predicts growth — the closest thing brand budgeting has to physics.

The commercial value of stored memories: the premium, preference, and forgiveness a known name earns.

Brand building creates future demand; activation harvests it now. Roughly 60/40 — each starves without the other.

The spot you occupy in the buyer's mind against their alternatives. Excluding no one convinces no one.

~95% of your buyers aren't buying now. Most advertising is memory-building for later, not clicks today.

A reason to pick you that rivals can't credibly claim. If competitors would never say the opposite, it isn't one.

Products get hired to make progress in a situation. The job defines your real competitors and your real pitch.

The fastest profit lever and a positioning statement in a number — the most under-tested decision in marketing.

Advantages copying doesn't defeat: network effects, switching costs, brand. A feature lead is a head start, not a moat.

Output feeds input: users create the content or invites that bring users. Loops compound; funnels reset.

Does one customer make money after variable costs? If not, scale multiplies the loss.

Total acquisition spend ÷ new customers. Fully loaded or you're fooling yourself.

A customer's margin across their whole stay. Small monthly churn compounds into a hard ceiling.

Revenue per ad dollar — not profit. Breakeven ≈ 1 ÷ margin; MER sanity-checks the platform's stories.

Which touch gets credit — assigned by assumption, not observation. Whoever picks the model picks the winners.

What happened *because of* the ad versus anyway. Holdout tests reveal what dashboards assume.

Randomization turns correlation into causation — if you size it up front and don't peek.

When a measure becomes a target it stops measuring — the MQL machine that fills pipelines sales can't close.

Fast, feeling-driven autopilot makes most buying decisions; slow logic only shows up for the big ones.

The first number drags every later judgment toward it. Order of information is a persuasion decision.

Losses hurt about twice as much as gains please. 'Don't lose it' beats 'get it'.

Under uncertainty, people copy people like them. Specific numbers persuade; fabricated crowds destroy.

The pre-selected option wins: effortless, endorsed, and loss-framed to leave. Set defaults deliberately.

Familiarity alone breeds preference — the quiet mechanism under frequency and 'wasted' reach.

Past a point, more options mean fewer decisions. Cut the menu; conversions rise.

Experiences are remembered by their most intense moment and their ending — fix endings first.

The goal behind the query decides what can rank. Match the intent first, pitch second.

Evergreen assets keep earning for years; trend content spikes and dies. Balance the calendar accordingly.

Email and community are immune to algorithm changes — the only audience you don't rent.

The first line's only job is earning the next second. Nobody sees the brilliant middle of a skipped video.

UGC works because it reads as evidence, not advertising. Counterfeit it and pay in trust and law.