“If you build it, they likely will not come” isn’t a famous movie quote, but Scott Cunningham thinks that it perfectly describes the sales experience for Shopify store owners. Customers won’t buy your incredible product or service if they can’t find you, so you need a way to get traffic.
As the founder of Merchant Mastery and Social Lite, Scott helps businesses overcome rising acquisition costs and stop chasing multiple channels. He uses a 5-ingredient formula to pitch products and win attention more effectively. It’s how Merchant Mastery clients like Claire Duggan hit more than $91 thousand per month in sales on Shopify, and he shared all the details at Affiliate Summit West 2024.
The 5-Part Positioning Formula
Scott breaks down his marketing formula into five simple components. You can use the content you create from them on every channel, from social media platforms to your homepage.
Ingredient #1: The Hook
Your hook could be a question, challenge, or statement. To generate options, think of your ideal customer avatar and create a before and after grid.
| Before | After |
| Have: Sam has a decent collection of store-bought, run-of-the-mill BB1 sauces and seasonings. | Have: Sam now has a versatile, authentic, Italian dressing and marinade added to his BBQ arsenal. |
| Feel: Sam often feels uninspired by the limited flavor profiles he can create with his current ingredients. | Feel: Sam feels excited and creative, with the new marinade bringing a unique zing to his grills. |
| Average Day: Sam spends time researching recipes online to spice up his BBQ but is often left unsatisfied. | Average Day: Sam spends his days experimenting with the Italian dressing & marinade, elevating his BBQ to new heights. |
| Status: Among his friends, Sam is a good cook, but not yet the undisputed king of the BBQ pit. | Status: Sam has become the go-to grill master in his circle, revered for his Italian-infused BBQ specialties. |
| Good vs. Evil: Sam faces the evil of monotony, struggling to break free from the ordinary BBQ flavors. | Good vs. Evil: Sam triumphs over culinary monotony, saving his BBQ cookouts from the evil of blandness with the Italian dressing & marinade. |
Using this grid, Scott pulled out three hooks:
- The best Italian dressing you’ve ever tasted.
- Ready to impress your guests with a secret ingredient?
- Add a burst of flavor to your dinners.
The remaining ingredients address lines of questioning you can expect from users who read your hooks.
Ingredient #2: Function Attributes
First, prospects will question how your product or service works and how it can improve their lives. You answer this question with function attributes, including features and benefits, how your offering serves a specific function, and how it improves the customer’s quality of life.
Ingredient #3: Brand Attributes
Next, you need to preemptively address whether the customer likes your brand. Brand narratives and founder stories are key because they make your company relatable. Your values, mission, and vision and the causes you support are potential brand attributes.
Ingredient #4: Influencer Attributes
People often wonder whether other customers will vouch for your product. As such, leverage as many third-party endorsements as possible, including:
- Influencers
- Reviews
- User-generated content
- Video testimonials
- Social proof
- Awards
- Certifications
You can also provide hard numbers, such as how many times you’ve sold out and how many stores carry your products.
Ingredient #5: Price
The final ingredient comes down to an essential question: “Based on everything I understand about this product, is my perceived value of it greater than the price?” Transaction attributes serve to minimize concerns about price by taking away a possible risk or adding an incentive.
Understanding TBIF
When you put together ingredients two through five, you have TBIF: Transaction, Brand, Influence, and Function. Expand on them by creating a chart with possible ideas for each value.
| TBIF Value Attributes | Idea 1 | Idea 2 | Idea 3 |
| Transaction | Free shipping over $40 | 30-day money-back guarantee | 10% welcome offer |
| Brand | Founder Story: A Legacy in a Bottle | Proceeds to The Tunnel to Towers Foundation | Proudly Made in the USA, Family owned & operated! |
| Influence | 629 5-star reviews | “Reed’s dressing is my favorite dressing. I use it as a salad dressing, a marinade, a dipping sauce, seasoning!!” | Carried in 800+ grocery stores in OK, TX, KS, NE, NM, and CO As seen in Giant Eagle, Family Fare, and more |
| Function | Perfect for marinating meat, pickling veggies, and creating amazing dips and sauces. | Made with spices you probably have in your pantry that require no refrigeration. | Marinade tip: When marinating, let it set for at least 30 minutes. The longer the better, and overnight is best! |
With a TBIF chart, you can generate enough ideas for an overflowing content schedule.
Making Omelets
Once your ingredients are ready, you can put them together into an offer stack, try new things, and reinvent your positioning. Serving up different combinations of hooks and TBIF values clarifies which ones customers prefer. Scott recommends using A/B testing with ads, creating multiple versions and testing different stacks to see what works before scaling.
Upgrading the 5-Ingredient Formula
Using Scott’s formula can simplify and strengthen your marketing process, particularly when you take advantage of ChatGPT. During his presentation, he provided prompts to help you produce great content, using ChatGPT to create your before and after grid, hooks, and even the ads themselves.
For more awesome, tried and proven, actionable content and specific tools and tactics check out Traffic & Conversion Summit where you can hear from the world’s leading experts on all things Tools & Tactics. Traffic & Conversion Summit is the BIGGEST digital marketing event in the US for entrepreneurs and agency owners. Check it out here!
