Make Price Hikes Invisible

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🧠 Behavioral Black Holes: How to Make Tariff Hikes Psychologically Invisible

Tariffs, freight hikes, platform fees—it’s getting harder to preserve margin without touching pricing. But here’s the truth elite marketers already know: price is never just a number. It’s a story. And if you frame it right, even a price increase becomes an upgrade.

Welcome to Behavioral Black Holes—the strategy of using cognitive bias to turn inflation into perceived value.

1. The Trojan Horse Bundle: Instead of raising your product price directly, add a low-cost bonus (e.g., a $2 accessory) and increase the bundle price by $7. It reframes the new price as added value, not inflation.

Pro tip: Use ChatGPT to scan reviews and surface “wishlist” items customers mention. Bundle those to feel custom-built.

2. The Decoy Ladder: Introduce a premium variant—same core product, better story. If your hero SKU must rise +$15 due to fees, launch a “limited edition” at +$40. Suddenly, the original feels like a value buy.

One DTC pet brand used this to increase conversion on the standard bed by 22% during tariff hikes.

3. Anchored Altruism: Reframe the increase as an impact-driven surcharge. Example: “$5 from this purchase supports ocean cleanup.” Tariff becomes a virtue.

Use Amazon’s Q&A and listing fields to explain it: “Why does this cost more?” → “Because this knife funds artisan wages in a post-tariff world.”

4. Pre-Commitment Framing: Warn customers of an upcoming increase, then let them lock in current pricing by prepaying. This uses loss aversion and urgency without discounts.

A coffee brand deployed this tactic and saw 63% of customers opt into 3-month prepaid bundles—raising LTV instantly.

5. Narrative Scarcity: One kitchenware brand renamed their rising-priced SKU: “The Trade War Chef Set.” They added a QR code linking to a documentary about their 100-year-old factory.

The result? +37% in sales. 81% of customers cited the story as the reason they paid more.

Final Thought

Most brands raise prices and brace for backlash. But smart ones raise perceived value faster than the price itself. If you design the narrative, the number stops mattering.

💡 Tariffs aren’t the threat. Transparency without story is.

Together with Drivepoint

📢 DTC & Retail Brands: Meet Drivepoint

Two hard truths every brand faces:

📉 Growth Uncertainty – Tariffs, rising COGS, trend shifts, supply chain hiccups, and wholesale draining your capital.

💸 Margin Pressure – Ad inefficiencies, poor inventory planning, and cash flow gaps are eating into profits.

That’s where Drivepoint comes in.

Trusted by brands like True Classic, Curology, and Oats Overnight, Drivepoint is the modern FP&A engine that unifies your Shopify, Amazon, TikTok, retail, and marketing data into a single command center.

All your decisions are powered by real-time insights.

✅ Setup in minutes
✅ Financial planning you’ll actually use
✅ Margin visibility and control
✅ Scenario simulations
✅ Automated forecasting
✅ Investor-ready insights

Stop reacting. Start driving smarter growth. Ask for your Scaleup discount!

Book your free demo now – and see Drivepoint in action!

📈 LinkedIn’s Content Shift: Video & Polls Lead in 2025
Insights from Metricool

LinkedIn engagement is climbing across the board in 2025, with new data from Metricool revealing how company pages are performing. Video and polls are leading the charge in visibility and interactions—offering marketers powerful insights on what content actually drives reach.

The Breakdown:

1. Video Is LinkedIn’s Star Performer - Video impressions are up 73% and views by 52%, with users watching 36% more year-over-year. Though shares are declining, clicks and engagement on videos are way up, reflecting LinkedIn’s algorithmic push and user appetite for professional, informative clips.

2. Polls Deliver Huge Visibility - Polls remain underused but deliver outsized results—post reach for polls is up 206%. 

3. More Eyes on Company Pages -  All company sizes—except those under 1K followers—saw increased impressions and post engagement. Larger pages post 4x more frequently, which correlates with better reach. Smaller pages, in contrast, see less traction, highlighting the payoff of consistent posting.

4. Post Clicks Are Rising, But Shares Lag - Clicks on posts jumped 31%, while likes and shares declined. This suggests users are engaging privately by clicking rather than publicly sharing.

LinkedIn is shifting from a static job board to a dynamic content network. Understanding these shifts allows brands to optimize content strategy for visibility and clicks. 

🚀 Quick Hits

📈 What if you knew which ecommerce strategies are already driving the most growth? Mobile traffic now makes up 60% of FMCG ecommerce, display ads surged 156%, and AI referrals skyrocketed 1138%. This new report by Semrush & Euromonitor breaks it all down—so you can double down on what’s working in 2025. Grab the free report now!

📌 76% of creators still rely on the feed for reach, even as Stories and DMs dominate user sharing. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri clarified that feed posts help discovery, hashtags don’t matter as much, and content search is getting smarter.

🏆 YouTube is rolling out AI-generated soundtracks via Creator Music and testing auto beat-matching for Shorts. It’s also piloting faster monetization with online ID verification—replacing PIN mailers—and refining Subscribe vs. Join buttons for better clarity across platforms

📚 Google Chrome 134 introduces calibrated CPU throttling and real-user data insights to improve how developers test site performance. By simulating actual device speeds and usage patterns, the update offers a more reliable way to evaluate mobile experiences.

💬 27% of mobile gamers purchased a product after seeing an in-game ad. Zynga’s new report shows mobile gamers are high spenders, digital-first, and ad-receptive—49% discovered new products and 43% researched them after in-game exposure.

🛍️ TikTok’s shaky regulatory future is prompting major advertisers to scale back. In Q1 2025, 8 of its 10 largest ad categories cut spending year-over-year, while Meta platforms saw rising demand and growing CPMs.

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