Haunt Them: The SAMMICH Framework for Marketing That People Remember
There is more content being created right now than any of us could possibly consume.
More LinkedIn posts. More blogs. More newsletters. More videos. More AI-generated graphics. More thought leadership that somehow manages to say absolutely nothing at all.
AI didn't create the sea of sameness. Marketing was perfectly capable of being boring before ChatGPT showed up. What AI did was make it possible for us to create more of it, faster.
And that's the part I can't stop thinking about.
We've spent so much time asking what AI can create for us that I think we've skipped a much more important question:
Will anyone remember what we created?
Because that's the goal, isn't it?
I don't want someone to scroll past something I wrote, think "good post," and immediately forget it existed. I want the idea to follow them around a little. I want it to come back to them in a meeting. I want them to repeat it to someone else. I want them to hear a conversation three weeks later and think, wait, Sam was talking about this.
I want the idea to haunt them.
And because apparently I can't make a marketing framework without turning it into an entire bit, welcome to the spooky side of SAMMICH.
Here’s the framework, reworked for spooky season:
Summon the Idea
Good marketing doesn't start with a prompt.
It starts with having something worth saying.
That's becoming increasingly important because AI has made it incredibly easy to skip this part. Open ChatGPT. Ask for ten LinkedIn ideas. Pick one. Generate the post. Publish. Congratulations, you have content.
But did you actually have an idea?
The ideas I care about usually start somewhere much messier. Something someone said to me at a conference. A question I couldn't immediately answer. A conversation with a customer. Something happening in our industry that annoys me. Something I used to believe that I don't anymore.
That's the stuff worth summoning.
Before you ask AI what you should say, ask yourself what you can't stop thinking about.
Start there.
Ask Better Questions
I've become increasingly convinced that curiosity is going to be one of the most valuable skills a marketer can have in the AI era.
AI has answers.
Lots and lots and lots of answers.
What it doesn't necessarily have is your question.
There is a huge difference between asking, "What are the benefits of community marketing?" and asking, "Why are buyers increasingly trusting communities before they trust brands?"
One gets you information. The other gives you somewhere interesting to go.
And this isn't just about writing better prompts. Ask customers better questions. Ask sales what they're hearing. Ask why something worked. Ask why something didn't. Ask what changed. Ask what everyone in your industry seems to accept as true and whether it actually is.
Sometimes the most interesting marketing starts with a question nobody has bothered asking yet.
Make the Judgment
This might be the most important part of SAMMICH.
AI can give me twenty headlines in seconds.
Cool.
Which one is good?
Which one sounds like me? Which one will matter to my audience? Which one is technically correct but painfully boring? Which one pushes the idea further? Which one am I actually willing to put my name behind?
That's judgment.
And judgment is becoming more valuable, not less.
We've spent a lot of the AI conversation talking about creation. I think we need to talk a lot more about discernment.
When everyone can make everything, the advantage isn't necessarily being able to produce more.
It's knowing what deserves to exist.
AI can read the cards.
You still have to make the call.
Mix in the Human
This is where I think a lot of AI-assisted content falls apart.
It may be perfectly written. The structure works. The grammar is clean. The hook is hooky.
And yet...
There's nobody home.
The best way I've found to fix that isn't to ask AI to "make this sound more human." It's to actually put a human in it.
What happened to you?
What did a customer say?
What did you notice?
What did you get wrong?
What happened backstage at the conference that completely changed how you thought about something?
What do you know because you lived it rather than because you researched it?
Those details aren't imperfections that need to be edited out. They're often the reason someone trusts you.
Your experience is source material AI doesn't have until you give it away.
Use it.
Invoke Your POV
Information is everywhere.
Perspective isn't.
I don't think thought leadership means having a hot take about absolutely everything. Sometimes the most thoughtful thing you can say is, "I'm still figuring this out."
But you should eventually be willing to tell me what you think.
What does this mean?
What are people getting wrong?
What should we do differently?
What have you changed your mind about?
Where do you disagree?
If I read ten pieces of your content, could I tell you what you believe?
Because if your content tells me everything you know but nothing you believe, I'm probably not going to remember who said it.
You don't have to be controversial.
You do have to have a point of view.
Cast It Into the World
At some point, you have to hit publish.
This is another place where AI can be incredibly useful.
Take the original idea and turn it into a conversation. A LinkedIn post. A blog. A podcast. A customer question. A conference session. A video. A sales conversation.
Not because we need to flood every channel with the exact same content, but because good ideas deserve room to travel.
And something interesting happens when they do.
People respond.
Someone disagrees.
Someone adds a perspective you hadn't considered.
A customer tells you how the idea shows up in their world.
Suddenly your original thought has more texture.
That's why I don't think content is the final product of thought leadership.
Conversation is.
Put the idea into the world and let other people touch it.
Haunt Them
This is the part I care about most.
Don't just reach them.
Haunt them.
Not in the show up outside their bedroom window at 3 a.m. way. Please don't make me add that disclaimer to the framework.
I mean create ideas that linger.
Because impressions aren't the same thing as impact. Engagement isn't the same thing as trust. And getting someone's attention for four seconds isn't the same thing as earning a place in their memory.
The marketing I admire gives people language they didn't have before. It makes them reconsider something. It becomes shorthand inside a team. It gets brought up over dinner at a conference. It gets forwarded with, "THIS is what I've been trying to explain."
SAMMICH!
That's what I want.
And you don't get there by constantly abandoning ideas because you're worried you've already talked about them.
Repetition matters.
Distinctive language matters.
Stories matter.
Frameworks matter.
Consistency matters.
Having the courage to become associated with something matters.
You aren't trying to make someone remember every post you've ever written.
You're trying to make them remember what you stand for.
The Real Magic Isn't AI
I use AI all the time.
SAMMICH isn't an argument against it. It's an argument for knowing where it belongs.
Let AI research. Let it organize. Let it challenge your thinking. Let it help you find patterns. Let it generate options. Let it clean up the mess. Let it help one strong idea travel further than you could take it alone.
But don't hand over the parts that make the work yours.
The curiosity.
The judgment.
The experience.
The relationships.
The taste.
The point of view.
The decision to say something when it would be much easier to say nothing.
That's why the SAMMICH philosophy is still ridiculously simple:
Sam first. AI second. Sam last.
You start with the human.
You let the machine help.
And then you bring the human back before anything goes out into the world.
Because AI can help you make content.
But you have to make it worth remembering.
So summon the idea. Ask better questions. Make the judgment. Mix in the human. Invoke your POV. Cast it into the world.
And then?
