Word Of Mouth Marketing Book
Just finished reading Andy Sernovitz’s Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. Great read, I’m going to suggest that many of my clients read this. Actually anyone in any organization that relies on people (hmm, that’s about all of them) would benefit from some or all of what Andy describes and dissects.
In a supreme word of mouth marketing proof of concept, Andy gave me the signed copy after I responded to a blog post talking about how much to give away to people for free before they become clients. His response was, “Give it away big time… Demonstration: I’ll send a free book to the next 5 people who ask for one.” Best offer I’ve gotten in a long time, and here I am talking about it. Here’s a brief review:
This book provides a context, actionable framework, and toolkit to support many of the marketing ideas and instincts I’ve had for years but not found a reliable outlet through which to explore. It could perhaps be shortened (not that it’s particularly long), as there are many repeated concepts — sometimes in adjoining sentences. Then again, I believe this is exactly Andy’s point. We over think so much of this stuff that he has to hit you over the head a few times to drive home the notion that the best marketing is often the simplest and most intuitive. Bottom line: play to the strengths of your organization by creatively getting people to talk positively about you. Once you’ve gestated the conversation, capitalize on it and start another one. What should be obvious often is not, but there is a three-letter word that ties it all together: fun.
While I applaud Andy’s decision to lose the hyphenation in word of mouth marketing, the grammar nut in me gets stuck on treating Web site as a single word and not capitalizing Internet. Details like this don’t change the quality of the material but they distract me from it. Then again this is marketing, where liberties are welcome. And these are somewhat newer tech terms that perhaps deserve to be deformalized.
My only nag is that Apple kicked off the revolutionary colored computer word of mouth marketing campaign with a Bondi Blue iMac, not pink or purple (page 12).
So go get it already!
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Categories: Entrepreneurship, General, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Web |
