Customer Reviews

Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Who would have thought you'd ever hear an engineer encourage failure? Well, author, engineer and IBMer, Mike Moran does in his new book.

This book does more than make the case for a more nimble and carefree attitude. In today's supercharged marketplace, especially on the web, marketers cannot afford to wait for perfect. They need to track and react to the consumers quickly and adjust as they go.

Moran encourages listening and watching consumers and taking their lead. The book is an easy read, broken into manageable chunks of information. The best part, in my opinion, is the third section. Moran offers not only encouragement but suggestions on how to bring this new way of thinking into a corporate climate.

Well worth the time and money. I can't imagine you could read this book and not do a few things better, smarter and more profitably.

I absolutely love Mike Moran's take on Internet marketing. Do It Wrong Quickly is not about how to do Internet marketing wrong, it's about how to not get caught up in having to do it right so that you'll do something now. Doing something wrong is far better than doing nothing right. Doing something wrong quickly is far better than doing something right slowly. The bottom line is that you simply need to do something.

DIWQ is full of well-thought out internet marketing knowledge. Mike covers all the things that you should be doing (wrong, if necessary, but always quickly at first) to get your Internet marketing campaign up and running. While many of us that have been around Internet marketing for a few years may not need the refresher in how to do Internet marketing, we definitely can get something out of Mike's book.

The concept of "doing it wrong quickly" is repeated throughout the book, not as a redundancy, but as a reminder of how we can simply start doing various aspects of Internet marketing without having to worry about doing it right right away. The Web changes that need.

Thanks to Mike, I've got a whole new philosophy. Just start doing. If I you do it wrong quickly, you can do it right later... Once you know what you're doing to begin with.

Mike Moran's new book is an excellent introduction to new Web technologies and processes that are changing marketing and customer relations. He encourages experimentation and speed in trying new ways of conversing with customers. And while much of the book addresses what is new in online marketing, it is grounded by what has been proven to work in direct marketing.

He goes beyond introducing and explaining what's important in Web 2.0 technology showing you how to put it to work at your company. This useful and valuable book can help you learn how to turn online conversations into customer conversions. I think so highly of "Do It Wrong Quickly" that I bought a bunch of the books to give to clients and friends in the business.

Mike Moran has a voice worth listening to, he reminds me of radio funnyman Fred Allen, offering sage advice spiced with acerbic observations. Mike's books, blogs and presentations offer wisdom with humor about advances in internet marketing. If you are in the business or want to be, don't miss Mike.

This is a very accessible guide to web marketing. There is no intimidation factor - everything is clearly explained. At the same time, Moran doesn't talk down to his audience either - so even experienced web marketers will benefit from reading the book.

The main messages are:
1) Respect your customers. Whatever we do on with web marketing needs to be relevant, authentic and demonstrate responsiveness to their concerns.

2) Think of marketing as a conversation - that is a two-way event. The Web makes this very doable in lots of ways. Moran shows how to gather information, and engage customers, in a variety of ways. Most are low cost, low effort. One of his mantras, the title message, is to not fear doing it wrong - instead just fear not doing it at all. Implicit in that is that you respond pretty quickly to what's working well or badly. But you don't need to float a loan to take his advice; there is a range of approaches to choose from.

3) Part of correcting what's worked well or poorly is to have the right metrics. Moran reminds us to keep our eye on the goal. E.g., transforming customers to revenue-producing customers.

4) The software community has been big on Agile methods for some time. Moran (who's an engineer as well as a marketing expert) translates that approach into marketing initiatives. Not only is this a great idea for web marketing, it also will give the reader enough of a view of the buzzwords to have more productive conversations with their programmer co-workers.

5) A very pragmatic approach to putting the advice into action. Moran writes credibly about how to overcome objections like "no one will listen to me," or "we tried that already." My sense is that there are enough tools here to allow almost anyone to start implementing at least some of these approaches successfully. And since the whole idea is to do it wrong quickly, starting small or in a limited way isn't a bad thing - it is perfectly appropriate.

Who's the right audience for this book? It is unusual in that it works for people who are struggling to jump start their marketing into the web era or learn what the web era even means to them - and also works for experienced web marketers who want to improve their game.

Overall, a pragmatic, well written book with tons of good advice and examples.

I'm a big fan of Mike Moran's easygoing, logical approach to explaining concepts and organizing thoughts. His other book, Search Engine Marketing, Inc. is a straightforward, no nonsense approach to understanding not only the tactics involved with search marketing, but also the logic behind it. I base much of my search marketing approach on the concepts outlined in the book and hence, why I digress a bit on its value.

As for Do It Wrong Quickly, this title is a much more broad, theoretical read about the flexibility that the web gives marketers, while also explaining core concepts, channels and technologies that prove useful for even the novice internet marketer. I gave all of my colleagues this book for the holidays this year and suggest it every chance that I get.

I compare this book to Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People", in that there really isn't a ton of new information in here for a person familiar with the topic, but the way that Mike organizes and presents the information helps you better make connections and communicate the concepts to others. Well, at least for me it did.

Mike Moran's book `Do It Wrong Quickly' is not just another book about Internet marketing. The title of the book might lead the reader to think initially this book is about mistakes that can be done in Internet marketing. However, the book describes how companies should not get caught up in having to do it right the first time. Rather than trying to do it right the first time and spending significant amounts of money on planning, Moran suggests doing small and quick experiments because doing something wrong quickly is far better than doing something right slowly.

Compared to other E-marketing books, Moran's approach to Internet marketing is pioneering and simple at the same time. Instead of creating an annual marketing plan, Moran suggests to do quick experiments. In order to decide whether an experiment was successful or not, the company has to make sure that accurate measurement is set in place. If the metrics show that this approach was wrong, the book clarifies that this is not a disaster, as something new can be tested very quickly the next day. By experimenting on a daily basis, a company can gradually fine-tune its marketing to have the highest possible outcome. This approach might change the entire world of an E-marketer, who is used to plan ahead of time in order to make it right the first time. This implies a flexible and open company culture. If this is not the case, e-marketers might have to overcome obstacles to persuade their leaders to `do things wrong quickly'.

Mike Moran's book "Do It Wrong Quickly" has drastically changed my view of Internet marketing. As most Internet marketing tools are new and marketers yet inexperienced, the initial solution often ends up being wrong no matter how long the company is analyzing the alternatives. The idea of using quick experiments to test the online marketing tool is a great way to fail your way up to success. Companies still need to do things right offline, but it is much easier to fix a mistake online compared to the old marketing world where companies for example committed to running a failing TV ad for a year.

For a more detailed book review on "Do It Wrong Quickly" please visit my blog: [...].

A direct hit on how the web is revolutionizing marketing!

More importantly, "Do It Wrong Quickly" is packed full of advice and tips for small businesses to leverage the Internet to take the lead in their marketplace, even against the titans!

What makes this book such a great reading experience is the fact that Mike Moran has left no one out. We all come to this new arena of web marketing with a sense of uncertainty. This book allows you to preview the most promising networking solutions available on the web today, and encourages you to get out there and find (or invent!) some of your own.

Do It Wrong Quickly is a very entertaining read that is thick with relevant information. Ignore it at your own peril.

This is an excellent book that is worth taking the time to finish. Mike breaks down complex information into tips that readers can use immediately. Plus, his humor and comedic timing make reading the book a fun learning experience. Adult learners who need an introduction into the value of Web marketing will find this book useful.

Mike Moran's second book, "Do It Wrong Quickly", has something for every reader. The seasoned marketer will no doubt garner at least a few new ideas (though probably more than a few) to try, whether in innovative ways to start the conversation with customers, or in how to effectively listen to the customer in the Web Age. A novice to the field will quickly realize the growing importance of the internet marketing field and some of the fundamental changes that are a result of all companies, big or small, risking their reputations in the public forum.

You even get to delve into numbers a bit, with the discussion of web metrics and how looking at the factors involved in running your website can dramatically increase your number of conversions. To go along with the prospect of learning something you didn't know, there is the added benefit of Mike's friendly and funny writing style. He also provides useful and interesting examples, sprinkled in just enough to always keep the material fresh and entertaining. I highly recommend this book to everyone seeking to learn more about internet marketing, or even just to learn more about how the Web has changed the way we do (successful) business today.