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44 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
UNcanny Insights from UNmarketing, September 4, 2010
This review is from: UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. (Hardcover)
The new book UnMarketing from Canadian viral marketer and Twitter gadfly Scott Stratten takes the rules and purees them, Blendtec style.
Here's what makes UnMarketing an unusual, yet worthy use of your marketing education time:
UNpretentious
Unlike so many marketing books, Stratten doesn't overcomplicate the subject matter. He believes that common sense should prevail, and that UnMarketing success is rooted in the creation of everyday "wow" moments. His self-deprecation adds a hilarious, warm tone throughout.
UNstructured
Like Gary Vaynerchuk's Crush It, Stratten dictated some of the book, and it reads very conversationally. Also, there isn't a narrative or progression in the book, but rather a collection of 57 short observations, lessons, and anecdotes. For readers that consume material in bits and pieces, this format is ideal. You can easily read UnMarketing over time in 10 or 15-minute chunks.
UNafraid
Sacred cows are slaughtered in UnMarketing, both in the material and in the book's packaging. (The faux testimonials on the back of the book are priceless, including:
"This book is the greatest business book in the world, besides mine."
- Author who only gives testimonials for people who give him one in return
Stratten's rant against direct marketing - "People still teach courses on how to cold-call better! That's like finding a better way to punch people in the face" is one of the more memorable examples of his outlook.
UNderstandable
One of the most commendable aspects of this book is Stratten's gift for boiling down a marketing principle to its simplest form. His "Pull and Stay" advice; segmenting customers into barrels; platforming; social currency, and other concepts are instantly applicable to real world marketing challenges fitting a wide variety of circumstances. The examples and mini case studies he presents provide insights that leave you nodding your head and thinking you could adopt the same approaches.
UNsettling
Stratten has a knack for gaps. The two sections in the book on the Trust Gap and the Experience Gap are among the strongest in UnMarketing. Both are wake-up calls for marketers, and make the case that separating marketing from day-to-day customer experiences is an impossibility. Greg Verdino's excellent book MicroMarketing hits on similar themes. Stratten writes: "
The space between the best services, often what a new customer receives and the worst experience is what I call the Experience Gap. As a business owner your goal needs to be having no gap at all, optimizing every point of contact with your customer."
A tall order, to be certain.
UNdercover
The best parts of UnMarketing are when the author uses his own circumstances to make a point about the importance of people and customer experience. His tale of his switch of coffee loyalty from Tim Horton's to McDonald's is a documentary-style account of how real people perceive and are impacted by business details we all too often take for granted. Based on consistency of product, suitability of packaging, and convenience of location, Stratten shifted his daily coffee habit - to the tune of perhaps $30,000 in lifetime value, underscoring the ultimate importance of every customer acquisition or defection.
As you might expect, UnMarketing is not your typical marketing and business book. It's a boullabaise of advice and observations on social media, viral marketing, and customer experience, with a side order of social media how-to. There are a few sections devoted to the mechanics of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and other social media operational specifics. Because they are relatively high level overviews, these aren't the strongest components of the book, and if you want details on Twitter or Facebook best practices, I recommend Kyle Lacy's Twitter for Dummies and Mari Smith and Chris Treadway's Facebook Marketing an Hour a Day.
But, if you're looking for an always-interesting, impactful, funny, practical book to get you excited about marketing again, you should pick up a copy of UnMarketing. Scott Stratten is a compelling character with panache and wit, and he puts these strengths to great use in his first book.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
UnMarketing: An UnBook Review, September 8, 2010
This review is from: UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. (Hardcover)
I have enjoyed Scott Stratten's content for a little while now - starting with [...], his twitter feed, and not his book.
I briefly met him at Canada 3.0 and was delighted as he tore into a panel of traditional marketers, deflating the myth that we as a society want and crave interruptive advertising. That panel session was worth the price of admission to the event.
Therefore, I was very excited to get my hands on an early copy of UnMarketing and it didn't disappoint.
It was the most engaging book on business I have ever read, consuming the better part of a weekend like only Robert Jordan, JRR Tolkien and TH White have done in the past. Before reading the following review, a couple of things to keep in mind:
1. Scott's sense of humour is perfectly matched to mine - sarcastic with a slight chance of ranting. If you don't find sarcasm an appropriate use of humour, you may not find this book as amusing as I did. Scott wields sarcasm like Picasso wields a paint brush.
2. I hate cold calling and have never done it to build my business...
What does cold calling have to do with this book review? Scott takes an aggressive early swing at traditional marketing techniques and I agree with every single point he made. Every one. At one point I even shout-whispered "HELL YEAH!" (children were sleeping at the time). Scott quickly segues into better ways to engage customers, building long term relationships and discovering the potential for every interaction with a prospect - online and off.
The tips and ideas flowing out of this book easily pay for the cover price - it is well worth the read.
Learning and Loving it!
The reason I am telling you to go buy it now is that it is FUN TO READ and INFORMATIVE. Yes, I said it, a sales/marketing/business book that was actually a pleasure to read from cover to cover. I actually counted out seven times I laughed out loud, at one point earning a quizzical look from my wife.
The last book that made me laugh out loud while reading it was Douglas Adams some 15-20 odd years ago - particularly the part with the jaguar guarding the records room, but that's a story for another time.
Scott has deliberately set out to make a very different kind of marketing book and in most ways it works.
Room for Improvement
The only disappointment found is that there are 56 chapters, and each chapter has at least one, in many cases several key action items, things that you can take and apply today. There are no "chapter summaries" that give you the key take aways from the chapter to start your to do list.
Now to be fair, I typically completely ignore the chapter summaries in most other business books - however, there is so much great content/ideas in this book that I would have liked a quick reference I could go through with a highlighter and say "these are items we are implementing this month".
I am going to re-read the book - probably starting tonight - and create a chapter by chapter summary for myself.
No Proof, No Pudding?
As a suggestion to Scott, more "Proof" (Scott has a section of a book covering the 3P's of an article/presentation) throughout the book would be a nice addition - there are a few case studies from Scott's perspective, i.e.: Switching from Tim Hortons to McDonald's coffee (by the way - can you get deported from Canada for declaring that in a public forum?)
His book would have benefited from some examples of companies who have put some of his advise into action - not just to build a marketing consultancy like Scott -but how an actual accountant, retail store, local restaurant, etc. put his advice into action and benefited directly.
There is a similar issue reading Trust Agents by Chris Brogan (another excellent book) - perhaps the UnMarketing techniques have not been in play long enough to show the specific gains to specific organizations. Maybe we'll see UnMarketing 2: People Actually Listened so Now I Can Show You
All in all you will benefit greatly from reading Scott's book on the new marketing models for our generation of customer engagement, and you will thoroughly enjoy it.
If you are interested in social media, viral marketing, or ol' fashioned treating the customer first, this book is for you.
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26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Author with results to back up his recommendations!, September 6, 2010
Fresh approach to connecting with people. Covers email, web sites, blogs, events, trade shows, networking events and social tools LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. The book was fast reading, and flipping back through in Kindle iPad now shows plenty of highlights to learn from in more detail. The author "get's it" and ga actually done what he recommends. His section on "viral" has credibility because he has the results to back up his suggestions. If you are in sales, marketing, or own your own business I heartily recommend this book.
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