UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. [Hardcover]

Scott Stratten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2010

From one of the leading experts in viral and social marketing-market your business effectively to today's customers

For generations, marketing has been hypocritical. We've been taught to market to others in ways we hate being marketed to (cold-calling, flyers, ads, etc.). So why do we still keep trying the same stale marketing moves?

UnMarketing shows you how to unlearn the old ways and consistently attract and engage the right customers. You'll stop just pushing out your message and praying that it sticks somewhere. Potential and current customers want to be listened to, validated, and have a platform to be heard-especially online. With UnMarketing, you'll create such a relationship with your customers, and make yourself the logical choice for their needs.

• Shows how to create a mindset and systems to roll out a new, 21st century marketing approach
• Marketing expert Scott Stratten focuses on a Pull & Stay method (pulling your market towards you and staying/engaging with them, leading them to naturally choose you for their needs) rather than Push & Pray
• Redefines marketing as all points of engagement between a company and its customers, not just a single boxed-in activity

Traditional marketing methods are leading to diminishing returns and disaffected customers. The answer? Stop marketing, start UnMarketing!

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From one of the leading experts in viral and social marketing-market your business effectively to today's customers

For generations, marketing has been hypocritical. We've been taught to market to others in ways we hate being marketed to (cold-calling, flyers, ads, etc.). So why do we still keep trying the same stale marketing moves?

UnMarketing shows you how to unlearn the old ways and consistently attract and engage the right customers. You'll stop just pushing out your message and praying that it sticks somewhere. Potential and current customers want to be listened to, validated, and have a platform to be heard-especially online. With UnMarketing, you'll create such a relationship with your customers, and make yourself the logical choice for their needs.

• Shows how to create a mindset and systems to roll out a new, 21st century marketing approach
• Marketing expert Scott Stratten focuses on a Pull & Stay method (pulling your market towards you and staying/engaging with them, leading them to naturally choose you for their needs) rather than Push & Pray
• Redefines marketing as all points of engagement between a company and its customers, not just a single boxed-in activity

Traditional marketing methods are leading to diminishing returns and disaffected customers. The answer? Stop marketing, start UnMarketing!

Seven Deadly Social Media Sins to Avoid
Amazon-exclusive content from author Scott Stratten

The thing that makes me shake my head the most in the world of social media is the fact that we try to over-complicate it. Although the tools may be new and virtual, nothing has changed.

People do business first with those they like, know and trust. Social media is as simple as looking at it as a networking event without the need to drive there or the chance of getting cornered by the "creepy guy with scotch." It's about connection and conversation. Even if you don't believe that, it's a heck of a listening tool to see what your target marketing/customers/competitors are talking about. If I offered you a tool 10 years ago that allowed you to do what social media does today, you would have paid $20,000 a month to access it and today it’s free.

So just try to avoid these seven deadly social media sins, and you'll do just fine:

Gluttony
Everyone wants a truckload of followers, a mass-amount of Facebook fans, and a LinkedIn rolodex of thousands. But, especially if you're just starting out, trying to be everything everywhere at once will only dilute your presence and not allow for any momentum. Pick one social media platform and live there first. Build up your presence. Once you get comfortable and feel you have a good audience, then expand to a second one.

Sloth
Checking your Twitter account once a month won't cut it. Trying to have presence on Facebook without being present is a surefire way of having your page taken over by spammers. If you're going to jump into the social media pool, you need to have consistent presence. If you only can commit five hours a week to it, it's better to spend it 45 minutes every day than 5 hours once a week. If it takes you longer to reply to a tweet than it would to mail a letter, you're doing it wrong.

Greed
Social media isn't a new medium to try to push ineffective old marketing messages. It truly is a different world. People are there to build relationships, not buy your stuff (initially). Setting up an automated Twitter program to tweet for you and automatically add followers is a great way to say to people "We don't actually care what you're saying, just buy from us." It would be like sending a mannequin to a networking event with your company logo on it. Yeah, creepy.

Wrath
One of the nice things about social media is its casual, conversational nature. The problem is sometimes people let their guard down and remove their filter. Never say anything in social media that you don't want to see on a billboard with your name, logo, face, and phone number attached, with your client/boss/mother driving by. Google never forgets and social media updates are indexed rather quickly. This has nothing to do with "free speech" but more "what do I want my brand to be associated with."

Lust
I know last weekend in Vegas was "the bomb" because you made out with a "hottie" and you were "so drunk" you threw up in your shoes, but I'm not sure we all need to know that. And inviting me to your Facebook group on how to tone my buns is flattering and all, but remember to try and be professional, at least when it comes to a topic like this. Being human is awesome, being perverted isn't.

Envy
Looking at Lady GaGa having millions of Twitter followers is not going to help your self-esteem when you only have 40. Don't compare your fans/followers/connections count to other organizations. You don't know how engaged they are with them (the more important trait) and you don't know how they got to that number. Focus on creating quality connections, make great content, and your audience will grow organically.

Pride
There is nothing wrong with being proud of your upcoming teleseminar that may be a disguise for a pitch fest. There is something wrong when you post the notice about it on my Facebook wall, my company wall, and send it as a direct message. It's social media spam and it needs to stop. Even worse is tagging people just so they'll think it's about them and they will come look, or inviting your entire Facebook network to your event in San Jose tomorrow night when most live so far away, they would never come. Take a little bit of time and target event invites.

Review

“(INSERT NAME HERE) has written a game changer for (INSERT INDUSTRY HERE). Drop everything and read this book!”—Famous author who hasn’t read this book

“This author has paid $8,000 to be part of my ‘bestselling author program’ and he gets a testimonial as part of his fee. This is it.”—Bestselling author who has written a testimonial for every biz book out there

“This book has a great amount of words.”—Fortune 500 CEO that was at an open-bar event with author and agreed to give testimonial

“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

Don’t believe every book testimonial you read.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons; 1 edition (September 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047061787X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470617878
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.9 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #232,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Scott Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing. He is an expert in Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing which he calls Un-Marketing. It's all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of your target market, so when they have the need, they choose you.

Formerly a music industry marketer, national sales training manager and a Professor at the Sheridan College School of Business, he ran his "UnAgency" for a nearly a decade before solely focusing on speaking at events for companies like PepsiCo, Adobe, Red Cross, Cirque du Soleil, Saks Fifth Avenue and Fidelity Investments when they need help guiding their way through the viral/social media and relationship marketing landscape.

He now has over 120,000 people follow his daily rantings on Twitter and was just named one of the top 5 social media influencers in the world on Forbes.com. It's the only time he's felt comfortable being compared to Ashton Kutcher, P Diddy and Justin Bieber.

His book "UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging" became a national best-seller before it was released, and recently a Globe and Mail #1 Business best-seller, National Post, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon UK best-seller. It was also just named one of the top business books of the year by 1-800-CEO READ and one of the top 10 books by Under30CEO.com. The paperback version was just released to be followed by his second book in the Fall of 2012.

His passion comes out most when speaking on stage, preaching engagement and becoming one of the most sought-out speakers on the subject.

"One person even told me he stayed up all night after Scott's talk to rethink his entire approach to marketing his business. He was that inspired when he left." - Sloane Kelley, Co-Founder, GeekEnd

"An eye-opener of why, and how, we need to start shifting our marketing weight from the broadcast leg to the dialogue leg. And it doesn't hurt one bit that he made it the funniest and most entertaining presentation we all sat through this year″ - Tom Moradpour, PepsiCo, International Marketing Director, Pepsi

His clients' viral marketing videos have been viewed over 60 million times and he's recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, USA Today, Entrepreneur Magazine, CNN.com, Inc.com and Fast Company and was just named one of "America's 10 Marketing Gurus" by Business Review USA. That plus $5 gets him a coffee anywhere in the world.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars UNcanny Insights from UNmarketing September 4, 2010

By Jason Baer

Format: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.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars All it takes to be an expert is to say you are? Ad nauseam? January 15, 2011

By Cenk Sumen

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was assigned this book by our talented marketing business unit. Though I agree with the astute (*) and (**) reviews here, I feel comfortable giving three stars since I accept the basic concept presented in the book. The author throws the golden rule at marketing (treat your customers the way you'd want to be treated) and sprays the familiar self-help pep-talk/pacifiers (you can do it! you're great! you can figure out how to make $ from Tweeter, really you can!) which simultaneously and all-too-briefly fires up and soothes the tired, overworked, overweight masses which are the well-oiled gears of the US economy. A virtual Icy Hot Balm on our frazzled brains.

The one egregious fallacy in this book is right up front, page 6: "You are an expert when you say you are one." Although in the next paragraph this muddy thinking is watered down by the self-contradicting "You don't become an expert by just telling people you're an expert- people tell you and then they tell others.", the damage (to the thinking reader) is done. If we really take this to its logical extreme, expertise just becomes a popularity contest. Although sometimes it seems we pick our leaders this way (thankfully not the current president), surely we don't want to live in a society where the "experts" are the ones which yell loudest or have the most fans.

Another basic premise I disagree with is whether doing something "which makes you feel ill" means that it's wrong and you should not do it. It might apply to cold-calling, but every one of us who's trained hard physically knows the nausea-inducing unpleasant moments, which can be good for the body and mind in the long run (sorry for the pun).

In most businesses, it's good to get out there and meet potential clients face-to-face. You get a chance to impress them in person, on the spot, and no social media tool will substitute for human contact and the verbal jousting that goes on during a real discussion (our brains evolved to respond best to those stimuli).

Un-marketing basically means "not traditional marketing". So the author wants you to build a follower base before you present your ideas and products to them, and presents some ideas and examples of how to go about doing so. This is not a bad premise. Unfortunately, the terrible humor (meant to sugar-coat the ideas in "entertainment") and the ongoing monologue with the footnotes significantly detracts from his delivery, at least to this reader. In fact, this book is at least memorable for having the most irritating, asinine footnotes ever. On top of that, his overly jocular, self-centered (to put it kindly) style is just not very professional and detracts from his message and helpful Twitter FAQs.

On the subject of his dominance of social media, or "expertise" if you will, let's do a little math. We want to ascertain the returns on his tweet binge. As of the writing of this review, the author has 77466 followers, quite an impressive number. To capture this audience however, he posted 66752 Tweets and follows 33786 accounts himself. One way to gain an idea of effort vs gain is to subtract the followed from followers (77466-33786) to eliminate the reciprocal follow-me-and-I'll-follow-you types (also begs the question whether one person can ever meaningfully "engage" with 33786 tweeters a day). That leaves us with 43680 followers. Divide his total Tweets by that number, and you get about one and a half Tweets posted to get one follower (or only two-thirds of a non-reciprocal follower per tweet). The caveat is that it apparently only takes him a few seconds per tweet. Still, many people unfollow users which tweet too many times a day, if they are interested in actually reading them and not just collecting points. It's just like spam filling up your inbox and obscuring the stuff you actually want to read and learn something important from.

To put things into perspective, let's consider Cristiano Ronaldo, a professional soccer player currently plying his trade in Spain (for those Americans who haven't heard of him, with apologies to the rest of the globe). While not as good-looking as the author (who compares himself to a GQ model, though with an ever-irksome footnote diluting the comment), CR has 1.488 Million followers, following only 50 and having 331 Tweets. And he's got a bit of talent and a day job.

Final example close to home: the ever-resilient and clever Conan O'Brian. 2.17 Million followers, following 1 (one) himself, 342 tweets. I like Conan's tweets. They are always witty, to the point, often funny, and he doesn't overdo it. But the real interesting bit is the one person Conan follows, a person named Sarah Slowik from Michigan. With 38K followers she seems only half the Tweeter the author is, but considering she's only following 460 (I feel that's a number one can actually follow and read daily) and made 1235 tweets, applying the above reasoning we get 30.8 non-reciprocal followers per tweet she made. Considering the author himself only had 0.65 nr followers/tweet, Ms. Slowik seems to be almost _50 times_ more efficient and effective in using this medium. Her description is very sweet and lacking in the self-aggrandizement that is all-too-often endemic to mouse-wielding males:"I love to smile and have fun in life. I think that anyone and anything can be forgiven and we should all just love and be." And she's the only one Conan himself follows. Maybe she should write a book- agents take heed.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars UnMarketing: An UnBook Review September 8, 2010

By Titus Ferguson

Format: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.