There are a million “I make money online!” sites out there. They’re everywhere: How I made a bazillion dollars from blogging, and you can, too!
It reminds me of that scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas (my son’s favorite):
I can’t deal with any of them.
So, when I read this a new book called UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. by Scott Stratten (h/t to John McLachlan), I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Finally, someone who is not all about the sell! sell! sell! Scott is all about creating relationships.
UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.
First of all, I hate selling. I really, really hate it. I’d rather die than do a cold call. My first job out of university (you have to understand how desperate I was) was selling carpet cleaning. Trust me when I say, I am a terrible telemarketer, and I didn’t last long.
The most basic and grounding principle of my business is: Marketing is creating relationships based on trust, and it applies both to my business and to the work that I do for my clients. If I can write enticing copy and I have a good reputation with the media as a publicist, I should be successful at what I do. And I am. Without having to make cold calls, thank goodness.
The book has many case studies: some negative, but mostly positive ones, of businesses who give exceptional customer service, and are very successful (ie: @Zappos and @Freshbooks). But he also talks about some of the basics of running a marketing campaign online: transparency, authenticity, immediacy, and relevancy.
If you’re looking for a book that has lots of specific technical “how-to” techniques, this is not it (although there is a section the explores how to create something “viral” that I will be interested to try out). It’s much more about the theory of how things work, and it keeps coming back to one main point: the relationship.
When you’re good, you tell people. When you’re great, other say it for you.
–Scott Stratten
I loved this book because it validated everything that I believe and have been talking about with regards to social media over the last few years. Plus the footnotes are hilairous: it’s worth buying the book for the footnotes alone.
I reccomend it very highly.