Fresh Ideas on Marketing
Hey guys,
I wanted to recommend one of the best authors I’ve read lately and a couple of his books. I don’t know him personally and I won’t make any money off book sales. I just want to recommend him because I think you’ll enjoy his work. Some of it’s free anyway.
The guy is “Seth Godin” and he writes a lot of books. A few ones that I personally liked were “Purple Cow“, “Permission Marketing” and “Tribes“. They are interesting and fresh. You can easily see this guy is smart and can think for himself.
I’ll give you a couple main ideas that I liked anyway. Here we go:
Basically, there is FAR TOO MUCH advertising in this world. We are becoming “ad blind“. That’s actually a real term and it’s referring to this idea that humans don’t really notice or pay attention to advertising like we used to. We often will see an ad but don’t know or even care what is being advertised. People are getting smarter and we’re not all going to buy some expensive product just because some beautiful girl is standing beside it. Don’t get me wrong, ads like that can still work, but trust me, many ads fail and the only people making money from them are the people who make the ads.
There is a classic saying about advertising: “About half of my ads work, the problem is I’m not sure which half”
This is talking about the idea that many companies spend a lot on advertising and see sales go up. That means they know advertising is working overall but they don’t know which ads are worth the money and which ads are a waste of money.
“Permission Marketing” is a really cool idea to me. It is saying that you need to actually respect your fan’s and customer’s time. You need their permission to even get them to read your stuff. People are so busy these days that it’s actually not even easy to get your own family members to sit down and read your work. Imagine how hard it is to get strangers to read it. I’m talking about reading free material. When you think about free writing, it’s not actually free because the writer is asking for the reader’s time and attention. We don’t want to give our precious time and energy to reading stuff that sucks and doesn’t make us think or learn.
A lot of companies make the mistake of sending boring “free” emails that look too “corporate”. Any email that looks like it was written by some boring guy in a suit working at some large company is the worst. We all hate these emails. We go to our email box to read stuff from our friends, family, and our own work. We don’t go there so companies can send us a bunch of nonsense. Who cares about them? We all know companies like this. We click delete before we even think about reading it.
I learned a lot from this writer and I wanted to share this with you guys. I try, although maybe fail sometimes, to send emails people will actually want to read. I don’t want anyone looking at their inbox and thinking “Oh, I hate this guy, not again!”
If you work for a company or have your own business, I highly recommend reading his work. I think you’ll find it interesting. Actually, I think you’ll find it interesting regardless of what you do. Just Google “Seth Godin” and you’ll find his blog and all his work.
Love to hear your comments and opinions. I keep saying this because it’s so true!
March 27th, 2011 at 10:20 am
Hello Top Notch brothers that the world has ever seen!
Everytime you make a new blog, I go bananas and very excited about it and believe this or not your china232 company use all great marketing concepts intuitively.
Keep on blogging and I extend my best wishes to you and your family.
Cheers
March 28th, 2011 at 1:55 am
Hi man! I like so much your writes, and I always looking in my box for yours emails, your ideas are great and because I looking for improving my english, I love read yours writes.
I know my English is “bad” yet, but I’m trying to improve, and yours posts are great because I don’t just learn English, but I learning ever some thing new too!
Congratulations for your atitude, for your job and thanks a lot for send me yours ideas, I’m so happy for have know your job.
I’m from Brazil, so forguive my mistakes, but I’ll come there, in fluence and speaking well and your help is very good. thanks a lot!
March 28th, 2011 at 4:34 am
KONNICHIWA guys! Thank you so much for your writes. I really like your ideas.
so how about this?
http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Jam-Americas-Suicidal-Binge/dp/0688178057
i’m sorry if this is unkind or annoying one for you. but i think it’s pretty nice ideas. Don’t you think?
March 28th, 2011 at 8:12 am
Guys, I love ya!
every time I see your mails in my box, I take few minute off to read it and forward to my friends. It is never wasting of time but always a big pleasure, because you always share smth really useful! So please, KEEP DOIN IT!!!
Because I work on making you famous in Ukraine!
Cheers!
March 28th, 2011 at 9:36 am
It is very cool. Keep going,I appreciate what you are doing.
March 28th, 2011 at 11:36 am
Hey guys. That was another phenomenal blog. I think you guys are moving toward a rosy future. You know exactly how and what to write I mean you chose great and fresh ideas for your blogs. That is why my friends and I love spending time reading these awesome blogs.
March 28th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
I think everybody needs to be heard about their things or stuff, but unfortunately not all of those things are of our taste or preference. I agree with you that some companies try to sell us crap that are useless or with no sense at all but, that an advertisement seems boring and flat doesn’t mean it’s garbage, it’s just another kind of style or way of seeing things… Some other people might like it and find it interesting.
As always, I love watching your style and cool things you do.
greetings..
March 28th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
@ everyone
Today was a really nice day in Shanghai so Add and I decided to take a break and just enjoy the fresh air and have fun being outside. I’m really thankful to everyone who’s commented and shared their opinions. It makes me know that I’m doing the right thing by blogging.
@ sara
I’m very curious to know what kind of people you and your friends are. Are you students? Working in an office? Where are you from? How did you guys find out about our stuff in the beginning? One of my goals lately is to really find out exactly who our core audience is. I’m getting a better idea but all the info I can get really helps. Thanks in advance. By the way, anyone please feel free to answer these questions.
Cheers,
Andy
By the way, did anyone watch “Family Guy”? It’s a hilarious cartoon I recommended on twitter. Thoughts?
March 28th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
I’ve watched it! It’s really funny and very ironic, I like Stewie: The baby who speaks and acts like a grown and mean adult, and Brian: The dirty and speaking dog…. they’re great!… Their black humor and their british voices make an awesome diference from the other cartoons like ‘the Simpsoms’…
‘Lucky it’s a Family guy!!’
March 28th, 2011 at 7:36 pm
Hey Juan,
Great taste! Family Guy is hilarious. Lot’s of “inside jokes” but an understanding of that really will help anyone who wants a deep understanding of “modern” American culture
November 28th, 2011 at 10:49 am
I very glad to find this site on bing, just what I was searching for.
December 5th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Thats a very good topic.
April 19th, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Its like you learn my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, such as you wrote the guide in it or something. I think that you could do with some percent to power the message home a bit, but instead of that, this is great blog. An excellent read. I’ll certainly be back.
June 13th, 2012 at 7:41 pm
I love what you’ve written!.!!
June 13th, 2012 at 8:10 pm
I love this!.!!