Marketing is not a task.
Marketing is not a department.
Marketing is not a job.
Marketing happens every time you engage (or not) with your past, present, and potential customers
So, recently I’ve been reading UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. by Scott Stratten and I thought I’d share some of the bits that made me go ‘oooooo yes I should definitely change how I do that’. Problem with that is that most of the book made me do that so here are the top best bits (as well as two pictures featuring my knees…)
The book talks about the importance of building relationships with your customers and gives lots of examples of how this has been done well and badly by various organisations (the bad examples are my favourite!)
Scott emphasis the need to be authentic and real and not be tempted by automation where it kills personal contact.
He has a fancy diagram (who doesn’t love a diagram?) that shows that the best customers are those who have a relationship with you based on trust.
He describes the ‘trust gap‘ – “the amount of trust you have to earn before your potential customer will consider buying from you” and the ‘experience gap‘ – “the space between the best services, often what a new customer receives and the worst experience”. You need to work out how to bridge the former and minimise the latter.
The book is full of easy to read case studies and examples. The chapters are short and snappy which makes it perfect park reading material…
Scott definitely practises what he preaches, I tweeted this picture and mentioned @unmarketing…
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/jowalters/status/57139057960030208″]
… and swiftly got this reply 🙂
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/unmarketing/status/57151603144273920″]
You should buy the book and go have a wander through the UnMarketing website – www.unmarketing.com
Jo