Free Prize Inside
How to find the A"soft innovationA" that will make your product, service, school, church, or career worth talking aboutWe live in an era of too much noise, too much clutter, too many choices, and too much spam. And as Seth GodinA's 200,000-copy bestseller Purple Cow taught the business world, the old ways of marketing simply donA't work anymore. The best way to sell anything these days is through word of mouthA—and the only real way to get word of mouth is to create something remarkable.Free Prize Inside, the sequel to Purple Cow, explains how to do just that. ItA's jammed with practical ideas you can use right now to make your product or service remarkable, so that it will virtually sell itself.Remember when cereal came with a free prize inside? Even if you already liked the cereal, it was the little plastic toy that made it irresistible. Godin explains how you can think of a bonus that will make your customers feel just as excited, no matter what business youA're in. Consider these free prizes:A•?The Tupperware party, which turned buying plastic bowls into a social eventA•?Flintstones vitamins, which turned a serious product into something funA•?The free change-counting machine at every Commerce Bank branchA•?The little blue box from Tiffany, which makes people happy before they even open itThis book offers a way to create free prizes quickly, cheaply, and reliablyA—and persuade others in your organization to help you bring them to life.
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- That's hard to answer because there are so many different types of books. E.g. I like this one a lot, it's basically a summary of the most important academic papers about what makes online communities successful:
https://www.amazon.com/Building-Successful-Online-Communitie...
But I also like Seth Godin's books a lot, e.g. All Marketers Are Liars, Free Prize Inside, and Purple Cow.
A lot of my reading on web stuff has been vaguely in those categories though, in terms of either academic research, academic theory, digital ethnography stuff, psychology and sociology, marketing theory/praxis, plus whatever I've read on design and UX.
I would say the single book that founders in the tech industry would benefit from reading the most is probably Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn. I feel like every other startup puts themselves out of business by fucking up on the super basic things that book discusses. I end up having to explain it to people all the time.
- There's so many Guerilla Marketing books out there that it's easy to get lost reading forever with no return on your time investment. I found one Guerilla Marketing book that's like a 'best of' called "Guerilla Marketing Remix- The Best Of Guerilla Marketing" By Jay Conrad Levinson & his wife.
The Guerilla Marketing Handbook by Seth Godin seemed so dated it was hard to get through, but there were some gems in there. I think Seth's book 'Permission Marketing' is a classic & doesn't get old (not yet at least), I learned alot there. Purple Cow & Free Prize Inside are my favorites of his, still marketing I guess.
Good luck.
- Read some Seth Godin books.... purple cow, free prize inside etc... and you will learn how to market/pr. One of my college degrees is in PR but I learned more via Seth Godin's books
- I've read books on this subject, most notably, 'Free Prize Inside' by Seth Godin- a perfect sequel addressing 'the how', to the book about 'the why' to be remarkable: 'Purple Cow'.
Whenever I read on the subject it gets me to thinking about how my particular company might go about implementing practices & policies which encourage such exceptional customer experiences.
What I've come up with so far, is to invest in developing services that could be sold as 'add-ons', but which exist only to be offered as bonuses to customers when the time is ripe to affect & influence their opinion of us & the value we offer.
Of course, I aim to hire employees who will seek opportunities to go the extra mile, as do those in this article, but I also aim to empower them to& create a company culture that encourages such actions, and thus can be constantly innovating on the subject of customer satisfaction. In fact, our values statement says 'Our clients must be enthusiastically satisfied all the time', and our culture will hopefully facilitate that.
Seth Godin's book 'Free Prize Inside' covers the topic of employee involvement in this regard quite well, and I encourage anyone who finds themself inspired by this HN post to buy, read & give that book to an employee.
- In addition to Four Steps to the Epiphany, Crossing the Chasm, and Getting Real, I would add All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin. Of Seth's other books, Permission Marketing, Free Prize Inside, and The Big Red Fez also made a big impact on me. But All Marketers are Liars is the best starting place I think.
Definitely also read Art of the Start. It's less insightful and more informative, but it's still a good overview of how the startup process works and it's easily readable in a day.
- I would start with the Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside by Godin, they are high level but they talk about that fact that you need to make your product exceptional instead of pouring money into marketing.
I would also check out Inbound Marketing by Halligan and Shah, I just got it and started it but so far it looks good.
