Punk Marketing

Punk Marketing by Richard Laermer & Mark Simmons

http://punkmarketing.com

Probably the most “unboring” marketing book ever written. Laermer and Simmons know what they are talking about, and know how to convey it to the reader in a really intelligent, interesting and usually funny manner. This book is not about one aspect of marketing, but about how traditional marketing is changing, or at least needs to change to capture the audience’s attention. The authors persuade their readers to be creative, challenging and differ from the norm in an attempt to break through the noise of all of todays marketing efforts. Through the course of the book Laermer and Simmons go through advertising online, on cell phones, on TV, untraditional (sidewalks, merchandise, billboards), video games amongst other things.

Reading this book really got my creative juices flowing. These guys detest that too many advertisers still think inside the box and provide ample stories of alternatives to the norm. This is a great read for anyone in the advertising or marketing business that will definitely get you thinking about creative new ways to reach your audience. Bravo!

Great New Commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljKnzB-xexk

On Oct 28, 2008 there are 2,554 Views.

This is a great example of using YouTube to further your traditional campaign. This video was put on YouTube by American Airlines. Right now there are 2,000 views. I am guessing that in a week this will be closer to 20,000. Lets see if I’m right.

The Web Traffic Orgasm – by Dean Hunt

http://www.webtrafficorgasm.com/thankyou.html

This article is about how to get a blog post to be seen by tons of people. Dean does a case study of how he made a bet with his friend that he could take a a boring blog post, spice it up a bit and within a week have it show up on the Digg main page. He accomplishes this within 36 hours. Here’s how:

Note: Some of this wording is taken directly from this e-book

(A summary of his 9 steps)

1. Global Appeal – Blogs unlike more traditional advertising can be seen by everyone, globally. If you use easy to understand language that non-native speakers can understand, you are more likely to get tons of viewers. Ex. Original blog article was called “procrastinator’s creed”. He changed it to “10 step guide to thinking like a loser”

2. Use a negativity slant – Content with a negative slant always gets more buzz then positive content. Think local daily news.

3. The killer headline

4. Internet readers LOVE lists – Apparently “Top 7″ is the magic number. The most number of stories on the Digg main page have this as compared to any other headline.

5. Stand out from the crowd – be creative, controversial, edgy, weird, unique. Try them all.

6. Curiosity killed the cat – create a headline that raises people’s interest. This is achievable by using a teaser in the headline.

7. Image is everything – Add an image to your article.

8. Perfect Packaging – Have a professional looking site, otherwise no one will link to you.

9. Write in second person – This shifts the focus from you to them. Think about how boring it is when someone is constantly talking about themselves all day. Which is more powerful? “Do you want to know how I made $10,000 in a day?” OR “How you can make $10,000 in a day?”

These summaries are good if you are short on time, however this e-book is a quick read and if you have a spare 15 minutes you should really give it a read.

As you can see I am turning into a big Dean Hunt fan. The reasons are that he is young, smart, creative and gives his readers really good information…not bad reasons I would say.

His different blogs are:

deanhunt.com

streetlessons.com

retiredat21.com

Buzz Content Hustlers by Dean Hunt & Barry Dunlop

http://www.deanhunt.com/Buzz%20Content%20Hustlers%20eBook.pdf

What can I say, this e-book is really good! It is short and sweet with many case studies, exactly what I like. These guys combine humor with amazing viral marketing ideas. I think that anyone could read this and right away start a successful blog.

This e-book is really about how to get the most people to your website. It provides ideas called “hustles” that will get your website off the ground and have thousands of people tune in quickly. The ideas here can be applied to pretty much any product in any industry. For big companies it is especially useful for their blogs or micro-sites and smaller companies can use the ideas for any product.

Some “hustles” are:

The Ego-Stroking Hustle – launch a blog praising everyone in your industry. People’s ego’s are a great thing to play off. They will be so happy with this they will sing your praises off of rooftops in the form of links. One of the biggest money making blogs on the internet accomplished its success doing just this. Ex. alltop.com

The Challenge (with forfeit) Hustle – ex. “One man’s challenge to see how much weight he can lose using Nintendo Wii Fit” People love to see challenges, especially ridicolous ones like this. And the beauty is that even if you don’t succeed the forfeit can get as much attention as the attempts.

This will only take you ten minutes to read and its worth it.