Truly viral piece of… or Why the “$7.95 Marketing Plan” sucks
Today I’ve got across a free eBook “$7.95 Marketing Plan” by Jim Kukral. Don’t ask me who on Earth Jim is. Like with most marketing efforts, I have no clue except that he wrote this book.
Overall, that’s an application of Seth Godin’s ideas (whom I respect immensely) but in a very old (15-20 years old) way.
The core is to be remarkable. Like “The purple Cow” Just keep in mind, that does not mean “be remarkably stupid.” Not everything remarkable is good. These guys fancy formatted the book, laid it out horisontally, stuffed it with advertising… Well… most of that is not so much remarakable as annoying. Like Frank Kern doing his “sneak attack” on John Reese while people are waiting when he’ll stop fooling around and get to the business. Or, like a telemarketer saying “Good day, mister …your misspelled name… How are you today???”
Back to the eBook. Basically, Jim says, get a web domain name that stands out and that may be your ticket to prosperity. Like www.795MarketingPlan.com (that’s where you can get his book). Or, www.IQuite.com. Or, www.YourPRSucks.com. You’ve got the idea. I still remember the times when domain names broke their length limit, and marketers of that times were spamming everyone in the world with outcries “Wait until midnight when the registration will open and REGISTER YOUR DOMAINS!!!” I wonder, if GoDaddy sponsored this book. If they did, that’s a very repecatble piece of PR, hats off!
Let’s get serious, a great domain name is very important, but it’s not enough all alone. So, why do I write about this book here? Because of two points worth mentioning.
First, that’s a really good example of truly viral campaign. It does not matter that I am critisizing the book, all that matters is that I am writing about it and passing it by (which, I actually, don’t mind at all). Most viral reports include a BRIBE as a carrier, this one has a luxury of not doign so. Respectful. Very respectful piece of work. Don’t rely on that in your own campaigns, it’s not that easy to reproduce, but you should certainly admire what others achived.
Second reason is a bit off the viral marketing topic and falls more into Internet marketing and marketing in general. If you go to page 17 (kind of, they did not put page numbers in an attemmpt to be remarkable – another remarkably stupid idea), then you’ll see a great exercise to create your Unique Selling Proposition. That’s just beautiful. That’s why I wtrite about this eBook. That’s worth reading. Two pages, page #17 and page #18. If you printed it, you can throw other pages to the recycling, but these two you shoudl read.
Not much of a post for today, right? By the way, I also introduced a new category on this site: “Random Stupid Notes”. Enjoy!
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