Book Description
"The Long Tail" is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of unlimited variety for unique tastes. From supermarket shelves to advertising agencies, the ability to offer vast choice is changing everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to get to them. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to songs on iTunes to advertising on Google. However, this is not just a virtue of online marketplaces; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its power. After a century of obsessing over the few products at the head of the demand curve, the new economics of distribution allow us to turn our focus to the many more products in the tail, which collectively can create a new market as big as the one we already know. The Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the definition of whats commercially viable across the board. If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches.
Customer Reviews:
Fabulos... indispensable para entender la nueva realidad de internet.......2007-10-08
Este es un libro estructural. Ayuda a comprender la forma en que trabaja la economia a la luz de los avances de internet.
Pero tambien es un placer leerlo, lenguaje claro, ejemplos relevantes. Un lujo.
Good article, stretched out to a padded book.......2007-09-26
This book started off as an article in Wired Magazine, and it was an excellent one. But Anderson must have decided to cash in, because the book doesn't add anything that wasn't covered in the article itself. It's not a complex concept.
Read the article on the Wired website. Then go spend your money on something from a tiny niche market.
One Trick Pony.......2007-09-09
This is one of those books that has one, keen insight and then takes one hundred + pages to say the same thing over and again. The keen point is indeed interesting. It just does not a complete book make. My $.02 !!
Good book for the startup entrepreneur in the 21-century .......2007-08-20
This is an insightful book into the today's world of retail business. Cool examples of how the Internet has leveled the playing field for many small businesses and artist.
Looking at it from the point of view of the producer and not the consumer or the retailer .......2007-08-16
I am not much of a business mind but I think I get the picture here. Instead of twenty percent of the product bringing in eighty percent of the revenue ninety- eight percent of the product is going to bring in all the revenue. Having so much available, and having ready access to it means sales no longer concentrate on a relatively few items. Freedom of choice abounds, niches multiply, Alvin Toffler is happy, future shock is no longer shocking, customization is here forever, and we all can have anything we want as long as we are able to pay for it.
Good. But I think of this in another way. Does this mean that 'value' also will not be centered as we ordinarily center it in the great works, the masterpeices, the few chosen ones? Does it mean our whole conception of valuing cultural goods will change, and a few big things will be less worshipped while many more appreciated? In other words will deTocqueville be happy here because 'equality' is in the saddle and mankind has many little good things, instead of the aristocracy only having a few?
And what does that mean for creators of culture? As a writer can I now happily post my unpublished writings with the thought that perhaps a few will read them, where before none did. In other words a moneyless long- tail is still a long- tail.
I don't know. But I do sense Anderson has hit on to a new truth here which will have all kinds of implications better business people than me will have to see.
Amazon.com
Sellout "Brand" or just plain "Bland"? In Lovemarks, advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts delves deep into what mysteries lie behind the long-term success and unwavering customer loyalty for a can of Coke or a pair of Levi's, ultimately concluding that Love is the answer, and without some emotional connection to a product, it will dry up like a generic raisin in the sun. Enter Lovemarks, the new marketing buzzword, which will likely be bandied about at board meetings as vigorously as The Tipping Point.
But before Roberts can get to what in fact a Lovemark means in the worlds of advertising and marketing, he takes us on a virtual tour of his CV. There was his first post at Mary Quant in London, then the gig as New Products Manager of Gillette International in the Middle East, on to CEO of Pepsi in Canada, and later the same role at Lion Nathan in New Zealand. The list goes on, and so does Roberts--on and on--about his achievements and experience building brand awareness and shaking things up (he famously machine-gunned a vending machine at a presentation for a spot on the evening news). More importantly, he succeeds at blasting away the smoke and mirrors that might prevent a creative genius (or an ordinary consumer) from seeing what makes Superman the most beloved super-hero of all time.
Despite the somewhat egocentric approach to taking us there (he is, after-all, a pretty smart guy), we arrive at Roberts's point beautifully, and see what he sees: "That human attention has become our principle currency." And that, in these times, forming long-term emotionally charged relationships with customers is the only way to make a product weather the long haul. And while Roberts speaks to us in a spirited, conversational manner (that makes Lovemarks a pleasure to read), the design of the book seems to work against him, as convoluted typography and a general lack of layout consistency give the book a visually amateurish look. --Christene Barberich
Book Description
Tom Peters, one of the most influential business thinkers of all time, described the first edition of Lovemarks: the future beyond brands as "brilliant." He also announced it as the "Best Business Book" published in the first five years of this century. Now translated into fourteen languages, with more than 150,000 copies in print, Lovemarks is back in a revised edition featuring a new chapter on the peculiarly human experience of shopping. The new chapter, Diamonds in the Mine, is an insightful collection of ideas for owners of small stores and operators of superstores, for producers and consumers. So forget making lists! Shopping, says Kevin Roberts, is an emotional event. With this as a starting point, he looks at the history of shopping and how it has changed so dramatically over the last ten years. Using the Lovemark elements of Mystery, Sensuality, and Intimacy, Roberts delves into the secrets of success that can be used to create the ultimate shopping experience. "Ideas move mountains, especially in turbulent times. Lovemarks is the product of the fertile-iconoclast mind of Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi. Roberts argues vociferously, and with a ton of data to support him, that traditional branding practices have become stultified. What's needed are customer Love affairs. Roberts lays out his grand scheme for mystery, magic, sensuality, and the like in his gloriously designed book Lovemarks." (Tom Peters)
Customer Reviews:
creative book.......2007-08-03
Enjoyed the book and unique format made it a breeze to read. Probably better suited for marketing professionals or business owners in retail.
Would you pay for an advertising flyer?.......2007-05-12
Well, you will if you buy this book! If you're in the industry there's nothing in this book you don't already know! If you're not in the ad industry, then by all means, go ahead and buy it so you can see how clever it is to publish a self-serving eye candy full of propaganda for Saatchi and Saatchi and Kevin Roberts concealed as a book about branding!
Changed My Perspective.......2007-03-13
I highly recommend this book. The format makes it entertaining to read. The concepts are fresh and crisp. The writing style of Kevin Roberts, is as if you are an old friend -- sharing a glass of wine over dinner with him.
Good principles about how to build great brands.......2007-03-12
I really enjoyed this book, building emotion based links with your customers it's a necessary task in the competitive business scenario of nowadays, and Kevin Roberts explains a framework of this, with examples of how many successful brands have done it and he explains the principles that drives his personal view of the future of brands too.
Reading the book it's a stunning visual experience, almost every page has a lot of pictures that makes you understand clearly what it's talking about (a picture is a thousand words worth).
I believe that every category needs a very specific combination of the values shown in the book, but that it's not deepened in the book and I missed, because it can make you understand the emotion that drives every product in every category. Well, I think that the latter it's our work!
Brilliant Packaging but Not New!.......2007-01-23
I have met Kevin Roberts and had a chance to chat with him about the "Lovemark" concept when he was giving a speech in Istanbul. I think he is a colorful and brilliant individual who has managed to package some great marketing principles that age back to Bernbach into a great new concept. Though many principles in the book are not fresh to those who are not a novice in marketing literature, I think the term "Lovemark" is brilliant in itself. The design of the book is great with lots of colorful pictures and helpful examples. You sometimes feel that many of the examples are overused and the book is self serving, but it is worth to spend some time with the Lovemark concept.
I have seen an interview with Kevin in Ad Age about how they launched this book to recruit new business into their agency. I think it is a great new business tool and brilliant strategy to lure customers to their shop. I personally think "the HOW" part is missing, how are you going to make your brand into a Lovemark remains a question.
If you are interested in entering into the hearts of customers not just their wallets, you should definetly lend an ear to Kevin.
Book Description
"A large part of virtue consists in good habits," said William Paley.
In his new book, The Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards, Jerold Panas would rephrase that a tad: A large part of an organization's success depends on its board's willingness to cultivate certain behaviors.
Over the course of a storied career, Panas has worked with literally thousands of boards, from those governing the toniest of prep schools to those spearheading the local Y. He has counseled floundering groups; he has been the wind beneath the wings of boards whose organizations have soared.
In fact, it's a safe bet that Panas has observed more boards at work than perhaps anyone in America, all the while helping them to surpass their campaign goals of $100,000 to $100 million.
Funnel every ounce of that experience and wisdom into a single book and what you have is The Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards, the brilliant culmination of what Panas has learned firsthand about boards who excel at the task of resource development.
Anyone who has read Asking or any of Panas' other books knows his style - a breezy and irresistible mix of storytelling, exhortation, and inspiration.
Habits follows the same engaging mold, offering a panoply of habits any board would be wise to cultivate. Some are specific, with measurable outcomes. Others are more intangible, with Panas seeking to impart an attitude of success.
Here's just a sampling:
• You don't allow a mission deficit. • You never lose sight that your organization is in the business of changing lives or saving lives. • You're willing to leave the comfort zone. • You understand that not all gifts are worth accepting.
In all, there are 25 habits and each is explored in two- and three-page chapters … and all of them animated by real-life stories only this grandmaster of philanthropy can tell.
In a mere 117 pages, about an hour's read, Jerold Panas has accomplished two feats. He has produced a book that boards will find simultaneously ennobling and instructive. And he has relegated to the recycling bin dozens upon dozens of ponderous and inauthentic treatises on the subject of nonprofit boards and fundraising.
Customer Reviews:
Required reading for anybody who is involved in fundraising!.......2007-05-10
I serve on one non-profit Board, so naturally when I was browsing and
came across THE FUNDRAISING HABITS OF SUPREMELY
SUCCESSFUL BOARDS by Jerold Panas,
I just had to get it.
The fact that its subtitle promised me that I could read it in
59 minutes made it even more appealing . . . what's best of
all: the ideas contained in the book made sense . . . and
they work!
For example, there was this one:
Not only is it good manners to thank donors, it's fiscally prudent.
It costs a whopping 4 1/2 times the resources, staff and energy to
acquire a new donor as it is to keep a current one.
Nothing profound, yet something that we forget all too often--regardless
of our field of endeavor.
Then there was the following:
Givers give. Which explains why at the end of your campaign, if you're
short of goal, you cal on those who have already given. You don't go to
those who earlier said, "call on me later." Chances are they'll put
you off again.
Lastly, this tidbit really struck home:
From my 40 years of experience, I can say without question the first
and foremost reason people give is because your organization
changes lives or saves lives.
Although it took me less than an hour to read, I must admit to
going back to reread it because there were so many fine ideas
contained therein . . . in fact, I'm going to recommend THE
FUNDRAISING HABITS to my non-profit Board and, also,
to my friends who belong to other Boards.
Fundraising.......2007-01-18
This is an excellent book to help a board member clearly understand his responsibility to fund raising. This is an easy read and can be done quickly. Excellent book!
GREAT read, easily digestible.......2006-08-25
Jerold Panas has done it again, with a deeply insightful, yet infinitely practical little volume. Just about every page contains an applicable nugget of wisdom in the exciting quest to develop a dynamic volunteer board. Get this book -- it's a quick read, but one that is likely to change your outlook and energize your organization.
Habits Worth Cultivating.......2006-08-24
Previously, when we were planning our major gifts campaign, I used Panas' book, ASKING, to motivate my board. It did the trick. Figuring lightning might strike twice, I recently gave them a copy of FUNDRAISING HABITS. They liked it just as much. And they're in the early stages of modeling some of the behaviors Panas outlines. Definitely if you have a board that needs a fundraising "pump up", this book may help.
Great Book!.......2006-06-30
Jerry Panas has written a book all of us in philanthropy will want to give to every member of our boards. How often during my twenty-five years of fundraising I have said: "Oh, what I wouldn't give for a stronger board!" What I was really saying was "I wish my board members would give our organization more financial support." And, time and again, I have made the excuse for our board members that they were not chosen because of their philanthropic generosity, but because of their area of expertise. Panas will never let us get away with this excuse again! He raises the bar both for philanthropy staff and for board members with "24 Fundraising Habits" that will change, for the better, our ability to develop effective board members and raise financial support for our organization's mission.
Book Description
In one of the most original books of its kind ever written, Patrick Hanlon explains how the most powerful brands create a community of believers around the brand, revealing the seven components that will help every company and marketer capture the public imagination -- and seize a bigger slice of the pie.
What is the magic glue that adheres consumers to Google, Mini Cooper, and Oprah, but not to others? Why do many brands with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace that brands like Apple, Starbucks, or Nike have? After years of working with famous brands like Absolut, Ford Motor Company, LEGO, Disney, Montblanc, Sara Lee, and others, Patrick Hanlon, senior advertising executive and founder of Thinktopia, decided to find the answers. His search revealed seven definable assets that together construct the belief system that lies behind every successful brand, whether it's a product, service, city, personality, social cause, or movement.
In Primal branding, Hanlon explores those seven components, known as the primal code, and shows how to use and combine them to create a community of believers in which the consumer develops a powerful emotional attachment to the brand. These techniques work for everyone involved in creating and selling an image -- from marketing managers to social advocates to business leaders seeking to increase customer preference for new or existing products. Primal branding presents a world of new possibility for everyone trying to spark public appeal -- and the opportunity to move from being just another product on the shelf to becoming a desired and necessary part of the culture.
Download Description
What is the magic glue that adheres consumers to Google, Mini Cooper, and Oprah, but not to others? Why do many brands with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace that brands like Apple, Starbucks, or Nike have? After years of working with famous brands like Absolut, Ford Motor Company, LEGO, Disney, Montblanc, Sara Lee, and others, Patrick Hanlon, senior advertising executive and founder of Thinktopia, decided to find the answers. His search revealed seven definable assets that together construct the belief system that lies behind every successful brand, whether it's a product, service, city, personality, social cause, or movement.
Customer Reviews:
The Why and the How of Branding.......2007-08-13
Primal Branding goes much deeper than most books on branding. It is not just about logos and tag lines but about the seven crucial components which must be present to creating a brand that connects.
The seven attributes are the creation story, the creed, icons, rituals, sacred words, pagans (the opposite or those opposed to the brand) and leaders. Primal branding is not about "building a church, but creating a religion."
"Primal Branding has broken down the elements that help people feel better about a brand." All marketers are searching for ways to stand out from the crowd, to get attention, to connect. Hanlon has given us the blueprint to do just that. But as he says, "If all we needed were a recipe, everyone would be a great chef." He gives us the blueprint, but there is still the need to create the story, to make sure it resonates with everyone, the employees, the vendors and the customers. Branding is still part science, part art and a good deal of luck.
The book is well written, easy to read and filled with many examples of very successful brands - from coca-cola to lego to U2. Hanlon goes behind the scenes to uncover what made the brands successful. He gives great insight into the things we must do to make our own brands successful.
While we have the essential steps to brand our products or services, we still need to bring the emotional connection into the process. That of course is where the art and luck comes in.
If you are responsible for marketing your services, you really need to read this book.
Success For The Business Owner.......2007-05-07
The "buzz" word out of everyones mouth in marketing today is BRANDING yet when I asked people what they meant by that, I could never get an answer that made any sense until I was told about this "WONDERFUL" book.
This very easy read explains EVERYTHING you need to make your business boom! "Many Thanks" to Patrick Hanlon, I am now in the process of "branding" my business with a new understanding and outlook of myself and my work-!!
Definitely worth the time to read.......2007-03-25
Branding isn't that easy, so I feel that anyone trying to boil it down to seven ways to nirvana is a bit simplistic. But Hanlon's seven elements of primal branding make a ton a sense. The emphasis on the creation story is a helpful reminder that brands derive strength from people knowing where they come from and why they exist. While I think it could have made these points in fewer pages, I would definitely recommend this book
Not the first book to read on branding.......2007-02-23
I felt the book was too far off the track on the "how to" portion of branding.
Delivers more than promised.......2006-08-29
This is one of those rare business books that delivers far beyond a restatement of old theory or advocating a personal belief. This book takes a subject that can seem cerebral or intangible and puts it into a language and coherent model that anyone can understand and implement. It is one of those books that both has you nodding "yes, yes, yes" as it makes absolute sense and saying "yes!" I can follow this and change my business. In fact, it is so clear, I think it can be used outside business just as effectively as well. I recommend it to everyone I talk to (except my competitors!).
Book Description
THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS, 5th Edition provides a personal roadmap for understanding and navigating the future of business. Emphasizing "You Are the Future of Business," this edition will teach students to navigate through the sometime stormy business environment by stressing two significant factors that should guide decision-making: customer satisfaction and quality. Other important business issues such as entrepreneurship, cultural and workplace diversity, ethics, global business, technology, teams, and e-commerce are emphasized in this new edition.
Customer Reviews:
Well Put Together.......2002-05-11
This text, I found, to be easy to read and understand. Following along through the fundamentals of business was a snap and made the semester much more enjoyable (if college can be).
Book Description
In this visionary book, C. K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy explore why, despite unbounded opportunities for innovation, companies still can't satisfy customers and sustain profitable growth. The explanation for this apparent paradox lies in recognizing the structural changes brought about by the convergence of industries and technologies; ubiquitous connectivity and globalization; and, as a consequence, the evolving role of the consumer from passive recipient to active co-creator of value. Managers need a new framework for value creation. This book is about the emerging "next practices" in value creation.
Increasingly, individual customers interact with a network of firms and consumer communities to co-create value. No longer can firms autonomously create value. Neither is value embedded in products and services per se. Products are but an artifact around which compelling individual experiences are created. As a result, the focus of innovation will shift from products and services to experience environments that individuals can interact with to co-construct their own experiences. These personalized co-creation experiences are the source of unique value for consumers and companies alike.
In this emerging opportunity space, companies must build new strategic capital-a new theory on how to compete. This book presents a detailed view of the new functional, organizational, infrastructure, and governance capabilities that will be required for competing on experiences and co-creating unique value. This is the future of competition.
Customer Reviews:
Future of marketing..........2006-06-19
Caveat - I see most things from a marketer's prospective, hence, I read this book in that context. I think the ideas of Prahalad and Ramaswamy are the future of marketing. If you take a look at a few of today's successful companies, including Amazon.com and eBay for instance, you will see that one of the reasons they have been so successful is because they worked with their customers. I think the book should be required reading for anyone going into the marketing field.
Nothing insightful that is worth the onerous read.......2005-06-22
The authors have created a massive text that does not add much to the earlier paper they had published. The book has mainly two messages - maximizing customer experience is the basis of value creation and firms have to be experience-driven rather than product-centric. (BTW, these are the author's buzz words not mine
).
They cite cases that have no hard links to their messages but a tenous connection. There is no proof or metrics to show that this is the way to go.
I am sure the academics have the luxury of writing long books to sustain their tenureship compared to us real-world practioners, where things have to work now or in the next quarter for us to go anywhere in the corporate world. Sorry, academics.
Breakthrough Thinking for higher IQ managers.......2005-04-23
The concepts presented in the book are deceptively easy to gloss over. I do not blame the reviewers at this site who did not 'get it'.
This is not something one can expect to read and understand over a coast-to-coast flight like most of the popular business books one tends to find at the airport book stores.
It is heavily intellectual content and for those who do 'get it', the payoffs can be huge, as have been documented by the real-life examples presented in the book. There are no quick fixes here and no 'if you have problem A, do X' type remedies, nor the 'company A did X and it worked for them' type anecdotal evidence.
Real-life examples have been used to demonstrate the backbone of the theory. This is necessary because there is no evidence of the concept of co-creation present yet in the collective *consciousness* of the managers today (it does happen accidentally, though).
Now you must be wondering how I can be so emphatic about stating my opinion. Well, I have had the fantastic opportunity to do some work on this subject during my MBA program through the B-school class offered by one of the authors at Ross Business School, as well as the opportunity of doing independent research on the subject matter of this book.
I can assure the prospective reader that the material requires serious mental exercise, and the theory and frameworks are not easy to grasp or implement. The reason for this is that the implementation of the concepts being presented requires some serious inside-out redesign of the organization, processes, systems as well as value appropriation contracts..
However, for those interested in finding out about which direction to look to innovate, especially the entrepreneurial types, this is an excellent opportunity to learn something new and apply it to the extent your own organizational processes, systems and capabilities will allow, or create ground-up organizations, processes, systems and capabilities to take advantage of the opportunities to the fullest.
Sunil Chhaya, Ph.D.
Disappointing.......2004-08-01
C.K. Prahalad must be getting a bit long in the tooth. Or perhaps he has had difficulty in recent years finding a co-author as talented as Gary Hamel. Whatever his excuse, his latest book is a disappointing throwback to specious management bestsellers of the 80s and 90s. Prahalad's book is long on clichés and short on insight. The central thesis of the book is a rehash of Kotler's better articulted work on the prosumer. Given all of their emphasis on "value co-creation" the book seems woefully short on profitability and ROI numbers. I couldn't find any case studies that showed the value in value co-creation. At the same time, truly innovative and competitive "value co-creation" businesses - Linux, Apache and the whole open source software movement which Microsoft now finds so threatening - are barely mentioned. Are we just to take the authors' word for it that companies adopting a "C-type" structure are automatically profitable? Hmm. Maybe it depends on whether these firms adopt "X,Y, or Z-type" management. Can lucrative consulting gigs be far behind?
must read for 21st century human.......2004-07-15
Alvin Toffler has indicated customization is future trend. He is(was) right.
The future of competition shows what, why, and how ( sometimes, who) about the future of product and service. What a corporation must do in order to integrate cusomter's experience into their production process and how to organize the company in order to do it. A must read book for 21st century human, why? because any interaction is an experience and if you extend the metaphor of product, any interaction is a 'product'. If you have been of good reputation, you will 'sell' well on whaterver you say or do. Because people 'buy' it.
Amazon.com
What will life be like after mass marketing? Today, technology allows us to sell more goods to fewer people, which is far more efficient than selling fewer goods to more people. Peppers, an advertising executive, and Rogers, a marketing scholar, set out their new marketing paradigm in detail. A one-to-one competitor focuses on "share of customer" rather than the mass-marketer's "share of market." Learn to collaborate with the customer to build loyalty and build your opportunities for future profit. The strategies in this book work as well -- maybe even better -- for small companies as for the blue-chippers.
Book Description
The One to One Future revolutionized marketing when it was first published. Then considered a radical rethinking of marketing basics, this bestselling book has become today's bible for marketers. Now finally available in paperback, this completely revised and updated edition--with an all-new User's Guide--takes readers step-by-step through the latest strategies needed for any business to compete, and succeed, in the Interactive Age.
Most businesses follow time-honored mass-marketing rules of pitching their products to the greatest number of people. However, selling more goods to fewer people is not only more efficient but far more profitable. The One to One Future is a radically innovative business paradigm focusing on the share of customer--one customer at a time--rather than just the share of market.
Authors Don Peppers and Martha Rogers reveal one to one strategies to:
* Find the 20 percent--or 2 percent--of your own customers and prospects who are the most loyal and who offer the biggest opportunities for future profit;
* Collaborate with each customer, one at a time, just as you now work with individual suppliers or marketing partners;
* Nurture your relationships with each customer by relying on new one to one media vehicles--not just the mail, but the fax machine, the touch-tone phone, voice mail, cell phones, and interactive television.
Leading-edge companies such as MCI, Lexus, Levi Strauss, and Nissan Canada, and thousands of smaller enterprises, have already adopted the one-to-one perspective. The strategies outlined in this book work just as well--often even better--for small companies, from two-person accounting firms to flower shops to furniture stores.
Download Description
Consultants and authors, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers pioneered the end of mass marketing rules and created the one dictum that is carrying marketing into the 21st century--sell more products to fewer customers. By following their groundbreaking "One to One" approach, readers learn how to find their customer base and how to keep those customers loyal, no matter what product.
Customer Reviews:
A prophetic message at the time, still right on today.......2006-12-22
Mass marketing believes in making one product for everyone, then shouting it's features over the thousands of competing products. An alternative to this approach is customizing your product for individuals, based on their needs and preferences.
When Don Peppers and Martha Rogers wrote The One to One Future in 1993, their message was very prophetic. The Internet and individual customization were not yet popular, yet the authors foresaw the effects technology would have on marketing.
The book focuses on three foundational ideas.
1. Aim for share of customer, not share of market
Instead of selling to as many customers as possible, ensure each person that buys your product buys only your product, and is completely happy with it. This way, you don't sell to people that will buy the competition's product half of the time.
2. Focus on your best customers
It's the classic Pareto Principle at work here. A small portion of your customers provide the majority of your profits. If you don't focus on these customers and "fire" the rest, the majority of your time and resources will be spent on an unprofitable minority.
3. Encourage customer dialog
To develop customized products and services, it is essential that you maintain communication with your prospects. While some of the techniques the authors suggest are dated, the principles remain true. Technology is the enabler of one to one marketing.
Over the past decade, the concept of customized marketing has become more and more popular. Companies such as Amazon and Dell have become extremely successful using this model, and Peppers and Rogers may well deserve the credit. Reading this book is an excellent way to understand how this movement started, and how your business can profit from it.
The Philosophy and Profitable Practice of Interactivity.......2006-12-02
OK, it's 2006 so this book is a bit dated, but only in examples. The concepts are right on, and the companies that are succeeding today, online especially, are doing so with the strategies outlined in this book.
Basically 1:1 marketing is an interactive endeavor where much is learned from the customer and individualized for the customer. Emphasis is on quality relationships and specific marketing rather than bland bulk mailings that have to please everyone.
Benefits range from increasing customer retention, which can be very profitable, to maximizing ROI on advertising. Lifetime customers are the goal. With the knowledge obtained interactively, focus can be applied and special treatment given to the customers that are making us the most profit.
It will also be found that with this increased interactivity that complaints will be able to be handled effectively. Most who have a problem with a company never tell the company, they just tell their friends. Make it very easy for someone to complain in person, phone, or by survey cards. This feedback can be very revealing for your operations. An upset customer, properly treated, my re-purchase, and may even become an active referrer.
Think of customers as life-long assetts. Offer them a 'membership' in your organization. This will open the doorway for information to pour in that is only obtainable through interactivity.
Develop the feedback loop in your organization. Don't just push out and add to the hundreds of pounds of bulk mail and millions of impersonal emails sent (that nowadays end up in the trash folder). Become effective in this area, become 1:1.
Five Stars
What is a "Relationship?".......2000-05-14
Peppers and Rogers wrote a pioneering work on reaching customers, that taught marketers to look beyond "segments" to the individual people who actually bought their products or services. But they make an essential mistake in confusing the customer's familiarity with a particular business with having a relationship. Relationships exist between people who know one another, and a business relationship is one in which the customer deals with the same provider for each transaction. An example is a personal trainer you go to each time you work out, or a using the same accountant (not just the same accounting firm) for many years at tax time, or going to the same hairstylist, even following her when she moves to a new salon. These are real relationships, but phoning a catalog company and talking to a different person each time, even if that person can check your past orders and already has the billing information, is NOT a relationship.
Using technology to make a transaction more efficient can be a service to customers. People do not always seek a relationship with their provider; sometimes they want anonymity, and the idea that the provider organization "knows" all about them can be scary. Only by distinguishing between real relationships and the kind of "pseudo-relationship" that Peppers and Rogers advocate can you sort out these issues.
To learn more about the concept of "relationship" versus the more common service encounter (between customer and provider who do not know each other and do not expect to interact again), read The Brave New Service Strategy by Dr. Barbara A. Gutek and Theresa Welsh. They postulate a service model that consists of a triangle of Customer, Organization and Provider (COP).
Marketing Strategies for the Future.......2000-01-16
Clear and well-written exploration of market share approach to marketing versus the one-to-one approach to marketing. Explained well, and backed up with solid and very applicable examples.
It's important to remember that this book prepared the way for current Internet-based/personalized approaches to marketing. To a current marketeer, it may feel a bit dated (many of the examples are dependent on using snail mail and fax machines) but it given how many large IT projects are centered around database marketing, it's worthwhile reading for a lot of professionals and technical workers who may be missing part of the point of the systems they're developing.
In Search of Excellence for the Information Age.......1999-11-11
This is revolutionary stuff. Neither you or your business customers have the luxury of sticking your head in the sand on this. When you pull it out, you'll be all alone...and out of business.
Customer Reviews:
Not worth the Time and the Money.......2005-05-01
I am a student who happens to have read both John Hull's 'Options, Futures and Other Derivatives' and his 'Fundamentals'. To say that 'Options, Futures and Other Derivatives' is a good book is a great understatement, and can even be considered an insult. Yet, this book, which is targeted at readers who are not as acquainted with derivatives fails to impress. Through out the book you can feel how John Hull struggles to explain things in a simple manner. Sadly, his efforts have failed, and this is most evident when my fellow classmates had a hard time understanding the materials starting from Swaps. When we reached the section on options pricing, the book lacks the rigorous math that is needed for students to fully appreciate the beauty of deriving things like Black-Scholes. Overall, if you are a beginner, go straight to 'Options, Futures, and Derivatives'. This book is not worth wasting time over.
not worth the money.......2005-02-03
As promised this book contains no calculus.However it looks more like a formula sheet.There are some typos in some important parts.The intuitive explanations for some important topics are omitted or not well explained.Solutions manual is just a waste of time.Actually the book doesn't contain good questions at all.Despite the fact that it's one of the most used textbooks for the entry level in options and futures it's really not worth the money.One can find online lecture notes and do with them without having to pay that much money.
Great Book!.......2002-06-11
I needed to understand everything I could about Futures and Options in a short time and this book was perfect for that purpose. The introduction about futures and options is great and the content in general is very easy to understand and follow. I really liked the examples and the way the author explained each topic. However, I have to confess that maybe my engineering background helped me to understand the math behind, but I believe that even if you don't have much mathematical knowledge you can follow the book.
A big plus of this book is that it contains a chapter about Value at Risk and one focused more on more recent types of derivatives contracts (e.g., energy, weather, etc.).
In general, I think that with this book you could cover more ground more quickly than with other books.
Great Book!!.......2002-04-19
This book is a great introduction to options and futures, I do not have any university experience in mathematics and was able to follow nearly all that I have read so far. However, if you are not comfortable with substituting into equations and following equation derivations, maybe option/futures trading is not for you.
You better know your math.......2002-01-29
The book is a good book IF you know your math. It has been a while since I have done calculus and finance classes and needed to review other books in order to understand all the math. I laughed at the introduction when the author stated math is not needed. While this is partially true, it is because the author expects the reader to memorize his formulas and so omitts some of the steps of how the formulas come about. Do not try to do this book without help or even better yet, without the solution manual. It was a grueling class with more than 1/2 the class dropping it because the book was so hard to understand.
Book Description
Today's managers encounter tremendous resistance in getting others to buy-in to change. The ongoing rounds of downsizing and upheaval have taken their toll, leaving a legacy of skepticism. Therefore, managers must not only have ideas, but must be experts at "selling" the correct answers, information, and measurements to address issues of change. Securing the Future uses the Theory of Constraints, a breakthrough improvement methodology, to provide solutions to today's management problems. It documents the step-by-step approach to achieving a strategic vision of long-term competitive advantage, employment security, and customer satisfaction. Using a combination of parable, methodology, and case studies, this book presents an in-depth management road map to exponential improvement in any organization. If you are looking for concrete ideas on how to build the intellectual capital your organization will need in order to thrive in years to come, Securing the Future will show you the way.
Customer Reviews:
Practical Knowledge.......2000-06-01
This book provides practical tools to increase profits for your organization. Gerald Kendall shares the criterion to prioritize/choose themes for improving customer satisfaction. He suggests that one should focus on those issues for improvement so that the customer is either willing to pay a higher price or ready to give you additional volume, or this would prevent the customer from switching over to a competitor. Improving those customer dissatisfactions, that would not result in one of the above, would not benefit your organization at all. I find many such tips through out this book.
Excellent guide to eliminating market constraints.......1999-08-27
I am a Jonah's Jonah focused on eliminating market (external) constraints in a variety of industries. I found this book while taking the External Constraint Course at the Goldratt Institute. While the Eli Goldratt book "Its Not Luck" was inspirational and the Institute class was excellent, "Securing the Future" is what I refer to day by day.
Book Description
Kevin Roberts' groundbreaking book LOVEMARKS: THE FUTURE BEYOND BRANDS injected a powerful dose of emotion into the world of advertising and marketing. Despite the extraordinary uptake of the concept, Roberts was determined to go one step further after receiving a provocative and irresistible challenge: to turn the book itself into a Lovemark. The end result is LOVEMARKS: THE SAATCHI & SAATCHI DESIGNERS' EDITION, a sublime rendering of the original book that will both challenge the mind and delight the eyes. Collectively produced by Saatchi & Saatchi designers and art directors from across the globe, the book reflects the diverse, eclectic, and vibrant visions of its creators. LOVEMARKS: THE SAATCHI & SAATCHI DESIGNERS' EDITION celebrates the central role design plays in creating emotional connections with consumers.
Books:
- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
- The Magic of Thinking Big
- The New Retirementality: Planning Your Life and Living Your Dreams....at Any Age You Want (New Retire-Mentality)
- The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: A Handbook For Implementing Great Service in Your Organization
- The Referral of a Lifetime: The Networking System That Produces Bottom-Line Results Every Day (Ken Blanchard (Paperback))
- The Road to Wealth: A Comprehensive Guide to Your Money--Everything You Need to Know in Good and Bad Times
- The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources
- The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Growing More Profitably (4th Edition) (Pie)
Books Index
Books Home
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Economic Conditions
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