Unleashing the Ideavirus: Stop Marketing at People! Turn Your Ideas Into Epidemics by Helping Your Customers Do the Marketing Thing for You.

by Seth Godin

Book Overview

The book that sparked a marketing revolution.

"This is a subversive book. It says that the marketer is not--and ought not to be--at the center of successful marketing. The customer should be. Are you ready for that?" --From the Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point.

Counter to traditional marketing wisdom, which tries to count, measure, and manipulate the spread of information, Seth Godin argues that...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786887176
• ISBN13: 9780786887170
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Go Viral!

Unleashing the Ideavirus is an interesting read. One of the main ideas about this book is that interruption based marketing (radio and TV spots that break the flow of music or a show) is getting less and less effective. As an alternative viral marketing reaches your target audience based on the recommendation of others within your target audiences sphere of influence. The author, Seth Godin, says market to people rather then at people.One of the key take aways from this book is that target market selection (hive) and targeting the correct individuals (sneezers) within this group is of utmost importance. This is because with viral marketing you are depending on people (sneezers) to spread your idea virus. Another interesting concept is that hive selection should happen even before you consider what product or service you would offer the hive. Most businesses consider what the can make or the service they can provide and then back into who might want such a product or service. What are the elements that make up an ideavirus? According to Seth Godin there are many variables that are essential to consider when constructing a virus. Here is Seth's list of variables that make up a virus:Sneezers - the people that you choose to spread your idea virusHive - the group you target with your idea virusVelocity - how fast the idea spreads from one party to anotherVector - pattern of hive adoption (could be geographic or demographic)Medium - the communication mechanism surrounding the idea virus (tv, web page...)Smoothness - how easy it is for the user to spread this idea virusPersistence - how long the idea sticks with a person before it stop influencing themAmplifier - tool for getting ideavirus to a larger audienceDoes all this ideavirus stuff work? One of interesting things about this book is the author's choice of distribution. He followed his own advice. The original distribution of this book was as a free e-book to encourage the viral effect.If you want to stop marketing at people and starting marketing to them this book is worth a read. If you are interested in constructing an ideavirus this book has practical advice for going viral.

The best book on viral marketing and "buzz"

Seth Godin writes about social observations and then applies them to the world of business. For example, this book is about "viral/word of mouth marketing" whereas his prior book was about permission based marketing and its impact on communications with customers. His recently released book, Survival is not Enough, is about "survival of the fittest" via his Darwinian-like take on business.I read permission marketing some years ago and really enjoyed it as it refreshed my thoughts on customer satisfaction and interaction. Then, this book came out and it really changed my paradigm about the growth aspect of businesses and how "viral marketing" could have a profound impact on an upstart Internet companies growth trajectory. I've read Gladwell's The Tipping Point and I must say, this book is better written and has examples more applicable to business.I found myself reading the book quite quickly as I was consumed by it as it was filled with interesting ideas about how to get people interested in what you have to offer. The principles mentioned in the book could be applied to anything you do in life that you want others to notice but I found the examples on Internet businesses to be fascinating. Counter to traditional marketing wisdom,which tries to count,measure,and manipulate the spread of information, Godin argues that the information can spread most effectively from customer to customer,rather than from business to customer. Godin calls this powerful customer-to-customer dialogue the ideavirus and cheerfully egg marketers on to create and environment where their ideas can replicate. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur this book is not a "how-to" book with a step-by-step approach to marketing but, if you read permission marketing and then this book you will have a VERY THOROUGH understanding about how to market on the Internet and grow your business.Other useful books on marketing that I have read or been recommended include Seth Godin's Permission Marketing and Unleashing the Ideavirus (both great reads), the 22 immutable laws of marketing by Jack Trout and All Reis (excellent authors and a good read), Robert Cialdini's Influence and Ogilvy on Advertising or Wizard of Ads for help in sales copying.

Delightful, practical, concise

Godin himself notes that much of the content of his book (and his earlier Permission Marketing) seems obvious. Yet, as he goes on to show convincingly, that which is obvious has rarely been practiced. When you read Godin?s thoughts about permission marketing and ideaviruses, they may sound obvious yet almost all marketers continue to throw huge sums of money at old-fashioned interruption marketing. The infamous peak of this was the spurt of expensive Superbowl ads by transient e-tailers. Like his previous book, Godin?s Unleashing the Ideavirus entertains the reader while successfully setting off bursts of ideas along the way. Rather than marketing at the consumer, Godin?s approach seeks to maximize the spread of information from customer to customer. The book provides the expected examples of successful ideavirus marketing, then develops a recipe for concocting your own ideaviruses. In order to show how to make your idea infectious, the book examines what makes a powerful ?sneezer?, how ?hives? work, and applies the concepts of critical velocity, vector, medium, smoothness, persistence, and amplifiers. As Godin shows, the now-familiar idea of viral marketing is one very specific form of ideavirus marketing. Most businesses will not be able to engage in true viral marketing, but all can use the ideavirus approach. While you may finish Unleashing the Ideavirus thinking that you really did not learn anything drastically new, it is unlikely that you will feel that you?ve wasted your time. Godin has once again written an enjoyable book that cleverly packages important ideas that have obvious practical use. Any book like this that causes the reader to continually stop and rapidly jot down ideas to implement is well worth the hour or two it takes to read.

it's about time

Bottom line: I rate this book a five because it has changed the way I think on the fly and for the better. I'm applying today what I read yesterday. How many books do that to you?I have been hearing the hype about `viral marketing' for quite some time now. To date no one, including myself, has been able to set it apart from word of mouth. The name itself has left a bad taste in my mouth as I have taken the term to be someone's clever `term of the times' for the obvious. Seth has eased my pain and captured my attention.From how Seth launched his book to the last page he has had me engaged and impressed. With useful phrases like "word of mouse" to "interruption marketing" my brain has started looking at the world with a healthy twist. I don't consider Seth's brilliance in his writing style. Rather, it is in his ability to turn his thoughts into catalysts via his wisdom, walking the talk, candor, simplicity, and humility. Far too many beautiful ideas never make it past the beer mugs on a Saturday night, the coffee cups on a Sunday morning, or that napkin in your car with the scribbled notes and mustard stain. Far too many passion filled business leaders have thrown money down the toilet on worthless marketing scars that had bled their businesses, assaulted their audience and abused our natural resources. Why? You know word of mouth is the cheapest and most powerful form of marketing...go ahead and learn about word of mouth version 2.3!

they just don't get it... but you will

This book is the first I've ever seen that coherently chronicles the extraordinary shift we're seeing in the way people (and companies) communicate with each other.Gordon's vision of a peer to peer world, where recommendations from sneezers (his term) are far more important than TV ads is already here. Yet Nike and Starbucks and Compaq continue to waste money on foolish ads.The book is funny and breezy and a quick read... but worth a lot more than it costs.If you haven't bought this amazing book yet, there's good news: most of your competitors are too clueless to figure it out for themselves.