Title Purple Cow
Author Seth Godin
Year Published 2004
Kind of Book Sales
How strongly I recommend it 7/10
My Impressions A quick read. Nothing revolutionary in here, but sure to motivate and generate ideas.
Date Read April 2020
Practical Takeaways
Stop advertising and start innovating
Advertise/sell to early adopters (the early adopters heavily influence the rest of the curve. They make others feel safe buying)
Sell to people who like change, who like new stuff, who are actively looking for what it is you sell
Design a product that is remarkable enough to attract early adopters- but flexible enough and attractive enough that those adopters will have an easy time spreading the idea to the rest of the curve
Find and seduce sneezers
Don't try to make your product for everybody (a product for everybody is a product for nobody)
Look at what's working in the real world and figure out what the various successes have in common
Be risky. Not safe (it's safer to be risky)
Execute your ideas (what's missing isn't ideas. It is the will to execute them)
Don't sink money into a product nobody wants (or one nobody wants anymore)
Make your product/idea easy for people to spread
When making a new product ask
How smooth and easy is it to spread your idea?
How often will people sneeze it to their friends?
How tightly knit is the group you're targeting?
How reputable are the people most likely to promote your idea?
Don't try to make your product remarkable by being cheaper (unless how you do it is revolutionary ie. Uber vs taxi)
If no one is listening in the market you're selling. Leave
Differentiate your customers
Target the customers who are most likely to "sneeze
Don't advertise to the masses. Target your ideal customer
Target a niche and do nothing but appeal to that market
Take chance. Don't play it safe
Make sure your product/service is not boring (Boring is always the most risky strategy)
Careful track and measure what people are buying and not buying that you're selling
Make something people can easily parody or make fun of (it means you are unique and quirky)
Get the email addresses of the 20% of your customers who love what you do
Make special exclusive things for your "true fans/customers"
Find a niche to sell to as die hard are star trek people
Think of how you could build a competitor that is 30% cheaper than you. Then do it
Focus on the narrowest possible niche
Be irresistible to a tiny group (eg. South Park. Hated by most women, but loved but adolescent boys)
Keep your website super simple (the less buttons the better)
If you don't have anything funny to say, swear-Buddy Hackett
Go where the competition is not. (the father the better)
Be the first in your category
Create stupid rules for your product or service that give a buzz
Make everyone wear bright pink shirts with pink bowties
Use the honor system for you restaurant (ask how many bottles of wine they drunk and charge them)
Work with sneezers. Give them the tools and story they need to sell your idea to a wider audience
Give your customers an email address to write to. Write back
Take a design course
Send your designers to a marketing course
Make your product what you would want in a product
(just as an exercise)Try to be outrageous just for the sake of being remarkable (you probably aren't being nearly outrageous enough even if you think you are)
Sell what people are buying (and talking about)
Get permission from happy customers to alert them next time you have a remarkable product
Come up with a list of ten ways to change the product to make it appeal to a sliver of your audience
Overwhelm your smallest viable market with stuff they love
Find things that are "just not done" in your industry and do them
Find an industry more dull than yours, discover who's remarkable, and do what they did.
Talk directly to your most loyal customers
Big Ideas
Often the safe choice is riskier than the "risky" choice
Because
The safe choice is guaranteed to fail at games you have to take risks to win
If your offering itself isn't remarkable it's invisible
We live in a world of word of mouth marketing
Folks who get there first have a huge advantage in the market
It's safer to be risky
It is cheaper to keep an old customer than to get a new customer
Most people are happy with the products they have. They don't want/need something new
As the amount of choices people have rises, the amount of time they have declines
The Old Rule
Create safe, ordinary products and combine them with great marketing
The New Rule
Create remarkable products that the right people seek out
Surprising Facts
The reason birds fly in a V shape is that the leader breaks the wind resistance so the other birds can fly more efficiently. Every few minutes on of the birds in the back will lead
New Zealand renamed the Chinese gooseberry "kiwi" when they introduced it to North America in the 1960s
Unknown Terms
Innovators: People who like having something first. Trendy. Just like having the newest to have it
Early Adopters: people who actually benefit from using a new product and are eager to maintain their edge over the rest of the population by seeking out new products or services
Early & Late Majority: The majority of people who only buy a product after it has been tested and proven road worthy
Laggards: luddites. They don't use something new until it's so old that what they sued to use is obsolete, impractical, or not even available any longer
Sneezers: experts and people of influence who tell all of their colleagues or friends or fans or listeners about a new product or service on which they are a perceived authority
Dilettante: 1)a person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge. 2) (archaic) a person with an amateur interest in the arts.
Dates/Timeline
1912 Otto Frederick Rohwedder invents sliced bread
1930 Wonder bread starts marketing sliced bread