Comments on: Your marketing sucks.

By: Mike Panaggio

Mike Panaggio — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 04:22:19 +0000

I loved the pure common sense logic of the book “Your Marketing Sucks” Its all about ROI and not getting stuck on the cost versus expense scenarios that the amateurs. The big question is whether anyone practices what they preach.

By: 800CEOREAD Blog

800CEOREAD Blog — Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:14:57 +0000

That sucks

Brad Feld has a post on his recent read of Your Marketing Sucks by Mark Stevens. Brad tell a great story that goes with the book….

By: Jonathan Washburn

Jonathan Washburn — Sun, 22 Aug 2004 20:18:05 +0000

Can you imagine being a VC and watching all of your money being pissed away like that.

By: Diego Rodriguez

Diego Rodriguez — Sat, 21 Aug 2004 01:09:06 +0000

I liked “Your Marketing Sucks” when I read it, because it helps make a clear distinction between marketing and sales. Mistaking “sales” for “marketing” is what makes bad “marketers” blow wads of dough on dumb Red Herring ads.

But why not go back to basic principles? The best definition of marketing I’ve ever read is from The Man, Peter Drucker, in his book “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” (p. 251 of the softcover version):

“Price in itself is not ‘pricing,’ and it is not ‘value.’ [Successful companies are] paid for giving their customers satisfaction, for giving their customers what the customer wanted to buy, in other words, for giving their customers their money’s worth.

‘But this is nothing but elementary marketing,’ most readers will protest, and they are right. It is nothing but elementary marketing. To start out with the customer’s utility, with what the customer buys, with what the realities of the customer are and what the customer’s values are – this is what marketing is all about. But why, after forty years of preaching Marketing, teaching Marketing, professing Marketing, so few suppliers are willing to follow, I cannot explain. The fact remains that so far, anyone who is willing to use marketing as the basis for strategy is likely to acquire leadership in an industry or market fast and almost without risk.”

As one of my marketing profs once told me, “Marketing is best left to engineers”. Amen.

By: Troy Angrignon

Troy Angrignon — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:01:29 +0000

Brad, if you have not yet read any of his stuff, I highly recommend Jay Abraham’s “Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got.” I have read many marketing books and most of them could be aptly titled, “This marketing book sucks.” However, Jay’s stuff is dense, useful, and totally focused on marketing as a means to increase revenues and profits. He decries the use of traditional advertising, and is fond of saying that “growing a business is almost risk-free” because of the fact that he suggests testing all of your marketing in very small test batches. It is now my marketing Bible.