How to find the “soft innovation” that will make your product, service, school, church, or career worth talking about
We live in an era of too much noise, too much clutter, too many choices, and too much spam. And as Seth Godin’s 200,000-copy bestseller Purple Cow taught the business world, the old ways of marketing simply don’t work anymore. The best way to sell anything these days is through word of mouth—and the only real way to get word of mouth is to create something remarkable.
Free Prize Inside, the sequel to Purple Cow, explains how to do just that. ItÂ’s jammed with practical ideas you can use right now to make your product or service remarkable, so that it will virtually sell itself.
Remember when cereal came with a free prize inside? Even if you already liked the cereal, it was the little plastic toy that made it irresistible. Godin explains how you can think of a bonus that will make your customers feel just as excited, no matter what business youÂ’re in. Consider these free prizes :
•?The Tupperware party, which turned buying plastic bowls into a social event
•?Flintstones vitamins, which turned a serious product into something fun
•?The free change-counting machine at every Commerce Bank branch
•?The little blue box from Tiffany, which makes people happy before they even open it
This book offers a way to create free prizes quickly, cheaply, and reliably—and persuade others in your organization to help you bring them to life.
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In summary…
Be remarkable = be a Purple Cow.
Remarkable products and services = your Free Prize that make you remarkable and therefore a Purple Cow.
A Free Prize is the essence of a Purple Cow (see Purple Cow review if you want info. on that book and definition). It is the ‘thing’ about your product or service or company worth remarking on, something worth seeking out and buying. A Free Prize is not about needs… it satisfies wants… it rarely delivers more about what we were buying in the first place, it delivers something extra.
A product or service that carries a Free Prize is a Purple Cow.
This book is about creating a Free Prize in your business… about being the innovator and initiator of Remarkable in your place of work, whether you own the business or not. It offers suggestions akin to a ‘how to’ on creating WOW.
It’s a 2.5 star rounded down. A good read, helpful… though missing punch!
Full of incredible insights and plenty of “how to” starters this book takes the Purple Cow series to a new level. While the Purple Cow was a fantastic theoretical book that certainly had me nodding my head in agreement, because of the “radical” nature of the subject it seemed tough to break everyday marketing thinking and move into this new world. This How To guide answers all those questions raised in the purple cow and delves deeper into how to bring about change in your organisation (if you are not the prime decision maker) and where to start thinking about making changes to become a Purple Cow. I highly recommend buying it together with the original Purple Cow book.
I’m a big fan of Seth Godin. It has always been my belief that everyone should read Godin’s Permission Marketing, a book that is as meaningful today as it was when first published. Purple Cow was another Godin book that I enjoyed immensely, and while not as significant as Permission Marketing, still a worthwhile marketing title. Now comes Free Prize inside, a book packaged in a mock cereal box (what a nightmare for the publisher, as well as for the bookseller) that focuses on how people, marketers, and companies can create remarkable products and services. It is a shame that Godin did not create a remarkable book. Most of what is included in the book is pretty basic information, and it is difficult to say that you will walk away with any remarkable ideas. Innovation is a hot topic right now, and it seems that Godwin felt it important to rush a book to capture this wave. You will be much better served by reading Blue Ocean Strategy. Free Prize Inside! is like opening up a box of Cracker Jacks, finding the free prize inside, and realizing that it is broken. C’mon Seth!
After reading this book, I know why I hate TV ads so much. Most advertising today is “interruption media” and who wants to be interrupted with irrelevant messages? Relevant messages – yes! That’s why the internet can be so powerful. “A direct marketer’s dream come true.”
As a solo entrepenuer, this book is part of my crash course in marketing, learning ways to market my product online by creating relationships with potential customers through “permission marketing”.
A good read, well worth my time.
As a kid growing up, the vast majority of us who watched Saturday morning cartoons can relate to the burning desire for a sugary-type cereal that came with some trinket or toy inside “specially-marked boxes.” Then, after weeks of nagging our parents to buy the breakfast confection, we’d pry open the box and fish our fingers through the contents trying to locate the prize buried inside. Marketing guru Seth Godin uses that common childhood experience as a launching pad for his book titled “Free Prize Inside.” Godin postulates that such tactics are not gimmicks, but rather a “soft innovation” that helps reposition a product in the consumer’s mind. Soundview likes his book because it challenges the conventional wisdom surrounding innovation. The author point-blank states that you can’t conjure up innovation simply by striving to build an organization that’s effortlessly and automatically innovative – it doesn’t work that way. Godin believes true innovation is created within the hearts and minds of every employee and that such creative energy must be fostered, captured and transformed into innovative products and processes. It’s a worthwhile read.