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Unleashing the Ideavirus: Stop Marketing AT People! Turn Your Ideas into Epidemics by Helping Your Customers Do the Marketing Thing for You. Kindle Edition

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 182 ratings

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 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 eggs marketers on to create an environment where their ideas can replicate and spread.

In lively detail, Godin looks at the ways companies such as PayPal, Hotmail, GeoCities, even Volkswagen have successfully launched ideaviruses. He offers a "recipe" for creating your own ideavirus, identifies the key factors in the successful spread of an ideavirus (powerful sneezers, hives, a clear vector, a smooth, friction-free transmission), and shows how any business, large or small, can use ideavirus marketing to succeed in a world that just doesn't want to hear it anymore from the traditional marketers.

From the brand

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Treat a product or service like a human or computer virus, contends online promotion specialist Seth Godin, and it just might become one. In Unleashing the Ideavirus, Godin describes ways to set any viable commercial concept loose among those who are most likely to catch it--and then stand aside as these recipients become infected and pass it on to others who might do the same. "The future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other," he writes. "Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk."

Godin believes that a solid idea is the best route to success in the new century, but one "that just sits there is worthless." Through the magic of "word of mouse," however, the Internet offers a unique opportunity for interested individuals to transmit ideas quickly and easily to others of like mind. Taking up where his previous book Permission Marketing left off, Godin explains in great detail how ideaviruses have been launched by companies such as Napster, Blue Mountain Arts, GeoCities, and Hotmail. He also describes "sneezers" (influential people who spread them), "hives" (populations most willing to receive them), and "smoothness" (the ease with which sneezers can transmit them throughout a hive). In all, an infectious and highly recommended read. --Howard Rothman

Review

The Internet industry has been enamored of buzz-based marketing ever since venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson coined the phrase "viral marketing" in 1997 to describe Hotmail's strategy of tagging every e-mail message with a promotion for its service. The self-replicating promotion helped the company achieve an epidemic growth rate of zero to 12 million users in a mere 18 months. Since then, viral marketing has propelled everything from Napster to The Blair Witch Project to legendary success.

Even with all the buzz about buzz, though, many Internet companies still pour the bulk of their marketing budgets into ill-conceived TV advertising (who could forget January's orgy of dot-com expenditures on Super Bowl ads?) and other ineffective channels, like banner ads. Depending on whose numbers you use, last year online and offline companies spent $3.5 billion to $4.6 billion on Net ads. Yet, according to Nielsen NetRatings, average click-through rates for banner ads have fallen to a pitiful half a percent.

There has to be a better way. With investors increasingly focusing on profits, the time is right to do more than just talk about viral marketing. And here to lead the rally are two new primers on the subject - Seth Godin's flashy Unleashing the Ideavirus and Emanuel Rosen's more pedantic but meatier The Anatomy of Buzz.

Both agree on the basic tenets. Instead of blindly (and expensively) advertising to mass audiences, companies should focus on creating buzz among key potential customers - early adopters - and let them market to everybody else.

Godin, who fills his book with infectious analogies, calls these folks "sneezers," whereas Rosen dubs them "network hubs." They could be celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, influential members of a particular industry or ordinary people involved in their neighborhoods, schools, church groups or companies who consciously and consistently spread the word about new things they encounter.

The trick is to reward such efforts. Give away samples or discounts. Create affiliate programs a la Amazon or run promotions that reward early customers for signing up new users. Post testimonials from happy customers on your Web site. All simple stuff, but according to Godin, "too much work for most sites."

Both authors warn that none of these efforts will work with a lousy product. Hotmail, Polaroid's iZone camera, the new Volkswagen Beetle and the Palm are all top-notch products - they're simple to understand and use, they work and look great - that benefited from good buzz. Godin, who founded an online promotions company he sold to Yahoo and authored last year's Permission Marketing [see "Permission Marketing"], calls these killer products "ideaviruses" because they're easy to launch and spread quickly from person to person until they're ubiquitous, like Napster or The Sopranos.

If you have a great product, give buzz a boost by first giving it away or selling it dirt cheap, a lesson many Net companies already apply. As Rosen relates, the publisher of Cold Mountain gave away 4,000 galley copies to bookstore owners and others to help make the Civil War novel an unexpected hit that eventually sold 1.6 million hardcover copies. Microsoft gave away 450,000 copies of Windows 95 before the software was commercially available.

Of course, you can't give away everything. So how to make money? Aim low. Pick a small market with no established leader and use buzz to dominate it before anybody else does. "If you can fill a vacuum aggressively and permanently, it is far easier to extract money," Godin writes. The jury is still out, however, on whether that theory will fly with standalone online retailers and companies such as Napster that don't charge for their services.

Because the Net speeds up communication exponentially, dot-com companies have come to rely solely on online means for creating buzz. Big mistake, Rosen says. For buzz to work, companies need a multichannel strategy. Cisco, he points out, prides itself on connecting with customers online, but also arranges 1,000 offline seminars a year for potential customers, holds even more events for current customers and attends dozens of trade shows.

Likewise, don't rest on your laurels. Once you've successfully used buzz to launch a product or service, leverage it to launch your next big thing.

There may be no such thing as bad publicity, Rosen cautions, but negative buzz can be lethal. Apple was vilified for the Newton, as was long-dead company Momenta for its early '90s pen computer - the device was so buggy that people who got free demo units ditched them, something even a $40 million marketing budget couldn't rectify. For that reason, both authors suggest that companies actively track what people are saying about their products through all media, including on consumer feedback Web sites such as PlanetFeedback.com or Epinions.com.

Both Godin and Rosen also pay homage to Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary theorist who first came up with the concept of the meme, an idea that replicates itself like a living organism, growing and evolving as it passes from one person to another.

But while they cover much of the same intellectual territory, they diverge radically in execution. Godin, an unabashed self-promoter and online marketing industry fixture, offers, hands down, the faster, sexier read, with pictures, to-do lists and up-to-the-minute examples. But he fails to provide much historical perspective. He calls his slim, 197-page book a "manifesto," penned a cover story about it for Fast Company's August issue and made it available on the Web a month before its September publication date. In notices posted between pages of the online version, he encourages readers to "Steal This Idea" by downloading the text file and circulating it to friends. As of mid-August, Godin claimed more than 400,000 copies had been downloaded.

If Godin's Ideavirus is fast food, Rosen's tome is an eight-course meal. Rosen stuffs his 303-page book, due in October, with examples of good and bad buzz taken from 40 years of innovations inside and outside the technology industry, and offers copious scientific research to back up his assumptions and conclusions. He includes extensive interview footnotes for each chapter and a lengthy bibliography.

Such an approach is not surprising coming from the former marketing VP who helped launch EndNote, a program that helps academics compile the bibliographic material found at the end of scholarly papers. (It eventually sold 200,000 copies - mainly by word of mouth.) Though Rosen's is the better researched and structured of the two books, it's a drier read that would have benefited from a dash of Godin's peppy prose style.

Together, both books make a convincing case for viral marketing - just keep in mind that no amount of buzz-building will turn a dog into a winner. And tell a friend.

Michelle V. Rafter is a contributing writer in Los Angeles. -- From The Industry Standard

"Take Leo Burnett, David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach and Mark Twain. Combine their brains and shave their heads. What's left? Seth Godin." --
Jay Levinson, author of Guerrilla Marketing

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0042XA3A8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (November 1, 2001)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 1, 2001
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2539 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 243 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 182 ratings

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Seth Godin
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Seth Godin is the author of 20 international bestsellers that have been translated into over 38 languages, and have changed the way people think about marketing and work. For a long time, Unleashing the Ideavirus was the most popular ebook ever published, and Purple Cow is the bestselling marketing book of the decade.

He worked as a year as the volunteer founding editor of The Carbon Almanac, and his recent bestsellers also include The Practice and This is Marketing.

He's a recent inductee to the Marketing Hall of Fame, and also a member of the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame and (go figure), the Guerrilla Marketing Hall of Fame.

His book, Tribes, was a nationwide bestseller, appearing on the Amazon, New York Times, BusinessWeek and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. It's about the most powerful form of marketing--leadership--and how anyone can now become a leader, creating movements that matter.

His book Linchpin came out in 2008 and was the fastest-selling book of his career. Linchpin challenges you to stand up, do work that matters and race to the top instead of the bottom. More than that, though, the book outlines a massive change in our economy, a fundamental shift in what it means to have a job.

In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth was founder and CEO of Squidoo.com,. His blog (find it by typing "seth" into Google) is the most popular marketing blog in the world. Before his work as a writer and blogger, Godin was Vice President of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, a job he got after selling them his pioneering 1990s online startup, Yoyodyne.

He's known as a pioneer in online education, and was the founder of the altMBA.

You can find every single possible detail that anyone could ever want to know at sethgodin.com

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
182 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book insightful and a must-read for college students, recent graduates, and CMOs. They describe it as an interesting concept with sophisticated ideas that build toward a big impact. The book is described as readable and a classic on Virtual Word of Mouth.

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18 customers mention "Thought provoking"18 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful and useful. They say it provides interesting concepts and great insight into having a big impact. The book is easy to read and practice in the future, with good examples of ideas that may or may not work.

"...everything you must know in order to understand and make efficient marketing campaings in this new century, without spending time with complicated..." Read more

"Thought provoking. Interesting points on how to really catch attention and not be totally slave to the already crowded marketing methods" Read more

"...This is informative and extremely helpful to those of us who are fascinated by spreading ideas with our "tribes" as he puts it...." Read more

"...However, he does present several fairly sound approaches to marketing and taking advantage of the concepts of Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point..." Read more

14 customers mention "Readability"14 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and a must-read for college students, recent graduates, and CMOs. They say it helps them understand Seth Godin's vocabulary and build toward his ideas. The book is described as putting the obvious on paper.

"...And just because some of the information I go to regularly, I love it in paper-and-ink. No matter HOW you read Seth Godin - JUST READ HIS WORK!..." Read more

"...An interesting book, but I would have liked more information on how to create original idea viruses. Reviewed by Geni J. White" Read more

"...With easy to understand language, this book is essential for anyone who is looking for a framework to spread their ideas" Read more

"...This is one of Seth's basic books which helps you to understand his vocabulary and build toward his more sophisticated ideas. Buy all his titles...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2001
    This is the newest book by Seth Godin, which is one of the authors that most influenciate my ideas. This book is the continuation of the masterpiece Permission Marketing (which is about how to change the traditional marketing idea of interrupting people by permission marketing). Unleashing the Ideavirus brings the answer to the obviuos question after reading Permission Marketing: "How can I obtain people's permission, since this involves at least one interruption?". The idea behind this book is simple: why spending zillion dollars on TV ads if you can spend much less at word-of-mouth campaings (which the author calls "ideavirus"), and which is more efficient? This book confirms what I am saying for ages: if you have just build up your own company, it is not worth to sepend money on traditional media. The books is full of case studies, with enphasis on internet business. The ideas on which this book is based aren't quite new, but this is the best shot of Godin's work: he can arrange, at just one book, everything you must know in order to understand and make efficient marketing campaings in this new century, without spending time with complicated ideas which doesn't work at pratical levels. The contents of this book are of immediate pratical use, on whichever business your are running: traditional, internet or informal of any kind.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2017
    I don't give 5-star ratings out often, but when I do, it's because the item is something that will rock-your-world. Seth Godin is 5-Star! He 'rocks-the-world'... at least in marketing! I read "Unleashing the Ideavirus" back when it first came out. I have one of the very first downloads of the free PDF Seth made available. But I wanted this book in a paper-and-ink version so I could mark it up. And just because some of the information I go to regularly, I love it in paper-and-ink. No matter HOW you read Seth Godin - JUST READ HIS WORK! And as Seth says in his podcast series, 'Seth Godin's Startup School" ... "I hope you use it." Yes. Read this book and everything you can get your hands on Seth writes .. then USE IT. Kudos Seth!
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2014
    I think Seth Is a brilliant Marketer and Thinker. I Always enjoy his concepts on topics such as marketing and customer acquisition. With that said, Although Seth is a brilliant Marketer, he is not the best writer. This is a relatively small book, but it took me quite some time to finish reading it. Almost like Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" (I started reading it about 6months ago, but I put it down out of Bordom.)

    But I also don't really like how Seth always tries to create NEW WORDS in the minds of his readers. The point of Marketing should be to help your readers reach the "Ahaa" moment. And the Only way to do this is by connecting NEW concepts to information that they ALREADY HAVE. Not by creating NEW concepts to NEW verbiage.

    So in the Book I found Seth using words like "Sneezers" when he should have just used the common term in the Marketing industry (Affiliate).

    Seth also used the word "Kickback" which left me scratching my head for about 5mins trying to understand what on earth he was talking about. (Turns out he was referring to an affiliate commission)

    He also used the word "Hive" to refer to a specific NICHE.

    So overall, I would equate seth's book to a REALLY good movie that loses its momentum toward the end...
    Its the movie that was good the first 92mins

    ... but in the last 15mins, you are just ready for it to be over.

    But with that said, I am Glad that I read the book. I would recommend it for the sole purpose learning the power of Viral Marketing.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2011
    Unleashing the Ideavirus
    Stop marketing AT people! Turn Your Ideas into Epidemics by helping your customers do the marketing for you.
    Seth Godin
    © 2001 by Do You Zoom, Inc.
    ISBN 0-7868-8717-6
    Hyperion, NY
    225 pp plus index (ppbk)

    Seth Godin writes about why ideas matter, how to unleash an idea virus so it will spread and how to develop the idea virus formula to make ideas work. He also gives nearly a hundred pages of case studies about what has and has not worked in marketing your ideas.

    An interesting book, but I would have liked more information on how to create original idea viruses.

    Reviewed by Geni J. White
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2011
    Drawing from his immense knowledge and experience on technology, business, marketing and social networking Seth converts books like the Tipping Point into usable business strategies through Unleashing the Idea Virus.

    Ideal for companies trying to get a feel for how all these new technologies can actually be applied in a business sense.

    The only trouble is things are happening soooo fast these days that you need to make sure you get an updated version as so many technologies have either evolved, are outdated or new better versions already!
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2022
    Thought provoking. Interesting points on how to really catch attention and not be totally slave to the already crowded marketing methods
  • Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2013
    As a geek for marketing books I recently stumbled upon Seth Godins work. This is the first book I read by him and felt it was an incredible introduction. This is informative and extremely helpful to those of us who are fascinated by spreading ideas with our "tribes" as he puts it. For old ideas explained with new details and helpful tools I would recommend this book.

Top reviews from other countries

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  • AR
    5.0 out of 5 stars Immer noch höchst relevant
    Reviewed in Germany on August 25, 2017
    Seit 2001 hat sich das Internet und damit unsere Welt extrem weiter entwickelt.
    Die Prinzipien, die Seth Godin in "Unleashing the Ideavirus" entfaltet, gelten jedoch heute immer noch oder vielleicht sogar mehr denn je.
    Für Marketing-Leute, Unternehmensgründer und alle, die mit ihrer Idee mehr als den unmittelbaren Freundeskreis beeinflussen wollen, ist dieses Buch sehr zu empfehlen.
  • Raffaella
    5.0 out of 5 stars leggendolo, sto per cambiare vita
    Reviewed in Italy on January 24, 2017
    anche se sono alla ricerca della versione italiana, al momento sono nella fase della traduzione, ma sento in questo libro un potere enorme
  • Genstein
    5.0 out of 5 stars Market at a whole new level
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2010
    This book, whilst not having any new ideas in, gave me incredible clarity in how marketing works today, what I've been doing all my life, and how to repeat it again and again to get success.

    This is one of the most influential books I've read in my life time.
  • Rania
    3.0 out of 5 stars Second hand but cheap and decent
    Reviewed in Germany on November 5, 2015
    The book was exactly as shown, arrived on time some notes in the book but where in the description.Generally a good buy.
  • Kyleobrien
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great one
    Reviewed in Canada on February 8, 2014
    I loved it! I just finished even though i bought it ages ago but I have been going over it so much I never got to the end and know I did and it was great.

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