The era of mass marketing is ending—replaced by the power of customer evangelists unleashed through a systematic approach to word-of-mouth called PyroMarketing . Learn how the system that sparked a revolution in the Christian marketplace can fuel the success of your business. Word-of-mouth is the biggest influence on consumer purchases and its influence is growing. How do you tap its power? The key is not some new technology or advertising fad. The best way to understand the marketing process, the way messages are sent, received, acted upon, and spread, is to think of fire. PyroMarketing simplifies word-of-mouth to a four-step system that optimizes your advertising dollars by targeting the right customers and then converting them into unpaid sales and marketing evangelists. Tapping the latest research into the brain and human behavior, Greg Stielstra demonstrates how traditional marketing techniques are expensive, obsolete, and doomed to failure—while PyroMarketing principles deliver powerful results over the long-term and for less money. Illustrated with case studies including The Purpose-Driven Life , one of the bestselling books of all time, and the breakaway phenomenon The Passion of the Christ , PyroMarketing is a comprehensive strategy that can help any business reach and retain new markets.
I like the metaphor, I agree that marketing to the masses may not work; consumers are over exposed to a constant barrage of marketing. The author is trying to convey the idea that we should be marketing to a smaller select group that are most likely to purchase from you and emphasizes the importance of having a great product. I think he has good points, but I think he spends too much time in the book over explaining the metaphor instead of telling us HOW to find the "likely to buy" contacts, what type of messages we should use to engage them, and how to encourage the spread to of the message to others. He uses the same two examples repeatedly throughout the book, in which his "driest timbers" are pastors. Identifying likely customers may not be as easy for other examples.
For anyone planning on reading this book, I would recommend read only the chapter summaries.
This book should be titled "Jesus built my marketing plan." I don't recommend it if your want to learn about business, I do recommend it if you are a religious freak.
When I got to chapter four, I realized I needed the book version to.
It was everything I was sensing in my marketing and advertising research. Marketing, when done correctly, is like ministry. It's about offering solutions to the people that need it in an honest way.
The author (Greg Stielstra) does an excellent job of equating marketing to building a fire. It's alot of information, but it's chalked full of metaphors that are easy to remember. He uses recent successes like The Purpose Drive Life (which, btw, sold 22 MILLION copies BEFORE everyone and their bosses put it in the media) and the Passion of Christ to illustrate the power of pyromarketing.
If you are someone who needs to learn more about marketing, I would highly recommend buying this book first before spending one more dime on advertsing. In the meantime, download the free audio version.
I would recommend it even if you don't need to know anything about marketing. It's simply that good and I believe it can help anyone think about creative ways to further their dream.
Your investment of $11.86 @ Amazon well pay you back at least 100 times that once you realize how much money you can save by doing things correctly.