Organised Word of Mouth.

Harvard Business Publishing and Seth Godin have both linked to a free book by Dave Balter. Dave Balter is a word-of-mouth-marketer and he has written a book about that very subject. The book is available from Amazon for $45. But more importantly he’s giving it away free as a PDF. The hope is that if you read it and like it and want a hard copy you’re willing to pay for it as you know it’s already good. He’s taken the risk out of it completely. He’s also, I presume, quite happy for you just to read it and enjoy it, without paying.

The genius of what he’s done is also that he proves his point. Or at least he’s willing to put his theories to the ultimate test. He’s decided to market a book about word of mouth using word of mouth. He’s got some heavyweight bloggers on board and now I’m passing it on to you.

I’ve started the reading the book and it’s excellent. As I will soon be helping a friend to start a new business we’ll be taking advantage of some of the concepts in the book. The author is kind of just organising some common sense but it’s good to think through these things in a structured manner. I think our church could benefit from some of the ideas and principles as well.

I’ll give you the central idea and practical advice after I’ve read it. I think, however, you should just read it yourself… especially if you are in any way linked to marketing (which, by the way, you are if you work for, or own, a business).

Here’s the link to Seth’s post and here’s the link for the Harvard post. You can get the link to the FREE book there.

p.s. If in doubt.. It’s easy to read, the chapters are short, the subject matter and examples engaging, very persuasive and of course funny.