Free Prize Inside

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

I would start with the Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside by Godin, they are high level but they talk about that fact that you need to make your product exceptional instead of pouring money into marketing. I would also check out Inbound Marketing by Halligan and Shah, I just got it and started it but so far it looks good.

The phrase "go to the edges" actually comes from his book Free Prize Inside. The idea is that the products/companies with the best stories win, and the way to find the best stories is to go to the edges-- make your product very small or very big, very cheap or very expensive, very complicated or very simple, etc. He gives 30 or so categories, and there are a bunch of examples of how this works. His next book is actually called Linchpin, it comes out in a week or so. IMHO it's his best since All Marketers Are Liars.

…or invention and innovation is basically the same, but the ROI on innovation is 10x better than the ROI on invention. (This is one of the main ideas of Seth Godin's book Free Prize Inside.) 2) The best person in a given industry makes 10x as much as the tenth best person, and 100x as much as the 100th best person. Thus the best way to make money is by innovating, not inventing, in an area that you are way overqualified for. It took me a long time to really understand this, but it's a lesson that's well worth learning.

It would take a few weeks to compile a list like this, but a few things that would definitely be up there: 1) The idea behind the book All Marketers Are Liars 2) His idea that ideas that inspire people to talk about them are the ideas that spread. This idea is spread out across three books (Purple Cow, Free Prize Inside, and The Big Moo). 3) His collection of ideas about what is and isn't worth measuring. C.f. his blog post on Clean Firetrucks, his blog post on holding the sides of the treadmill, etc.

… This Is Broken: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4101280286098310645 * Hard Work: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/69/sgodin.html * All his books, especially All Marketers are Liars, Permission Marketing, and Free Prize Inside. * His best blog posts are collected in the book Small Is The New Big. I love all of Seth's vintage stuff, but my personal favorite is probably his post Clean Fire Trucks: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/12/clean_firetr...

…t 95% of businesses, which sell mundane goods like vacuum cleaners." I don't understand where you are getting this from. Most of Seth's books are about mundane products: All Marketers are Liars, Purple Cow, The Big Moo, Free Prize Inside... Most of his best blog posts are about mundane products too. When he talks about stuff in the news he likes to talk about web startups, but that's about it. If I had to sum of Seth's philosophy in one sentence, I'd say it's about taking mundane commodity products and making them remarkable.

Edgecraft. Seth Godin describes the process in Free Prize Inside. ( http://decentmarketing.typepad.com/weblog/2004/05/on_the_edg... )

…at's counterintuitive. I figure, hey, I'm pretty smart, so if it's intuitive then I can probably figure it out on my own. A list of stuff I cite most often: No Contest & Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton PG's essays & ITConversations interviews The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto The Singularity is Near by Kurzweil This graph: http://alexkrupp.com/picture_library/plot.jpg Dee Hock's essay on leadership A handful of blog posts by Mark Cuban All Marketers are Liars & Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin. All of the books that Seth recommends are also worth reading. Bruce Schneier's interview on ITConversations Magic Ink, an essay by Bret Victor War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges The Cluetrain Manifesto (the book) I'm sure there's a lot more, but that's what comes …

…ant for zero R&D, versus making something people want that requires a huge investment, the intelligent choice should be obvious. This is the premise of Seth Godin's book Free Prize Inside. That is, you could spend 50 million dollars inventing a new cereal that will double sales if it succeeds (but will most likely fail), or you could double sales just by putting a free prize inside.