Evangelist Marketing: What Apple, Amazon, and Netflix Understand About Their Customers (That Your Company Probably Doesn't) [Hardcover]

This is a solid book with good tips about marketing in the consumer electronics industry, but it has some key problems. Firstly, the title is misleading as it's not a book about evangelist marketing in general ' it's about evangelist marketing in the consumer electronics industry. Still, it makes some good points applicable to any industry.

It's current. The author, Alex Goldfayn, finished writing it in October 2011 - and he knows what he's talking about. He's a consultant to large tech brands and a former Chicago Tribune tech journalist. During his time as a journalist, he received 1000s of press releases, interviewed 1000s of tech executives, and talked to 1000s of consumers.

Critiques

' Some things don't apply to marketers because they aren't in their control, like how good the product is or what it's named.
' It's too simplistic on some major points.
' He says to do long-form, qualitative interviews with customers but doesn't address how to make sure you get a representative sample.
' He says early adopters don't affect the mainstream and advises against targeting them, even though early adopters are not all the same and some can really help your efforts.
' He says marketing and communications people 'focus far too much on social media' and argues 'there's only one valuable media when it comes to reaching 'mainstream consumers': big media, i.e. television, radio, newspapers and magazines and their websites and blogs."

The problem is, his argument against social media seems contradictory and simplistic. This quote from the last chapter where he summarizes his main points says it all:
'Speak directly to consumers by developing effective communications platforms: focus on big media and avoid social media. Be where the mainstream is. '
But the next bullet says:
' Take measures to nurture word-of-mouth recommendations among consumers (even if these word-of-mouth recommendations happen on the dreaded social media networks!)'

' He tells companies to all but ignore social media and, instead, get in to big media ' but doesn't say how and doesn't acknowledge how difficult and expensive it can be to get mainstream coverage.

Recommendation: good book for consumer electronics marketers but be wary of its over simplifications.