A couple of weeks ago I was researching marketing blogs (more on that in another post) when I was directed to Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing blog. I guess timing is everything since one of the first posts that caught my attention was about his new book Personality Not Included. He is forgoing traditional marketing to promote his book and instead issued a challenge to his readers which I accepted. He was looking for 50 bloggers to interview him via email and to post the interviews on their blogs. His marketing plan comes down to 50 blogs with 5 questions each to help spread the word about his book.
With the ‘pressure’ of his marketing plan’s success partially relying on my questions here is my interview with Rohit. I figured I would add a sixth question to my interview to give him a little extra help...
Josef: Your marketing this book using new media what goals have you set for book sales and how are you going to measure your marketing effort's success?Rohit: The ultimate goal is to sell out all of my first editions so the publisher has to go back to print a second edition! The first edition run was about 19,000 and more than half have already been pre-sold to bookstores and online retailers so progress is great. I am very happy about where sales are and international distribution (including several translated versions that have just been approved and should be out later this year)
Josef: You have some great reviews from well known business people and authors. How did you manage to grab their attention to help you out?
Rohit: The interesting thing about doing research and getting authors and business people to help out is that they are all so accessible now with emails and commenting on their blogs. It's a brilliant use of time now, because you can be so much more effective with who you reach out to. Thankfully, I also had a unique idea for a book which several of the reviewers were quite intrigued by.
Josef: At Trump University we work with entrepreneurs and small business owners; how do you see this book helping smaller business grow and market themselves?
Rohit: I think this book fits perfectly into that role - what do I have to do to get it included in the syllabus for a marketing class? ;-) Actually, small business was a key audience that the book was written for, because part of the concept is finding ways to stand out ahead of a competitor, even if they may be far bigger.
Josef: You refer to a "marketing backstory" which sounds intriguing. Can you elaborate on what this means and how a company develops their story?
Rohit: Yes, the marketing backstory is essentially the foundation of the story that you tell about your brand. In the book, I outline five key models for types of stories you can use, and then how they can be put into action to tell the story of your own brand.
Josef: What advice do you have for companies that feel their 'target demographic' does not use social media?
Rohit: My first advice is to broaden your definition of social media. You may not think they read blogs, and you may be right, but do they read Amazon reviews? What about use Google? Of course they do ... and chances are they have come upon a form of social media and didn't even realize it. Of course, just launching a blog without a strategy would be equally foolish. The point with social media has to be to understand what your customers are really doing and then find the right way to use it.
Rohit: I would love to say yes, however all of you haven't read the book yet, so I cannot really expect you to be spokespeople until then. After you do, I'll be taking applications! ;-)
OK so that is my interview with Rohit and I hope to continue our dialogue in the future. If you think I did a good job please visit the Influential Marketing blog on Monday and vote for my interview.
If you are interested in learning more download the book’s intro.
