Your Marketing Sucks, by Mark Stevens

A Review

I used to think that Getting Hits, by Don Sellers, was a bad, bad book. I stand corrected. Mark Stevens in Your Marketing Sucks makes a mockery of the trees (or tree, singular) which were sacrificed to print this utterly useless book.

Never before have I been confronted with such a poor attempt at fraud. Sure, a lot of people want to make a quick buck by throwing some words together in an insincere and uneducated attempt at writing, but this trash takes the cake. To say that it is overpriced at $24.00 would be misleading - indeed, it would be overpriced at fifteen cents.

To be sure, I'm not offended by the stupidity and aimlessness of the book. You cannot fault an author for being ignorant. But I do find offensive the entire lack of trying. I'm half-convinced the author is nothing more than a 12 year old kid who skimmed through (and misunderstood) Al Ries' The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, and then spent a couple of hours writing this trash.

Enough with the diatribe. Here's a review that'll save you $24.00:

"Extreme Marketing"

From the start, Mark appears to attempting to coin for himself a new concept. In a stroke of genius, he has decided to patent the concept of Extreme Marketing. And, why not? Seth Godin has Permission Marketing; Jay Conrad Levinson has Guerilla Marketing; and every second rate marketing hack has an Extreme this, that or the other thing, so why can't Marky-boy have Extreme Marketing?

Two reasons. One - Extreme is about as useful and descriptive as good, nice, fine and agreeable. And, Two - in order to successfully coin a concept, the concept must have substance and the concept must be unique, or new, or something other than common sense.

Mark's Extreme Marketing lacks both substance and originality.

For all the language of juvenile iconoclasm Mark uses, his Extreme Marketing is nothing more than the process by which you can (a) determine how every marketing dollar can be spent most effectively and (b) receive a positive return on your investment.

And, yes, I was quoting him, word for word, from the book.

Juvenile Iconoclasm

The following chapters consist of more juvenile iconoclasm mixed in with a heavy portion of drivel. Mark demostrates that he can say things like "SOB" and "sucks" and "hell", and while this may impress 3rd graders when spoken by a 3rd grader, the shock value is entirely lacking when accompanied by inane and counterproductive marketing advice.

Bad Advice

Among Mark's 1st chapter advice:

You need to hit everyone wherever they turn. Coca Cola does.

Um, Mark, have you ever heard of targeting your market? Coca Cola has a huge market insofar as something like 100% of humans have to drink something or else they die.

99.9% of businesses out there, however, do not have such a broard target market. Your book, for example, has a somewhat limited target market, and to advertise your book in the same manner that Coca Cola advertises its product would be inefficient and - in a word - stupid.

More Bad Advice

Infomercials... are terrific.

According to Mark, if you say, "We would never do infomercials because they are so tacky.", then you are probably more interested in how your advertising looks than how it works.

Huh. Well, Mark, does your beloved Coca Cola do infomercials? No? And why is that? My 12 year old daughter thinks it's because infomercials often do more damage to a brand than they do good. Smart girl.

Conclusion

I want my money back.

There is some sound advice in this book, but it is outweighed ten-to-one by bad advice. Mark's advertising tactics hurt brands; his recommended pricing strategies devalue the products and are perfect for unprofitability; and his understanding of market dynamics is off the wall.