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Your Marketing Sucks
“Your marketing sucks . . .”
What in the world does Mark Stevens mean?
For starters, let’s take spending camouflaged as marketing. Everyone sees all those expensive, slick, pointless campaigns day after day. Just turn on your TV set and there are all the look-alike ads from Ford, GM, and Chrysler with look-alike cars going down . . . a road. Creative? Probably yes—nice scenery, good-looking people, etc., etc. But effective? Mark Stevens says absolutely not. Like you’re going to spend $30,000 or more for the privilege of seeing a car go down . . . a road? Wouldn’t it be easier for the Big Three in Detroit just to open the windows at their ad agencies and throw out gobs of thousand-dollar bills?
Don’t get Mark Stevens started on marketing that sucks, or he might mention all those oh-so-cool people-in-black at the ad agencies developing campaigns that generate all kinds of buzz—in the advertising community. But not in the marketplace. (Oops.)
Note to advertisers from Mark If you have an advertising agency that applies for any kind of an award (Clios, whatever), fire them immediately. They shouldn’t be in the business to win ego awards for beautiful ads. They should be creating ads that sell. Period! If they talk about building “mind share,” fire them immediately as well. That’s just another way of saying they’ll camouflage their failure to generate sales behind an intellectual smoke screen.
Mark Stevens is the best friend of anyone with a product or service to sell who wants to use marketing as a basis for growing the business. What he provides both entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 types is a hard-nosed, “prove it to me” program that demands accountability for every dollar spent on marketing so that it brings in more revenue or customers, preferably both. Use his program and you won’t be throwing money out the window.
Your Marketing Sucks is chock-full of practical ideas such
* Marketing is not about advertising, public relations, or direct mail. It is about growing the revenues, profit, and valuation of the business.
* The marketing moratorium. Stop all your marketing for a month and you may be surprised at what happens. Sales have actually risen at some companies, a sure sign that, prior to the moratorium, they were throwing money out the window.
* Why the worst ads are actually the best. Start paying attention to the genius of the infomercial and cast a very skeptical eye on the kind of ads you see during the Super Bowl.
* Reverse engineer your marketing so that it starts at the point-of-sale. Because nothing happens unless a sale is made.
* Employ a swarming offense. Hit customers from every possible angle—print ads, sales displays, e-mails, infomercials.
* Pick the low-hanging fruit. Cross-sell to clients and customers.
Mark Stevens shows how to conceive an innovative, effective marketing campaign strategy—like Bill Gates’s battle cry of “putting a computer on every desk and in every home”—and then monitor the results. The idea is to spend your marketing budget only in ways that will give you a measurable return on your marketing dollars. That’s more than good It’s how you grow a business. And that’s what this book is all about!
What in the world does Mark Stevens mean?
For starters, let’s take spending camouflaged as marketing. Everyone sees all those expensive, slick, pointless campaigns day after day. Just turn on your TV set and there are all the look-alike ads from Ford, GM, and Chrysler with look-alike cars going down . . . a road. Creative? Probably yes—nice scenery, good-looking people, etc., etc. But effective? Mark Stevens says absolutely not. Like you’re going to spend $30,000 or more for the privilege of seeing a car go down . . . a road? Wouldn’t it be easier for the Big Three in Detroit just to open the windows at their ad agencies and throw out gobs of thousand-dollar bills?
Don’t get Mark Stevens started on marketing that sucks, or he might mention all those oh-so-cool people-in-black at the ad agencies developing campaigns that generate all kinds of buzz—in the advertising community. But not in the marketplace. (Oops.)
Note to advertisers from Mark If you have an advertising agency that applies for any kind of an award (Clios, whatever), fire them immediately. They shouldn’t be in the business to win ego awards for beautiful ads. They should be creating ads that sell. Period! If they talk about building “mind share,” fire them immediately as well. That’s just another way of saying they’ll camouflage their failure to generate sales behind an intellectual smoke screen.
Mark Stevens is the best friend of anyone with a product or service to sell who wants to use marketing as a basis for growing the business. What he provides both entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 types is a hard-nosed, “prove it to me” program that demands accountability for every dollar spent on marketing so that it brings in more revenue or customers, preferably both. Use his program and you won’t be throwing money out the window.
Your Marketing Sucks is chock-full of practical ideas such
* Marketing is not about advertising, public relations, or direct mail. It is about growing the revenues, profit, and valuation of the business.
* The marketing moratorium. Stop all your marketing for a month and you may be surprised at what happens. Sales have actually risen at some companies, a sure sign that, prior to the moratorium, they were throwing money out the window.
* Why the worst ads are actually the best. Start paying attention to the genius of the infomercial and cast a very skeptical eye on the kind of ads you see during the Super Bowl.
* Reverse engineer your marketing so that it starts at the point-of-sale. Because nothing happens unless a sale is made.
* Employ a swarming offense. Hit customers from every possible angle—print ads, sales displays, e-mails, infomercials.
* Pick the low-hanging fruit. Cross-sell to clients and customers.
Mark Stevens shows how to conceive an innovative, effective marketing campaign strategy—like Bill Gates’s battle cry of “putting a computer on every desk and in every home”—and then monitor the results. The idea is to spend your marketing budget only in ways that will give you a measurable return on your marketing dollars. That’s more than good It’s how you grow a business. And that’s what this book is all about!
240 pages, Hardcover
First published July 8, 2003
20 people are currently reading
531 people want to read
About the author
Mark Stevens
35 books27 followersMark Stevens is a quintuple threat:
•Lifelong entrepreneur
•CEO
•Bestselling author
•Animal lover
•Die hard romantic
Mark has published more than 25 books including most recently:
•His debut novel Evidence Of Love
•A first children’s book Sky’s Amazing Dream (focused on his beloved Golden Retriever)
•An inspirational leadership book, Hike A Thousand Miles
•In the style of his classic best seller, Your Marketing Sucks, the soon to be classic sales guide, Everything You Learned About Selling Is A Lie.
•Lifelong entrepreneur
•CEO
•Bestselling author
•Animal lover
•Die hard romantic
Mark has published more than 25 books including most recently:
•His debut novel Evidence Of Love
•A first children’s book Sky’s Amazing Dream (focused on his beloved Golden Retriever)
•An inspirational leadership book, Hike A Thousand Miles
•In the style of his classic best seller, Your Marketing Sucks, the soon to be classic sales guide, Everything You Learned About Selling Is A Lie.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
October 23, 2019
Pretty good for a business book. It did a great job of highlighting stupid marketing mistakes that I see companies, even successful ones, make all of the time.
March 27, 2019
This book struck a chord. I just finished it and want to start over.
January 23, 2010
I don't think there is a page in this book that doesn't have my writing all over it. GOOD SIGN. It's given me so many ideas that I now have so much to do, I don't have time to write a quality review.
Loved it. Would recommend it to anyone starting a business, or working in a business where they are responsible for sales or marketing. If your marketing consultant, branding person etc. hasn't gotten you RESULTS, fire them, read this, and get to work. (Wish my old boss would've taken that advice!!)
Loved it. Would recommend it to anyone starting a business, or working in a business where they are responsible for sales or marketing. If your marketing consultant, branding person etc. hasn't gotten you RESULTS, fire them, read this, and get to work. (Wish my old boss would've taken that advice!!)
October 18, 2023
Horrifying. Truly an example of psychopathy if I’ve ever seen one. The book advocates for any means to achieve wealth including from deregulating financial sectors, trespassing, reckless endangerment, and perhaps the most egregious, infomercials. It more clearly elucidates the slow slide of the American empire into debauchery than any leftist critique or conservative screed. This is ends justifies the means attitude is how we got here. A must read for any citizen of the American empire in its waning stages.
The perspective espoused in this book is so miserably mercenary, so amorally conceived that the only people with whom I could identify were the accountants who Stevens complains are more interested in doing good work than selling their services. If accountants are the heroes, you have really done something heinous.
The book's saving grace is that it makes you understand why the world we live in is so profoundly damaged. It's because of people like Mark Stevens. He has such high esteem for every one of his ideas that he is incapable of considering the fact that he might be wrong. This is evidenced in one toweringly asinine anecdote. Somewhere about halfway through the book he calls out CVS for not implementing an idea he had. He wants CVS to implement a policy where the pharmacy tries to upsell you for orange juice and toilet paper every time you call for your prescriptions. He complains that companies don't think outside the box like he does and that is why their "marketing sucks." However, this is coming from a dude who is so entitled that he cannot imagine what it must be like running a CVS. He has not considered how difficult it is to get someone who makes 9 bucks an hour to care about upselling, or alternatively how hard it would be to get a pharmacist to consider themselves an orange juice sales person. Indeed, Stevens claims several times throughout the book that sales is some kind of innate skill, and yet he expects CVS to train their pharmacists to be the next Glengary Glen Ross? Also, who the hell wants to be upsold makeup and milk when they are trying to refill their migraine meds? I would switch to Walgreens so fast if CVS tried that bullshit.
In short, this is the most horrifying book I have ever read and everyone should read it.
The perspective espoused in this book is so miserably mercenary, so amorally conceived that the only people with whom I could identify were the accountants who Stevens complains are more interested in doing good work than selling their services. If accountants are the heroes, you have really done something heinous.
The book's saving grace is that it makes you understand why the world we live in is so profoundly damaged. It's because of people like Mark Stevens. He has such high esteem for every one of his ideas that he is incapable of considering the fact that he might be wrong. This is evidenced in one toweringly asinine anecdote. Somewhere about halfway through the book he calls out CVS for not implementing an idea he had. He wants CVS to implement a policy where the pharmacy tries to upsell you for orange juice and toilet paper every time you call for your prescriptions. He complains that companies don't think outside the box like he does and that is why their "marketing sucks." However, this is coming from a dude who is so entitled that he cannot imagine what it must be like running a CVS. He has not considered how difficult it is to get someone who makes 9 bucks an hour to care about upselling, or alternatively how hard it would be to get a pharmacist to consider themselves an orange juice sales person. Indeed, Stevens claims several times throughout the book that sales is some kind of innate skill, and yet he expects CVS to train their pharmacists to be the next Glengary Glen Ross? Also, who the hell wants to be upsold makeup and milk when they are trying to refill their migraine meds? I would switch to Walgreens so fast if CVS tried that bullshit.
In short, this is the most horrifying book I have ever read and everyone should read it.
August 9, 2020
I first read this book in ~2004 and had good memories of it. In some ways it’s unfair to judge the outdated references (mostly dot-com era) 16 years later. It’s mostly focused on advertising and direct response, both of which have changed a LOT in the more advanced Internet age.
Some of the worthwhile takeaways:
- Don’t just throw money at ads without knowing the results
- Don’t do the same thing as everyone else, because nobody will notice you
- Look for opportunities to do more with existing customers
- Look for ways to amplify your efforts by doing multiple things at once (versus a little bit spread out over time)
I’m glad I revisited this book, but not sure it will go back on my shelf for another 16 years.
Some of the worthwhile takeaways:
- Don’t just throw money at ads without knowing the results
- Don’t do the same thing as everyone else, because nobody will notice you
- Look for opportunities to do more with existing customers
- Look for ways to amplify your efforts by doing multiple things at once (versus a little bit spread out over time)
I’m glad I revisited this book, but not sure it will go back on my shelf for another 16 years.
October 12, 2020
I liked this book very much!
It provides you with great tips and knowledge to bring your company to the top.
It is also an eye opener, so be careful as you will be hurt to know that what you are doing is probably wrong...
It provides you with great tips and knowledge to bring your company to the top.
It is also an eye opener, so be careful as you will be hurt to know that what you are doing is probably wrong...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 19, 2018
Did not care to read this it was only for a class
November 22, 2019
Rating: 4.5/5
Although this was published 16 years ago, the concepts are still relevant today. Precise, informative, and useful. Stevens is cut-throat and right. If your company isn't implementing Extreme Marketing practices, then it's bound to fail.
Although this was published 16 years ago, the concepts are still relevant today. Precise, informative, and useful. Stevens is cut-throat and right. If your company isn't implementing Extreme Marketing practices, then it's bound to fail.
January 15, 2020
I listened to the audio book. If you work in a Marketing role and have not read this book then you should not be in a Marketing role.
I highly recommend this book.
I highly recommend this book.
December 12, 2020
I left it at the office I fled in March so.... I don't think I'm finishing this one. What I read of it was fine.
December 20, 2023
Good book
January 9, 2024
There are some good nuggets of information in the book but a lot of it is out of date or focuses more on brick and mortar or service based companies.
June 26, 2008
Listening to this book reaffirms the fact that I don't like marketing. It's pushy, in your face, and annoying...but it works if done well. Most of his points seem straight forwrd and make sense once explained. The emphasis is that to be an effective marketer, you must be an extreme marketer. This will never be me due to my extremely introverted personality, but extreme marketing paired with the right personality would definitly be effective. I found his chapter about marketing accounting to be interesting, but that's probably because the informatio was relevant to me in particular. Some of his ideas I would question from a managerial stand point. He suggested at one point that CVS should engage in offering a service when people call to renew prescriptions to ask what other items, such as shampooo, they may need, pull it, and have it ready when they get there. I would imagine the managerial difficulties of making a program like this work would not only be extremely difficult to pull off well, but would not be cost effective.
July 9, 2016
Good read for those new to the industry (though becoming dated). I read this twice, once upon first exploring marketing as a field in 2007, and again in 2013. If you are in the industry it is a good deal of obvious stuff. That said, it has a compelling title and if you need to convince peers or management to do something regarding marketing, slap this on their desk on Friday and then state your case on Monday. No one wants to suck, even if they didn't read it they'll be more likely to listen to your ideas. G'luck!
January 7, 2010
It was a fantastic read that brought new ideas of capitalizing on my killer apps whistl keeping my philosophy [which i just developed in the course of this reading:] in view.Tip i'd always keep in mind is the C+A+M=PG.
One thing i'm not sure i'll do is FIRE THE BETTER SLICE OF MY EMPLOYEES but who knows.
One thing i'm not sure i'll do is FIRE THE BETTER SLICE OF MY EMPLOYEES but who knows.
June 2, 2008
Too many copywriters desperately need this book. It's a fast read and I'd go as far as saying it was more helpful than the entire marketing class I took in college from a Harvard-graduated business professor.
January 28, 2007
Light, enjoyable look at why we end up with so many products that don't really satisfy us. Suprisingly interesting look at channel strategy.
February 11, 2008
My marketing may suck, but so does this book.
Currently reading
October 15, 2008: )
like it so far!
January 8, 2009
Good way to revaluate your marketing.
August 1, 2015
This book was the perfect intro to return-on-investment marketing. I actually know what my new boss is talking about now.
Read
March 26, 2010Your Marketing Sucks. by Mark Stevens (2005)
July 3, 2010
Not great
June 9, 2011
Great book. Just another confirmation that doing things the way everyone does it isn't always the best way!
September 25, 2011
Horrible, boring book. Unless of course you are into that sort of thing.(Which I'm not by the way.) Don't see why you would be, but to each his own.
July 3, 2013
This Book Sucks!
September 24, 2013
Very motivating. It has been awhile since I have read it and I will update this review after I have re-read it.
January 1, 2014
Summary only.
September 23, 2015
Makes a fairly compelling case that a lot of what passes for marketing is bad at what it does - which is useful for my purposes.
January 6, 2025
This book kinda sucks
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews