Jonah Berger was a marketing professor
Contagious, why things catch on is a marketing journal and an exciting read for students who want to thrive in their marketing strategies. The author of the book,
Jonah Berger was a marketing professor
at the Wharton School of business, and its therefore very expected that he has some quite content in there. Before he wrote and published the book, he had conducted continuous research on why some advertisements, such as ads, YouTube videos, and so on, usually gain publicity while others do not. By the time you as a learner are done going through this exciting read, you will have found out the dos and don’ts of marketing.
Traditionally, the popularity of a product depended on the cost, quality, and how it is advertised and presented to the public eye. However, according to Berger, these people often ignored how powerful word of mouth is in popularizing a particular commodity. He insists that this is a persuasive method of advertisement and will even get you more customers if you create a good rapport with them. In the book, he creates a detailed list of the best ways to make your products a success no matter how boring they may seem. The first method is titled social currency. To explain this concept, he stated that people usually share their ideas on things through various platforms on social media to appear more fascinating among their friends. This is the term he uses to describe word of mouth and he said that to achieve this from the people, your products need to be genuine and unique, generate mind games from them and then make your products scarce.
After achieving this social currency and people have began talking about your brand amongst each other, you should trigger the minds of your prospects to keep their thoughts on your products. This is usually achieved by ensuring that your products relate with their surrounding so that they can relate whatever they see with what you have to offer. A literal instance of such a case was in 1997 when NASA was organizing space trips to mars. Consequently, their existed a candy company Mars candy bar sales which testifies of a huge amount of sales during this particular period. The third strategy is emotions whih he explained as content that is emotional usually evokes your prospects feelings either positively or negatively. Products that have such impact causes the people to talk about and through this, they become popularized. Examples of such products incude iphones release, an increase in taxes and much more. In the book he continues to explain that the more you publicize your brand , the more it makes significant growth milestones. He explains that if a popular person is seen to use an apple product, say an Iphone or laptop, the rest of the society will begin to trust this brand more following the perso’s influence.
The fifth marketing strategy he talks about in the book is that brands should make product that are of good quality. This will ensure that it publicize itself because satisfied customers will make referrals to their friends after they have been assured a value for their money. To explain the last strategy, he stated that people often love to tell stories and information travels faster that wild fire in this circumstances. He explained that when Dove, a lotion brand, used this strategy, it made a significant increase in sales.
In conclusion, I would advise any student who aspires to become a better marketer, then this particular read will be of much help.