Product Description

Selected as one of Library Journal's Best Business Books for 2007

Tied for the Gold Medal in the first annual Axiom Business Awards, sponsored by Inc. Magazine.

It's official: the old marketing model is dead, and word of mouth is king. But while a lot of attention has been paid to the mechanics of creating buzz, only the savviest of marketers have learned to focus on crafting the right kind of message -- because without it, even the loudest buzz will soon die down. Beyond Buzz shows readers how to listen to customers, identify what is important to them, and then craft the kind of message that will truly resonate and spark conversation.

Filled with insightful examples of conversational marketing at work, Beyond Buzz gives readers the tools and inspiration they need to create an effective and interesting conversational theme that will engage their customers and take their marketing to a whole new level.

Without the right message in place, word of mouth marketing will never live up to its promise. This innovative and practical book shows readers how to ignite people's interest...and generate much more than buzz.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #244795 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-26
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Review

"..a prodigious and worthy successor to [The Cluetrain Manifesto] by looking at the ways humans communicate with each other." The Miami Herald, Sept. 10, 2007

"“Lois Kelly has delivered a prodigious and worthy successor to that book [The Cluetrain Manifesto] by looking at the ways humans communicate with each other and how conversational aspects, hooks and themes can be used for marketing. She brings the proverbial cluetrain into the station and unpacks some of the freight.” The Miami Herald, Sept. 10, 2007

Winner of the Gold Medal in the first annual Axiom Business Awards, sponsored by Inc. Magazine, in the advertising/marketing/PR/event planning category. Tied with Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz.”

From the Back Cover
"This is an amazing book, a must read for every marketing manager interested in improving ROI. Stimulating, informative, lively, beautifully written, it's loaded with more insights per page than any marketing book I've read. I love it."-- Dr. Kevin J. Clancy, chairman and CEO of Copernicus, and author of the best selling Counterintuitve Marketing and The Marketing Revolution.

"The Cluetrain Manifesto was a call for corporations to wake up to the global conversations about them, and potentially with them. In Beyond Buzz, Lois Kelly gives corporations the practical tools to answer that call."--Walter J. Carl, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Northeastern University

"Lois Kelly shows us how to have meaningful conversations with our customers in a practical no-nonsense way. The dialogue about our brands is now in the consumer's hands. If we are going to influence that dialog as marketers, we have to change the way we think about our messages. I found this book insightful and practical." --Laura Stanton, Director of Marketing, Dunkin' Brands Inc.

"Beyond Buzz is filled with no nonsense, straightforward, and - heaven help us! - hype-free advice for marketing professionals on how to tell a story well. Kudos to Ms. Kelly for reminding me of why I got into this field in the first place - to connect those who want to tell a story to those with whom they want to share the story...and to help them tell it in a meaningful, respectful, relevant, and passionate way."--Peg Culotta Kates, Director, SAP Global Public Services

"I first encountered Lois Kelly at a conference a couple of years ago. She was the bright light among many excellent speakers...conversational, engaging, dynamic, coming to you with fresh ideas and a unique point of view. Her message: marketers can unleash their companies by getting them to have exactly these attributes. I wanted to know more about what she did and how she thought. Beyond Buzz is that more, and more. It builds on her important ideas and offers a comprehensive set of tools and strategies for standing out in our already tippytoed, over-hyped world."--Mark Lundegren, Strategic Planning Leader, Swiss Re Americas

"To become relevant, you need to engage your customers. Beyond Buzz is a practical guide on how to develop conversational marketing techniques in today's consumer-driven world. A must read for today's brand builders." --Mike Janover, Vice-President of Marketing, CNET

About the Author
Lois Kelly (Cumberland, RI) is the founder of Foghound, a strategic communications consulting firm specializing in branding, whose clients have included Sun Microsystems, FedEx, and others. Previously, she was Senior Vice President of The Weber Group, one of the largest PR firms in the world. Her articles have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Brand Week, Advertising Age, and others.

Customer Reviews

Learn how to talk with customers instead of at them.
Conversational marketing is really a simple concept and one that's been around since people started conversing. However, marketing, PR and advertising departments, especially in larger businesses, don't think conversationally. That's a problem, because customers want conversation, not the "party line." Lois Kelly offers a spot on solution--

"Marketing has traditionally been more like a manufacturing operation, producing advertisements, Web sites, brochures, campaigns, and press releases. Reframed as a service, however, marketing gains even more value through the processes of listening advising, explaining, and teaching." (p. 155)

Companies need to reshape their entire approach to communication to have any hope of influencing today's customers. That entails changing mindsets, job responsibilities, interdepartmental relationships and customer interaction--tough stuff.

The great value of "Beyond Buzz" is that it explains how large organizations can reorganize and reorient themselves to be conversational. Kelly has a lot of first-hand experience working with firms that successfully made the change, and with some that didn't. Her ideas and transformative techniques are not merely theories, they are tried and true. Worthwhile reading for business owners, leaders, and top level marketing, PR, advertising and sales execs.

Connecting Technology Was Only the First Step in the Internet Revolution
In 1998, during the emerging years of the Internet, Kevin Kelly wrote that "The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention" as part of his seminal work New Rules for the New Economy. His predictions then regarded the ways that connected communications like the Internet would change our lives. Looking back on his predictions, not only was Kevin Kelly correct about the role of technology in changing our society, he also accurately predicted the importance of human interaction and attention in our new networks.

Now in 2007, Lois Kelly (presumably no relation to Kevin) extends the ideas of Kevin Kelly to the actual practices of any person responsible for communicating with a public audience. Her primary contention is that communicators must be worthy of and skilled in engaging a public into a conversation. Executives and communication personnel who work in public relations, marketing, sales or politics must acknowledge that their audience is not a waiting receiver of prepackaged messages that are broadcasted in any number of available channels. Kelly writes that communicators must transcend the technology itself to make conversations relevant between senders and receivers. And in any real conversation, there is human attention.

Beyond Buzz is a great handbook that outlines the many methods of creating and maintaining useful conversations, including the effects of our Internet technologies. I would recommend this book for any PR, sales, advertising or marketing person who wishes to take the next step beyond the marketing fundamentals of price, product, positioning, etc. Or, to combine the ideas of both Kellys, to engage scarce human attention in today's hyper-connected network world, one must create an interesting conversation as part of a human relationship. I am sure that when we look back on 2007, we will see that Lois was just as prescient as Kevin was in 1998.

Marketing 2.0
So many "business" books are fun to read, illuminating, and tell marvelous stories, but sometimes I wonder what it really means to me, and how I can apply concepts and ideas to my job.

Lois manages to do both -- she skillfully uses stories, metaphors, and practical advice to get you thinking about how to stop talking "at" customers, and start meaningful, productive conversations with them instead.

She writes about the many-to-many "talk" culture that marketers and leaders need to adopt to attract and keep customers. What better way to stay interested and engaged than through a conversation? This is a big shift for people use to building massive, one-way Web channels, and it's probably terrifying for some.

Lois gives examples of how companies and people are adapting, and she can help you make this change too. Start with developing a point-of-view that "sets you apart, speeds understanding, and provokes converstation." She follows this up with introspection -- tapping into core values and beliefs of the company (the CEO can help here), really listening to your customers, uncovering talk-worthy ideas, and much more.