Quote:
Originally Posted by GordonJ
The "family" or tribe (or cult if one prefers) gets it, it is an automatic response, bypasses RAS, lets the idea in.
Be it Chicken Soup or Guerilla or NO B.S. we can find a slew of these families. It makes targeting very easy, when you combine the BRAND with the new product for a new niche.
HBR
Dummy
Idiot
Little Blue Books
Mango Bob
Best selling authors haave whole series wrapped around ONE character;
James Bond, Jack Ryan, Alphabet series by S. Grafton, numbers by Janet Evanovich and Stephanie Plum.
The Four __________ agreements, etc.
And so on.
You can either create a brand or be the brand, as in D. Kennedy's NO BS series, many co authored.
You can see this in collectibles too, like birds (ceramic) plates, coins, like the state quarters.
Any one of which can be a stand alone, but using a FAMILY name, like the Chicken Soup thing, it cuts through attention, at least to see if it is of interest and STOPPING people and getting attention, is maybe half or more of the battle.
Gordon
PS. We should have SowPub brand...Seeds of Wisdom ___________ eh?
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Hi Gordon,
Thanks - this has helped me to clarify my thoughts...
What I was trying to get across was rather a subset of a "family" of products...
I called it (in my earlier post) a "franchise"... In fiction, a "franchise" is a series of works (like novels or films) that live in the same fictional universe...
However, I was talking non-fiction... But what I was trying to get at was the feeling that the work is part of a bigger "whole" - the same feeling you get with a fictional franchise...
For example, my personal "feeling" is that with Jay Conrad Levinson's guerrilla marketing books, if you read one, you'll get part of the picture... If you read another, you'll get a little bit of a fuller picture, and so on...
For example, I feel if I read "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times" (2005), then read "Guerrilla Social Media Marketing" (2010), they will probably complement each other to some degree, and I'll come away with an even fuller picture of "guerrilla marketing"...
They all "build" (at least in my mind) into a greater and fuller picture of the applications and principles of "guerrilla marketing"...
Not all "families" of products are like this...
For example, the "...For Dummies" series is a "family" of products, but does not build to a bigger "picture" like I'm thinking about...
For example, if I read "Fishing for Dummies," then I read "iPad and iPad Pro for Dummies" - I don't feel they will complement each other in any way.
Reading "Fishing for Dummies" won't help me understand "iPad and iPad Pro for Dummies" any better, or vice versa...
They are part of the same "family" of products, but they are a "family" because of their name and the structure of the books, but not the content of the books - which are like chalk and cheese...
So the "For Dummies" books don't have this same "feeling" of building to a greater understanding that I'm talking about - where each book is part of a bigger picture, and reading more books will lead to a greater overall understanding of this bigger picture...
I don't think there is a word or phrase for this in non-fiction (at least that I can think of)... But that was what I was trying to get at...
A quick word on Dan Kennedy's "No BS" series of books... I know it's sacrilege (!), but I feel Dan Kennedy's "No BS" brand is not a strong one... The reason why is because "No BS" is too common a phrase, so, at least in my mind, Dan Kennedy doesn't "own" the "No BS" phrase the same way Jay Conrad Levinson effectively "owned" the "guerrilla marketing" phrase...
A quick search shows many "No BS" books NOT by Dan Kennedy... "Get Over Your Damn Self: The No-BS Blueprint to Building a Life-Changing Business" (Romi Neustadt), "Stop Saying You're Fine: The No-BS Guide to Getting What You Want" (Mel Robbins), "The Angry Therapist: A No BS Guide to Finding and Living Your Own Truth" (John Kim)... and there are plenty more...
The books above all have more reviews on Amazon than the highest Dan Kennedy "No BS" book does, so they're probably outselling Dan's "No BS" books too...
Gordon, though, is a master at "coining" and then "owning" various phrases... (I don't need to list them here...) Which I feel is excellent branding...
Best wishes,
Dien