Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help Not Hype

Don’t let its age fool you – this book is perhaps more relevant now than it was a decade ago when it was published.Unlike many marketing materials, which tell you how you can (and should) sell your products or promote your brand, this book focuses on the why: and that is, to help people, a concept he calls “youtility.” While some of the examples may seem dated, his theories, concepts and ideas are still powerfully relevant to today’s marketers, content creators and aspiring creators.The author encourages marketers to ask, “how can I help?” and focus on creating reliable, free sources of information for consumers on their terms. He addresses how companies should not bombard consumers with products in the hopes of securing a one-time purchase. Instead, he advocates that companies build a lasting relationship based on trust, honesty, timeliness of information and necessity.The author provides many examples of how companies, both large and small, have used this kind of youtility to not only reach customers, but to genuinely connect and build relationships with them. While he doesn’t tell you exactly how to do this for your company, he does give you examples, principles and practices you can start implementing to reframe your marketing strategy.My only critiques would be that some of the content or examples can seem a bit repetitive or out of date. However, the concepts he is reiterating are timeless, and the multiple ways of examining them provide readers with several ideas for how they can implement the practices in their own businesses or organizations.I was personally inspired by his concepts to create a small blog for my employer, which has generated significant traffic for the website and created a referenceable information pool I can direct customers to and continually add new questions and content to.Overall, this book is incredibly informative for the marketer and creator alike. His concepts are easily understandable and the provided examples provide a great framework for how you can implement youtility into your business, whatever the size. I highly recommend this book!

It's time we retire "content marketing" as a buzzword because it does not help marketers understand what the heck they should be really doing on the internet to reach their business goals. When you start selling "content marketing", you get "content" as a result. Lots of it. Most of it is horrendous. We're living in the world of abundant, low quality content. We wanted companies to create content, we've got content. Be careful what you wish for."Youtility" to the rescue! It is the next logical step on the evolutionary ladder of the modern internet marketing because it tells you exactly - and spares no useful, real life examples - WHAT and HOW you should be doing today (2013) to attract customers. "Content marketing" emphasizes the form, while "Youtility" emphasizes the desired end result (a marketing so useful and life enhancing people would pay you for it, but you're giving it away for free). Youtility is the most simple content marketing strategy I've ever heard of because it consists of only one rule: Find out what information your customers NEED so that they could make better decisions, and then give it to them CONSISTENTLY in the FORM they most care for.Youtility first tells you WHY you should engage in USEFUL MARKETING (because market conditions have changed: your customers are in charge now and they do now want to be advertised at). The book then goes to great lengths to give you practical examples of companies of all sizes who made themselves useful to their potential customers without expecting instant results. Smart marketers publish useful information in various forms (articles, videos, apps, real-time tweets...), hoping that by doing so consistently, that the customer will choose them over their competitor when the time comes to open the wallet. The future of internet marketing is to outteach, not to outspend your competitors.The bad news is that youtility marketing is not easy because your rewards are not in your immediate future. The (very) good news is that almost nobody is practicing youtility marketing, which means we all have the chance to "win the information war" (better today than tomorrow, better tomorrow than never).The book lacks in-depth strategy about creating, developing, maintaining and enhancing your youtility marketing, but it gives you enough ammo and food for thought to start brainstorming about the future of your company's internet marketing. No matter whether you're in B2B or B2C, the book tells you what helpful questions you should be asking yourself, where to find out what your customers really need from you, and expands your mind into territories you might have not considered before.From now on - and until the market conditions change again - I will be teaching all my clients about "Youtility" principles.

Rarely does a book catch on to a trend at exactly the right moment and make it its own. Youtility by Jay Baer does exactly that. It seems that putting the words “Being Helpful” at the heart of your business in 2014 is the one strategy that will work to make your business better. But it is not an exact science. What goes around comes around, almost. If you try to be helpful with the goal of getting something back in return you are not giving genuine help. And it is almost definitely going to fail.I have been thinking about this recently, as winning our recent Best Website Award in 2013 was only possible because we managed to prove to the independent judges that we have provided genuine help to business owners on our blog. Our help has solved problems and helped small business owners save money.Jay Baer explains how to implement this strategy in your business in his book Youtility, and if you haven’t read it, I would highly recommend that you do. He suggests 6 steps to embedding a “Being Helpful” philosophy into your business.1. Identify and Understand Your Customers’ Needs2. Work Out The Best Way To Respond To Those Needs3. Celebrate Your Helpfulness4. Being Helpful Is A Mindset5. Make Sure That Being Helpful Is A Continuous Process6. MeasureSo there have it, read this book, implement a 'Being Helpful' strategy and you will find really does help your business.

Like many bloggers and product makers I had stumbled my way through marketing my wares from the beginning, never really understanding what to say, or how to say it when it came to advertising.I didn’t have a clue, or a plan and I didn’t know what my customers wanted to hear.I thought I just had to shout the loudest to be heard originally.And any time I succeeded in selling I thought it was through a mixture of luck and dog-eared determination.How silly that was!So fast forward to July/August last year and I bought a book on Amazon, called Youtility by Jay Baer (published 2013).I started reading it and it was like BAM! Here was the answer I was looking for all along.‘Smart marketing is about Help and not Hype’ ~ Jay BaerI recommend getting a copy of the book and devouring every sentence.

With so much hype around 'content marketing' in 2014, it's good to see Jay Baer get to grips with the fundamental tenet of any content marketing plan - making something useful.Great book, and I have already had to buy a second copy after giving away my first one.A quick web search will turn up keynote videos and guest podcasts/vodcasts with Jay talking through the central themes of the book. Consider the book as a companion to these.

Jay Baer introduces a developing concept in marketing that focuses on the individual consumer rather than the mass market. It's an approach that's gaining a growing following and one that gives small businesses a level playing field to take on the big brands. This book is a useful push to make your business a Youtility business and provides some handy examples that you could try today.

Still working my way through this book but what I have read so far is good.