Purple Cow Summary

BookSummaryClub Blog Purple Cow Summary

The lowdown: Discover how to make your product stand out from the crowded market with the Purple Cow summary.

When you drive past one of those paddocks, you probably don’t notice any one cow in particular.

However, imagine driving past a paddock full of black and white cows and seeing one solitary purple cow. Odds are that is something you’d pay attention to.

Your market is kinda like that first paddock. Most of the competition offer the same product or service (plus/minus 10%). It is your job as a modern marketer and entrepreneur to turn your business into the purple cow.

Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
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Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
  • Audible Audiobook
  • Seth Godin (Author) – Seth Godin (Narrator)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 11/24/2020 (Publication Date) – Penguin Audio (Publisher)

The three main lessons in this book are:

  1. Advertising is less effective because it is so abundant
  2. To create a remarkable product, you have to take risks
  3. Marketing is creating a product, not selling a product
purple cow summary

Lesson One: Advertising is less effective because it is so abundant

Advertising is both easier and more difficult than ever before.

On one side, it is easier than ever to create and distribute marketing material…

But on the flip side, this accessibility has meant that advertising is everywhere!

For example, back when there were fewer methods of seeing advertising, there were obviously fewer brands who were using them. Due to the small number of brands who actually advertised, the ones who did almost seemed a little more trustworthy.

Now, on the other hand, we see thousands of ads every day.

Every time we use our phones, we will more than likely see an ad.

Think about it…. isn’t that insane?!

We almost subconsciously filter out the ads we see. Making it almost impossible on occasion for advertisers.

So, using advertising is becoming more and more difficult as it loses the power it once had.

Lesson Two: To create a remarkable product, you have to take risks

So, if slapping your product on TV doesn’t work anymore, you need to make sure your product stands out by itself.

It is almost like a throwback to times before advertising, where word of mouth was the main driver of sales.

You need to stand out and be the purple cow of your market.

To be the purple cow, you need to stand out.

To stand out, you need to be different.

To be different, you need to take risks.

So many other business owners will follow the trail left by someone before them and expect that to work. Sure, you may make a quick buck, but if you want to be a market leader and achieve long-term success, you won’t do it following someone else’s pathway.

If you follow in the steps of others, you won’t be remarkable. You will be destined to be another black and white cow.

Lesson Three: Marketing is creating a product, not selling a product

When most people think of marketing, they think about trying to promote the benefits of a product.

However, the best products and services are built with marketing in mind. The marketing is actually inventing and designing the product so you know it works to solve your target customer’s problems.

By creating a product to fit an audience’s problem, you can continue to test and tweak your offering to make sure it is remarkable in the way it looks/feels and the way it leaves an impact on the user.

So, think about marketing for product and how it can stand out when you’re designing it… not when you’re selling it.

My Personal Takeaway

In a world of ‘funnel hacks’ and email swipes, the thought of stepping out and doing something different is always a great reminder.

There is so much access to information out there that it can be tricky to forge your own path.

Creating this differentiation is something that I am looking to do more in my business.

Did this summary excite you?

Book summaries are great, but I also really believe that you will not fully understand the book or the author without trying the real thing. Learn more about this subject by listening to the full book for free via Audible.

Put it into action

Take out a pen and paper and write down a list of things that you can do to close the gap on a business in a similar industry.

However, this list has to only include things which your competitor isn’t doing.

How can you stand out?

You should consider buying this book if…

This book is perfect for entrepreneurs and startups as they are in the process of creating and designing their initial product.

Hey, I’m Erik… a Swedish university student, marketing professional, and life-long learner. Here at BookSummaryClub I summarize my favorite non-fiction books into easily digested posts. Hope you like what you’re reading!

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