Youtility

Youtility is the New York Times and Amazon best-selling book by Jay Baer, famous digital marketer, consultant and marketing keynote speaker.

The book’s pitch says that “The difference between helping and selling is just two letters. But those two letters are critically important to the success of business today. Youtility is marketing so useful, people would pay for it. It’s a new marketing model for the age of information overload.”

This book explains how to make practical use of all the new marketing concepts that don’t always seem to have obvious practical applications: “brand content”,” community management”, “customer engagement”.

Jay Baer explains very simply how Youtility is built in three easily comprehensible steps:
“1- providing self-serve information,
2- answering every question,
3- being relevant in real time.”

One thread that runs throughout this book is that social medial is not only a very good marketing tool to gain new customers or nurture a loyal customer base. It is becoming a must-do. With the use of social media becoming near universal the customer expects supreme reactivity from their brands. Moreover, with near-boundless access to information, they also expect high quality, relevant information from their brands before and after they buy.

Jay Baer steers the marketer away from an obsession with hype-creation and towards a better understanding of what makes good marketing in the age of the internet consumer. He shows how the rise of the informed consumer is actually an opportunity rather than something to be simply feared by marketers. The key successful marketing is to focus on the marketing that the customer actually wants. For example, offering really useful advice to your customers is a great way to win their trust.

In every business sector, whether B2B or B2C, companies are turning to the Youtility approach. While it might still be considered a competitive advantage it is soon becoming a must-do. You can’t afford not to read this book, which means it’s lucky that this is also an entertaining and pleasurable to read)