Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?
Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing
Authors: Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg
Hardcover: 240 pages, $13.59
Published: June, 2006
When I first heard that the Eisenberg brothers were releasing a new book, I immediately put it on my Amazon wish list. I thoroughly enjoyed the Eisenberg’s previous book, Call to Action and really couldn’t wait to dive into this next one as well. I already had a stack of books sitting on my desk waiting to be read so I didn’t go out and purchase Cat right away, and it’s a good thing I didn’t. In July I attended the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose and the brothers were giving away copies of their book! So I snagged mine brought it back to the office and started reading as soon as I finished the current book I was reading.
In Call to Action the Eisenbergs introduced us to Persuasion Architecture. Those of us who got a scent of something much bigger and bolder than what was presented in Call, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark is the protein that satisfies our salivating minds.
Cat cannot be read just once, nor do I suppose even just twice. Like a good movie with a strikingly detailed plot line that is only fully realized upon multiple viewings, the first reading of Cat fills you’re head with so much knowledge that by the end you want to start all over again to make sure you didn’t miss (or forget) any crucial details that lead to the satisfying final chapter. Yes. it’s that good, that rich, and that satisfying!
But if you’re not ready to change your habits and your views on marketing, Cat isn’t the book for you. The Eisenbergs challenge everything we’ve ever known about marketing, on or off-line, and present to us a new picture of marketing’s future, placed within the historical context of marketing strategies of days gone by. Not only do they give us an entirely new way to implement successful marketing strategies, we’re shown how and why the world of marketing has evolved to this point. By presenting Persuasion Architecture in this light, it makes for a very strong case and even more difficult to refute their strategies.
The fact is, the face of marketing is changing, or has changed. The way people interact with businesses is different today than even half a decade ago. As the Eisenberg’s prove, those that don’t evolve their marketing strategies to meet the needs of today’s consumers are not targeting today’s consumers at all. The marketing strategies of yesterday are the equivalent of trying to teach your cat to bark. You want a bark? Go find the dog. The Eisenbergs show you how to find the whole pack.