Fusion: Looking outside the world of HE

Recently, I was asked to write a book review for Euro RSCG People's Education Marketing Magazine. It's a publication that's well read by HE marketing professionals and this was an interesting opportunity that I wanted to investigate. 


I had been reading a fascinating marketing book and when I suggested it as the topic of the review, the publishers were happy with the choice. They agreed that it's useful to look outside HE when considering marketing planning and so I was set the task of writing 400 words on the book Fusion: The New Way of Marketing by David Taylor and David Miles. It's surprising how little you can say in 400 words, but I gave it a go and the resulting review was published in the magazine last month.

I've reproduced it here for you to take a look at. The book is a pretty interesting read and, while I wouldn't recommend it as a pool-side page turner, it's worth a look if you are interested in where we can take marketing given the remarkable opportunities that present themselves to us today and in the future...

Fusion: The New Way of Marketing

David Taylor & David Miles

Ecademy Press

2011

ISBN: 978-1-907722-35-6

www.fusionbook.co.uk

‘Fusion: The New Way of Marketing’ is a book that practices what it preaches. This is a book and e-book download that enjoys 100% five star reviews on Amazon and has its own website, Facebook page and twitter profile. Its aim, we are told, is to ‘demystify the internet’ and show us how to harness the power of new technologies to help us fulfil our marketing objectives.

An excellent read

Usefully, ‘Fusion’ isn’t about higher education. By stepping away from our everyday concerns and considering the reach and scope of the modern, digital world, we are able to take the time to do some of our most creative thinking. And this book will get you thinking. From the beginning, it sets out the idea that we now have a completely new and democratised way of accessing and sharing information. This hasn’t just changed the way we communicate with one another as individuals, it has completely changed marketing. Understanding how to connect the two is the key, and this gives us an insight into the book’s core message: the world has changed and unless we embrace this new world bravely, our marketing efforts could fall by the wayside.

We are told that the key is to get your website to the heart of your marketing activity and, by carefully assessing some marketing basics, to get marketing to the heart of your website. By getting your website right and developing a strong online marketing strategy around it, you will benefit enormously from social media, pay per click advertising,
                                                            SEO, analytics and interactive media.

The article in print

Of course, we all know that we should be using online technologies and social media but unless we do so in a well thought out and integrated way then there is no point. And this is the other core message of the book:  get the basics right.  Having an out of date marketing strategy that doesn’t appreciate the enormity of the opportunities or that deals with emerging new media in a piecemeal fashion is a recipe for disaster. If you are going to do it, understand it and do it right (and keep re-educating yourself). 

The true value of ‘Fusion’ is that it contextualises online and digital technologies in a traditional marketing sense. For the ‘non-techie’ marketer this is especially useful. And the reminder to first get back to basics is refreshing – each chapter’s suggested action plan, web and video links encourage us to ask ourselves the key questions that underpin a true marketing strategy. But perhaps most pertinently of all, given the times we live in, ‘Fusion’ asks us to re-think what we do (and why we do it) and focus on making our work more efficient by ‘using our brain instead of our bank account’.

Thanks for reading,

Ric.