Review: Earn It: Unconventional Strategies for Brave Marketers, by Steve Pratt

This book is very different.

The contents page is on page 39, after the first chapter. The book’s cover makes it look like you’re holding it the wrong way round. The small print is clear to point out what isn’t a trademark, rather than what is.

It’s almost as if the book is trying to make you pay attention to it.

And that’s exactly the plan.

Steve Pratt has worked for Canadian TV stations, ran a music station for CBC (where I first met him in 2009), and in 2014 was the co-founder of Pacific Content, a podcast producer working with brands.

He knows a thing or two about earning peoples’ attention, in other words: and Earn It argues that marketing works best when you’re earning attention.

Too many times, Steve argues, marketing is a rude interruption. You’re in the middle of your favourite podcast/sitcom/documentary, when all of a sudden, you’re interrupted by a man trying to sell you a pillow. Your true crime story/embarrassing appearance of the vicar/stealthy tiger hunting its prey has been interrupted by a man in a blazer, talking a bit too loudly about memory foam. That, he argues, is not earned attention - it’s just stealing your attention away from something else.

The word “podcast” is mentioned more than 65 times in the book. Many of the examples came from his time at Pacific Content. This is good for two reasons - first, these insights are also right for any medium; but second, you work in podcasting anyway, and so you’ll learn directly from the examples too.

Mediocrity, he argues, will not earn attention. If you’re just like everyone else, nobody will pay attention to you. I read this as a warning sign to those who consider using AI as a content generation tool: it’s unlikely to come up with anything that will earn attention.

Steve is preaching a different form of marketing - where people are pleased, rather than annoyed, to hear from your brand; where generosity is your brand value, rather than selfishness; and treating your potential audience well so that they give you their attention - and their business.

He talks about balancing the job, the business outcome you want, with the gift - what you’ll give your audience as a reward for their attention.

And, true to form, he’s given me a gift for you: the first chapter of the book (or of the audiobook) for free. Here’s where to get it - use the password EarnIt to enter the site.

My background - a long time ago - is writing radio advertising. The more unusual ads we ran, the more audiences looked forward to them, the better they worked for the client - always. I wish this book was around then: to convince clients to step away from the mediocrity, and instead to have more creative bravery to try new things.

It’s a brilliant, entertaining, unconventional read: and worthy of your attention.

Earn It: Unconventional Strategies for Brave Marketers is available from all good bookshops and all good online stores from today. In the US, buy it at a discount from bookshop.org and help support Podnews and your local bookstore.