1. Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media) by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah

Why and how to market your business online through inbound marketing rather than outbound marketing.

2.Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson

Can free be an effective marketing strategy? Anderson explores the history of free and how companies are using free as a winning strategy.

3. World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories by David Meerman Scott

Makes a good argument for using social media and online marketing to market your business more effectively. Tons of excellent case studies to support the new methods of marketing.

4. The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning by Bob Gilbreath

Bob describes a new approach to marketing in which the marketing itself is valuable. Lots of great examples of companies doing meaningful marketing.

5. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

Excellent book about how to use social media to build relationships with your customers and colleagues. Has been called the “How to Win Friends and Influence People” of social media.

6. Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity by Avinash Kaushik

The followup to the hit Web Analytics An Hour A Day. Kaushik is the thought leader on measuring online marketing and donates all of his proceeds from the books to charity.

7. Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vee is one of the most successful personal brands on the web and is one of the best success stories for social media marketing. His book is more motivational than tactical but there are a lot of great ideas too.

8. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin

Linchpin describes how to thrive in the new economy that has replaced the broken factory-work model. It is more of a success book, but there are great takeaways that can help you in your marketing or business career.

9. Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini

Lots of interesting studies and examples that describe ways to be more persuasive while providing insights into the way we think.

Other books of note:

Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time

Marketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap between Seller and Buyer through Social Media Marketing

The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business

The Social Media Marketing Book

Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone.

Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods

Have any book recommendations to add to the list? Leave a comment!

Also see: Top 10 Marketing Books of 2008

2. Every new blog post is a potential source for inbound links to your site.

3. Blogs give you a platform to speak directly to your customer.

4. Blogs are a place to publish content that solves problems of your buyer persona (the types of people who are likely to buy your product)

5. Blogs allow you to cover a wide range of topics related to your industry, which takes advantage of the long tail effect in Google searches (About 75% of searches are for unpopular phrases).

6. Blogs encourage direct feedback from your customers.

7. Blogs encourage you to think deeply about your field and continuously learn so you can write insightful articles.

8. Blogs allow you to give free gifts (in the form of valuable content) which can develop a relationship with the potential customer.

9. Each blog post is a potential landing page for potential customers to learn more about your company.

10. By frequently updating your blog, Google will send its search bots to your site more often. Google often favors sites with constantly updated and fresh content.

11. Blog articles, when written in a casual voice, can show customers that there are real people behind the company and it’s not just a soul-less corporation.

12. Business websites that blog tend to get more traffic to their site. See Study Shows Small Businesses That Blog Get 55% More Website Visitors

Can you share additional reasons why every business should have a blog?

Article republished from the Sparkplug Digital blog
Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbowlersr/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

So what can marketers learn from reading Crush It? Well firstly, you will probably be motivated to work harder at achieving your goals in life. His “secrets” to success that he shares are to love your family, work super hard, and follow your passion. This seems to go against some of the thinking behind previous best seller The 4 Hour Work Week, because Gary suggests that you should find what your passion is and then work until “your eyes bleed”. While this may not work for everyone, he does make a good point that working super hard and following your passion complement each other because if you are doing what you love, it shouldn’t feel like work and you will be able to easily work 80 hours a week. However, this somewhat contradicts his first secret of loving your family first because it may be hard to spend time with them if you are spending 80 hours a week working. He also says that the number one business strategy is to care. He basically says that if you care, everything else will work out.

How to Build Community

Gary explains that building community is the most important part and takes a lot of work. Gary has built a tremendous community around Wine Library TV which has a Facebook fanpage with over 27,000 fans. He suggests that you should work really hard to have conversations with as many people as possible. He says that he answers every email and he seems to reply to most comments on Twitter (I know this to be true because he answered my email here). Could the CEO of a company like Ford or Microsoft do this? I’m not sure, but I think they should try. If you have a smaller business there is no reason that you shouldn’t be deeply engaged with people on Twitter or Facebook. Part of Gary’s success I think is also his character. He’s so energetic that I think people are drawn to him, although this type of energy is pretty hard to replicate. He also takes the approach of “What can I do for you?”. I think this is a great approach for building community because people will appreciate your willingness to give.

New Opportunities on the Web

When Gary Vee was on the This Week in Startups podcast with Jason Calicanis, he discussed the incredible opportunity that the web presents, saying that it’s not even the first inning of the game. In the book he describes the opportunities for people to cash in on their passion by creating a blog or podcast and building an audience around it. He suggests that in the future, advertisers will want to follow the audiences to these niche sites or podcasts that are focused on a specific vertical like gardening or poker.  If you don’t like your current job, why not build a media business around something you love. A good piece of advice that I like is “It is never a bad time to start a business unless it is a mediocre business”.

I recommend reading Crush It! The audio version is even better because it is read by Gary V. and he adds additional side comments while reading it. (If you go to Audible.com/twit2 you can get 2 free audio books for free).

Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota and grandson of the company’s founder, testified today in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform as lawmakers continue to examine Toyota’s record recalls. During the proceedings Toyoda remarked:

“My name is on every car.”

I suppose that statement was intended to convey that, as a leader, nothing is more important to him than the customer (after all, a car brand is only as strong as its customers’ feelings for the brand). Unfortunately for Toyoda, that’s simply not the case.

In the past, Toyoda said, the company’s priorities were safety and quality, and sales came last. But as Toyota grew to become the world’s biggest carmaker, “these priorities became confused, and we were not able to stop, think and make improvements as much as possible.”

Sure they were. It was a choice. Like every business, Toyota could have chosen to stop, think and make the right decisions. They chose not to.

By confusing the essence of his business with the numbers that essence produced, Akio Toyoda has dug himself into a very large hole. By turning Toyota’s obsession from quality and reliability to sales and profitability, he may have unwittingly destroyed the reputation — the brand — that took four decades to create.

Akio Toyoda is not alone in this misguided business approach; this rigid, inside-out focus on the organization and its “numbers.” Many leaders are losing their sense of empathy and becoming narcissistic; obsessed with their image as reflected by internal goals and measurements and by Wall Street analysts.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again and again and again: Business is not about numbers. It’s about people and their feelings. Numbers simply tell you how well you’re doing with those feelings; with the contribution you’re making to your customers’ lives.

Why did so many Americans buy Toyota vehicles? Because we believed that the people at Toyota were obsessed. We believed that they cared deeply about us and our cars. We believed that they were passionately committed to the truth and to the pursuit of perfection. And so, we felt cared for and safe.

Now we’re finding out that, indeed, they were obsessed. But, like so many businesses today, they just weren’t obsessed with us.

As usual Einstein was right, “Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.”

This article was republished from Tom Asacker’s blog, A Clear Eye and is licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0 license.

I asked top minds in marketing what the best marketing career advice they have ever received. Here are their responses.



“Get involved in the process.” Oddly, I learned this from Senator John Montford in the late 80’s. We were flying back to Austin from Lubbock and I asked him about impacting the legislative process: At the time the state was beginning a new push for insurance regulation. I thought it was a simple matter of having the best products. He said, “No, it’s what your customers say about you.” That simple re-orientation of marketing perspective changes everything. From that point forward, my career in business and marketing has been defined by a customer-centric POV aimed across the entire organization, which is exactly what excites me so much about social media and the new career opportunities for CMO’s who are willing to exert themselves beyond the marketing department.

-Dave Evans is the author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day and also blogs at ReadThis.com.@evansdave on Twitter



Go, start something. Don’t wait.

-Seth Godin, author of Linchpin and Seth’s Blog



Do not study marketing in school. Study anything but marketing.

-David Meerman Scott, author of World Wide Rave and the blog Web Ink Now.



There was a guy at Labatt, a client at the time, that I think nailed it about the risk of over management, risk avoidance, paint by numbers marketing and analysis paralysis

“Sean, there are a tonne of things you could do in an average day – marketers could feasibly work 168 hours of week and feel justified. But let me tell you – if you can find the 3 most important things to affect your brand tangibly, importantly – focus as much time, attention and effort on those and do the minimum on the rest.”

-Sean Moffitt, author of Buzz Canuck



Perhaps the best advice was succinctly stated by ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy, in Portland: Fail harder. So few of us give ourselves permission to fail let alone court failure as we try to achieve our goals. It’s even worse for corporations or brands. Yet the best brands in the world and their advertising partners take big enough risks consistently that failure is inevitable and invaluable learning at the same time. So as we rush to be “something” or achieve a goal, perhaps the best advice I ever heard was plan to be good at failing too because its a tough but wonderful teacher.

-Simon Mainwaring, Owner of Mainwaring Creative and author of Mainwaring Blog



I would say something I have said for a long time, “Dont Fight the market”. Too many draw lines in the sand and don’t want to accept the new rules, I embrace them!

-Gary Vaynerchuck Co-Founder at VaynerMedia and author of Crush It!



The best advice I’ve every gotten for my career actually comes from the Bible. And no, this is not proselytizing. It’s just a simple truth that’s always stuck with me: “Only in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own house is a prophet without honour.” (Mark 6:4, if you’re interested.)

The one place you are absolutely destined to be taken for granted, pigeon-holed and disrespected in your career is among your co-workers and in the eyes of your employers. This is especially true if you are one who challenges accepted thinking or encourages new action. Why do you think the people who do as they are told and never challenge authority are always the ones who walk away with the Employee-of-the-Year awards? It’s because they fit the mold. They not only “do” what’s expected of them, they also “are” what people expect of them.

A prophet, though, has thinking too big to contain. He (or she) is disruptive. He is an agent of change and change, for all companies talk about it as a necessity, is a bad thing for power-structures. This kind of message can find a home, but almost never in the confines of a “hometown.” It needs to be set free.

All this was finally made clear to me when I found myself out of a job two years ago. I had a bad parting with an employer and a choice to either find another job or be on my own. And in choosing the latter path, I finally realized how suppressed my message had become. I had rallied for transparency, content strategies, relationship-based promotion, networking among peers and other key messages of the social sphere for over ten years. And I had let most of the digital revolution pass me by, fighting for it among people who didn’t want to hear about it.

My advice is simple: If you have a message and people aren’t listening, go find someone who will listen. Take the risk. Get out there. It won’t be easy or necessarily bring immediate financial success. It may never bring financial success for that matter. But it will bring you integrity. And in many ways that’s the most gratifying business success you can have.

-Bob Knorpp, host of The BeanCast , @beancast on Twitter



I’ve been in the business for 25+ years now (it sucks to type that!) and what I’ve learned is that if you are not willing to always be learning, experimenting, asking new questions and wondering why — you will be mediocre in marketing. You’ll survive and maybe even Peter Principle your way to a cushy job — but you won’t be able to keep the fire in your belly.

What makes marketing the best career in the world is that is it ever evolving. There’s always a new insight, new tool or tactic. So if you want to be at the top of your game and really be someone your clients love and rely on — keep learning. Read, write, listen. Every day.

-Drew McLellan, Top Dog at McLellan Marketing Group and author of the blog Drew’s Marketing Minute.



The best marketing career advice I have is never stop learning and experimenting. Marketing is constantly changing. The second you start relying on the old techniques you used to use and stop learning new things, is the second you start getting lower performance and become less valuable to your company. Make sure you are always watching for new trends, learning new things, and experimenting with new techniques.

-Mike Volpe, VP of Marketing at Hubspot, co-host of Hubspot TV and author of the blog Marketing With Mike.



Listen more.

-Bill Green, Idea Guy at Plaid, co-host of the podcast AdVerve and author of the blog Make the Logo Bigger.



Don’t try to be good at everything. Try to be very good at one thing. - Al Ries

-Laura Ries, co-author of War in the Boardroom and the blog Ries Pieces.



Check back for updates as I get more responses!

Photos by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/ / CC BY 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielmorrison/ / CC BY 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/billlublin/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Take Advantage of the Halo Effect
Apple’s great success in selling iPods created a halo around its other products like laptops and desktops, helping Apple gain significant market share.
See Creating The Brand Halo Effect by Branding Strategy Insider

Create a great experience around a product
From the time a customer walks into an Apple retail store to opening the product packaging to Genius Bar support, every step is a planned experience that aligns closely with the brand of elegant design and simplicity.

What other lessons can marketers learn from Apple?

Also see the Marketing Apple blog by Steve Chazin

Google Keyword Tool
Google Keyword Tool is a free tool by Google that provides estimates on the number of monthly searches of a specific keyword. It also provides insight on how competitive that keyword is based on people who bid for paid Google ads for that keyword. Additionally Google Keyword tool recommends similar keywords to the keyword phrase you enter.

Brainstorm with your Team
Create a list of every keyword phrase that you believe customers would enter into Google. It is a good idea to ask your team to contribute to the list.

Google Analytics
If you have Google Analytics activated on your site, you can look at the data to find out what keywords visitors are already using to find your site in search engines. You can add these to your keyword list.

SEOMoz Term Extractor
SEOMoz’s Term Extractor is a free tool that scans websites and extracts the most frequently used keyword phrase on the site.

Google Search-Based Keyword Tool
Similar to SEOMoz Term Extracter, you enter a website’s url into Google Search Based-Keyword Tool and it will produce a list of suggested keywords and how much it would cost to buy a Google ad for that keyword.

SEOBook Keyword Tool
SEOBook’s Keyword Tool is similar to Google Keyword Tool except it provides daily search volume estimates from Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Ask Existing Customers
Find out how existing clients or customers would describe what you do.

Thesaurus.com
Look for synonyms of your top keywords in Thesaurus.com. You may find synonyms that customers would type into Google.

Monitor Conversations In Twitter
There are tons of conversations that could relate to your field of business. Use search.twitter.com to find what words people use to describe your industry.

Find Out What Adwords Competitors are Buying
Tools like SEMRush let you find out what keywords your customers are buying from Google Adwords. You need to pay for the premium version to see more than a preview.

It is a good idea to create a master list of your keywords with information about search volume, how competitive it is, level of intent of the customer, the likelihood of conversion and your current Google ranking.

This post was republished from the Sparkplug Digital online marketing blog.

The fundamental problem with most marketing and advertising has always been that our customers don’t like it, and now they have growing power to avoid it. They have always disliked being interrupted by our messages whether they are trying to watch a television program or driving down the highways. Historically they had no choice in the matter, as print, radio and television advertising was forced on them. But today people have more and more freedom in their media. They no longer huddle together in mass in front of a handful of TV programs, and they are using media ranging from iPods to the Internet, which either lack advertising altogether or the advertising is easy to skip or ignore. As the future unfolds, people’s power over media choices will only grow—and no one is choosing more advertising interruption, no matter how “targeted” it is.

So those of us in the marketing business face an enormous challenge. We need to find ways to introduce people to our brands, products and services, but if we cannot interrupt them what do we do? Well, I believe that the only choice is to create marketing that people choose to engage with, and advertising that itself adds value to people’s lives. This is what we call “Marketing with Meaning” – and a growing number of brands are beginning to results in this entirely new model for marketing.

2. What advice would you give marketers who have bosses that are afraid of the risk they associate with changing their strategy from traditional marketing to marketing with meaning?

I actually was in the shoes of these marketers as a Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble, so I know that there are many, many challenges to drive change within an organization. I really wrote the book to be a guide for the marketer that is looking for a new model, and I include many suggestions and stories of how to “sell in” this kind of change. One suggestion is to convince senior management to invest a modest percentage of the budget in a meaningful way as a test—perhaps as part of a large initiative, or in a way that is “pay-for-performance” (i.e. the money only comes out of the budget if the program delivers results). The key is to make sure that the program’s results are measured, show business results, and then are shared broadly across the organization.

3. Can you still achieve meaningful marketing by using traditional forms of media like television or direct mail, although they are inherently interruptive forms of media?

I think the right way to start is to create a meaningful marketing platform or service as the heart of marketing efforts. Once you have this, you may need to get on the radar through more interruptive media to draw attention to the program. What happens is that people actually pay more attention to your interruptive advertising when you are pointing them to something valuable. One example is the gift recommender site that MasterCard launched around the holidays. The brand created a free, relevant tool and used television advertising with Peyton Manning to draw attention and traffic to it. To me, this is much more effective than Visa’s advertising at the same time, which simply reminded television viewers that Visa exists.

4. Can meaningful marketing work for any company or are there situations where non-meaningful marketing, like a standard billboard or commercial, is more effective?

I am convinced that any business has an opportunity to grow sales and long-term loyalty through meaningful marketing. If you can narrow down your business objectives and unearth some insights about your target customer’s higher-level needs, then it is simple to begin coming up with ways that you can shift your marketing funds and sales approach toward adding value to their lives. By offering something of value, your customers give you the gift of attention that eventually can lead to sales.

5. Can meaningful marketing stand on its own or does it require a mix of other traditional methods of marketing as part of the overall marketing strategy?

I really think the key to success is to re-think the purpose and measures of marketing. Interruptive marketing is based on the premise that the more people who are exposed to your ad, the more will buy your product. Meaningful marketing is based on the premise that the more people who choose to engage with your value-added advertising, the more will buy your product. You may decide to use television or print as part of a meaningful marketing program, but instead of measuring “exposures” you measure how many people followed the ad to your website, iPhone app, or in-store event. All the old and new media alternatives are still applicable, but they should now be held to a different, higher expectation.

6. What advice would you give to young marketers who would someday like to get to your position in marketing?

I think too many new marketers feel that they should come into a company and simply learn how to follow the established “rules” so that they can climb the organizational chart. But this is a time where companies actually need people to come in and challenge the rules and lead their thinking, so young marketers should look for ways to take risks and lead the organization. I always found success by asking myself, “What can I do that no one in the organization has done before to grow the business?” That’s gotten me a long way so far!

Some advantages of meaningful marketing are that consumers are more willing to listen to your message, it often drives word of mouth and attracts media attention, and it can build loyalty beyond reason. It can also improve attitudes about your company and I think people tend to reciprocate when brands improve their lives with marketing.

I think this is a valuable read for marketers and was one of the best marketing books of 2009 (full disclosure: I received a review copy). I like that it provides tons of examples and also goes into depth on how to implement a meaningful marketing campaign, including how to get key people in the company to sign on and how to work with creatives. If you are in B2B or small business, know that this book focuses on B2C and has few examples outside of B2C, but I think the concepts are transferable and useful.

Here are some of my takeaways from reading this book:

Create an information resource as marketing
Gibreath writes “The Web offers marketers a significant opportunity to help people uncover whatever it is they want to know, whenever they want to know it…Companies that provide answers to our endless information needs have a great shot at earning a steady stream of interested customers.”

Home Depot offered free courses on home improvement after they had the insight that people were skeptical of commercials showing people doing home improvements on their own. Blue Nile provides buying guides on their site that educate guys about jewelry, highly-sought out information for men buying important high-ticket items. And Sony created an online learning center called Sony 101, providing education on topics from digital photography to HDTV’s.

Lower the risk of switching by offering samples
If you have ever shopped at Costco and been able to have a full meal from the free samples alone, you know the value that samples can have for people. Samples can also lower the perceived risks and cost to consumers of trying new things.

Gilbreath writes “According to a survey conducted in February 2007 by the Promotion Marketing Association, nine out of ten consumers say that they would purchase a good or service if they experienced it and were satisfied”.

Cause marketing can be a strong differentiator
Gilbreath writes “A 2008 Cone/Duke University Behavioral Cause Study showed that a whopping 87 percent of consumers will switch from one brand to another that’s comparable based on its association with a good cause - that’s up 31 percent since 1993.” This is compelling evidence that associating your brand with a worthy cause can be a strong differentiator. An example is Yoplait’s pink caps that support breast cancer research.

Keep business objectives in mind when creating meaningful marketing
Some marketing efforts have been hugely successful in generating buzz and adding value to people’s lives, but have failed to achieve any business objectives. An example of this from the book is Office Max’s Elf Yourself. Despite tons of media coverage and millions of people who made elf videos of their family members, many people couldn’t recall which major office supply store was behind the campaign.

Customer service is extremely important for retention
Studies suggest that customer service is the main reason people switch brands across every major industry. An Accenture study found 67 percent had switched brands because of poor service taking an average of $4,000 of business with them.