Posts Tagged ‘Marketing Book Reviews’

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The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Paperback: 304 pages
Cost: $8.97
Published: 2000

The information presented in The Tipping Point is not necessarily business/marketing related. In fact, it’s more social commentary than anything else. While this is more an informational book than a strategic one anybody in the marketing industry should find this book extremely engaging as it has a lot to offer to those of us who want to learn more about how and why certain things happen in the marketing sphere.

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Bill Hilton asked me to review his new e-book The Perfect Post, Advanced Writing Skills for Pro Bloggers, and I was happy to do it. What I didn’t realize at the time was how easy this 50-page PDF would be to read, digest, and implement.

Bill’s book is broken down into three sections. He starts off discussing some of the basics on how people read the web. This is important to understand for anybody who really wants to write in order to be read. He covers a lot of familiar ground but also some new stuff that will be helpful to anyone designing or re-designing their blog. It all comes down to how you can make your blog easy to read. Adhering to a few simple rules will go along with toward pleasing your reading audience.

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Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists
Author: Shirley Kaiser
PDF or Binder: 331pages
Cost: $29.95 or 39.95
Last Update: July 2006

There are many books that I have found more enjoyable to read than 101 Checklists, but that doesn’t make this any less valuable of a resource. Especially for the price tag.

This isn’t necessarily a book that needs to be read. In fact, skimming through the checklist introductions and main points is more than enough working knowledge of the information provided. With that, you can pull this resource from your shelf as needed and follow each checklist step by step as you work your way through a project.

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The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
Authors: Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger
Paperback: 190 pages
Cost: $11.20
Originally Published: 2001

Cluetrain is an odd and irreverent book. The tone of the time was probably a shock to most readers back when originally published in 2001, and even still it upholds some wry quirkiness the authors were going for as they wrote about the future of the Web. Much has changed in the world of Web since the manifesto was released, and I’m certain, not all of it to the authors liking. The web has become much more corporatized, ecommerce much more like traditional commerce and online marketing shows some vast similarities to off-line marketing. The current web isn’t quite what the authors anticipated!

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Leadership
Author: Rudolph W. Giuliani
Paperback: 432 pages
Cost: $5.99;
Originally Published: 2002

It’s completely coincidental that I picked this book up during political season. I overheard someone say that this was a great book on leadership and being the leadership connoisseur that I am, I bought it and gave it a read.

This isn’t your normal everyday leadership book detailing x number of leadership principles, checklists and how-tos. Leadership is really more of a biography of Rudy Giuliani’s career specifically focusing on the leadership principles that helped him accomplish all that he has. It’s not a complete story on his life, just the leadership highlights.

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The Usability Kit: The Professional’s Web Usability Toolkit
Authors: Gerry Gaffney and Daniel Szuc
Binder: 397 pages
Cost: $197;
Originally Published: November 2006

The Usability Kit has two very distinct parts. The first half is about usability theory and how best to work with project teams during website development. A lot of ground is covered here including such things as remembering to bring pens and paper to your development meetings (not exactly earth shattering!) as well as how to work within different layers of the approval processes. Most of the information in the first half of the kit can be applied to any business team working on any sort of project. There was a lot of good information here but it wasn’t what I was really looking for when I threw down $200 for the kit.

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I enjoyed reading the Blog Profits Blueprint by Yaro Starak. At 52-pages, the reading is quick and powerful, and since the download is free you might as well just get now.

Here are some of the things you’ll learn….

• The one vital skill that most bloggers lack, and how YOU can easily learn it.
• My “Pillar Method” for creating killer content that attracts links and sucks in waves of traffic for months or even years to come.
• How I build multiple, ongoing streams of blog traffic using Communication Channels
• The exact methods I use to make money from my blog.
• Plus, access to a LIVE VIDEO that let’s you “look over my shoulder” as I give you a guided tour of exactly how I make money from my blog - and how much!

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How to Win Friends & Influence People
Author: Dale Carnegie
Paperback: 288 pages
Cost: $11.20;
Originally Published: 1934

Win Friends was a life-changing book for me. From the very first chapter I began to re-evaluate every area of my life and my interaction with employees, friends and most importantly, my family. Not since the Bible has there been a single book that has transformed my way of thinking so completely.

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Save the Sale: A Quick Start Guide on Shopping Carts for Retailers is the last of the Future Now books/PDFs that I have had sitting on my desk to be read. At 34 pages (only 20 of which are actual content) and a price tag of $19.95 you’ll paying a whopping $1 per page of marketing content. But if you take the overall value of the information then it certainly can be considered dollars well spent.

All the best stuff in Save the Sale is in the first five pages. Here the Eisenbergs provide 20 tips for lowering shopping cart abandonment rates. The information here can be almost immediately implemented on your site in order to lower shopping cart abandonment rates. The next section is a case study of how CafePress reduced their abandonment rate, which is insightful in itself. The document concludes with reasons why you need to look beyond shopping cart abandonment in your overall plan for improving conversion rates. They say abandonment may be a problem, but it may not be the real problem.

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New Art of War, Tactics, and Power: A New Rendition of Teachings from Sun Tzu’s the Art of War, Niccolo Machiavelli’s the Prince, Baltasar Gracian’s the Art of Worldly Wisdom, and the Works of Han Fei Tzu
Author: Rodney Ohebsion
Paperback: 152 pages
Cost: Amazon, $9.59; Bookins, 5 points.
Originally Published: March 2005

I was looking for the Art of War by Sun Tzu on Bookins and found this “updated” version of Sun Tzu’s teachings which has been compiled along with teachings from three others. I was not sure what to expect so I was neither delighted nor disappointed by what I received.

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