Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, A review by Susan Hittner

I selected this book as the subject of my review for two reasons. The first is to learn more about the different aspects of social media and why it is a successful medium for so many businesses today. I also want to assist a not-for-profit girls' volleyball club expand their brand exposure and reach.

The book is a how to guide to getting noticed on the web. It covers the inbound marketing concept, changes in the marketing field and differences from traditional marketing methods. The intended audience is business owners who have little to no access to commercial marketing companies and large marketing budgets.

The strength for the book is the way in which it is set up. It divides the process into for parts:

Part One: Inbound Marketing - Chapters 1-3 cover the "why" of inbound marketing, with topics like "Shopping Has Changed...Has Your Marketing?"

Part Two: Get Found by Prospects - Chapters 4-7 cover more of the "how" or tactics of the process, such as the different sites within the social media network like Google, Blogs, facebook, and LinkedIn to name a few.

Part Three: Converting Customers - Chapters 8-10 focus on different ways to pull customers in to your site and coverting visitors into leads. It also includes common mistakes to avoid and the advantages of experimentation.

Part Four: Make Better Decisions - Chapters 11-16 provide additional detail to analyzing results of your social media marketing campaigns. It also leads into next steps for your marketing and business growth.

Throughout the book, the authors provide checklist called "To Do" at the end of each cahpter. This provides a step-by-step process for a business owner to follow. The book also provides an entire section devoted to tools, resources and tips for startups.

At times the books goes into deeper technical explanations. For a small business owner, this may be a little intimidating. Many business found on the web may, or may not, have a technical resource with which they could discuss these ideas to explore the plausibility of a campaign or idea.

I believe this book is a step above Social Marketing for Dummies in complexity. It was written in the same vein as The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. Inbound Marketing is the first book in the series "The New Rules of Social Media".

I would highly recommend the book to anyone interest in this area. It is full of ideas, checklists, details, and interesting, real-world examples for each topic. I learned much from this book and am actively applying (albeit slowly), it to the fan page on facebook for the organization I mentioned earlier.

This page can be viewed at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=277102765472

Book Review of The New Rules of Marketing & PR

After going through all the stages of grief and finally resting on acceptance, I came to terms that I needed to find an outside book for our book review. I did not know where to begin and started to explore all my options. I decided to go to Barnes and Noble to see what books where available. I went to the e-marketing section and found the bestseller The New Rules of Marketing and PR written by David Meerman Scott. After reading the summary about the new dynamics of e-marketing and how many businesses are falling behind, I decided this was the book I wanted to read.

The theme of the book was about how the strategic concept of marketing has changed due to the advent of e-marketing and its effects. No longer can business continue their big one-way communication marketing campaigns. Today, more consumers go online to research the products and services they intend to purchase and do not want to be attacked by product spin offs or untrustworthy one-way messages. DM Scott emphasizes that without understanding your customers and engaging them, a business is failing to develop their customer-base. Technological advances in digital communications have allowed small businesses to compete with larger scaled businesses and put up a successful fight. It is imperative for marketers to understand these changes and how to properly implement new social media services and programs to effectively engage their customer-base.

Great Take-Away from the book: No one cares about your product. What they care about is their problem and the solution you have to offer. Therefore, marketers need to understand their customer-base and communicate with them. E-Marketing has enabled businesses to do just this. Businesses that do not seize the opportunity to engage their customer-base will be left behind.

Great Example: David M Scott gives the e-marketing example of The Million Dollar Coupon in his book. This marketing campaign was developed by a man that wanted to sell his mansion and needed to drive as many viewers to his web site to advertise his property. Instead of doling out a large amount of funding for a traditional advertisement campaign, the seller set up a web site with a printable coupon for one million dollars off the house. He also utilized the catchy domain www.themilliondollarcoupon.com to advertise his property. What the seller did on his own replaced the need of an expensive realtor or advertisement agency.

Overall this book was well-written and simple to follow. Readers could pick any chapter in the book, dive in and begin reading and understanding. Essentially the book offers one large theme: marketing has changed and we need to stop looking at it like we once did. David Meerman Scott does an excellent job of defining how the rules have changed and what aspects of e-marketing businesses can use to reach their customers.

Links:

User Reviews of The New Rules of Marketing and PR

User Reviews from Amazon

DM Scott's Website

http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/

DM Scott's Blog

http://www.webinknow.com/

DM Scott's Bio

http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/bio.htm

The Million Dollar Coupon

http://www.milliondollarcoupon.com

DM Scott’s Vimeo Page

http://vimeo.com/dmscott

Click here to buy this book