Web Ink Now

Join me for a free live conversation with Seth Godin and Michael Port to discover the one thing that will make or break your marketing

Alert readers of this blog will recall that last month I reviewed Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin's terrific new book.

Good news—I'll be speaking with Seth as part of his virtual book tour and I would like you to participate. All it will cost you is an hour of your time.

On Monday, January 14th, at noon ET, join New York Times bestselling author, Seth Godin, Michael Port (author of Book Yourself Solid) and David Meerman Scott (that would be me) for a panel discussion.

Seth promises that you'll discover the one thing that will make or break your marketing efforts this year. (I can't wait to find out myself…)

Here are some other things we hope to discuss. (But then again we may just take the conversation down some equally interesting other paths.)
> The most important question to ask when choosing a marketing strategy
> How to increase sales and build brand awareness with less effort
> Why My Space, You Tube and viral marketing work for some, but not for others
> How to effectively generate buzz and word-of-mouth referrals

Can't make the live call? Go ahead and register anyway and we'll send you an email with a link to the recording so you can listen to it on your iPod.

It's free to register.

I hope you can make it.

Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae – buy a copy for your boss*

When I deliver keynote speeches and run seminars at companies, I am often asked for advice on how to convince the bosses that the new rules of marketing really work. Frequently people say something like: "My bosses make me prove ROI before I can do this online thought leadership and viral marketing stuff."

My cynical answer is: "What’s the ROI of putting on your pants in the morning?"

But then I suggest that people to ask their boss if in the past few months, they've made a product or service decision based on a direct mail piece they received or a based on a TV advertisement. (Almost no bosses have). Then they should ask their boss if in the past few months they've used Google or another search engine to make a product or service decision. (Virtually all bosses have).

Well now I have something else to suggest. Buy a copy of Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? for your bosses.* Tell them it is an important book. Meatball Sundae will be your tool to help others in your organization to understand what you already get and what you are eager to implement. It will help you to get the buy-in to do the new rules of marketing that you know makes sense.

But first your bosses may need to transform your company.

Seth kindly sent me an advance copy of the book (it is expected to ship on December 27, 2007). He has put the "new marketing" stuff that I talk about into great perspective for the skeptics in the big companies and also for the bosses who demand to know "what the ROI of this new fangled stuff."

Meatball Sundae lays out in a convincing manner the transformations that are taking place in business today. These transformations mean that everything needs to be looked at carefully, including marketing. But to just toss new marketing onto the top of obsolete business models is like putting whipped cream and a cherry onto meatballs to make a sundae. (Yuk).

Godin tells a story I really like. Josiah Wedgewood, a potter in England in the 1800's at the start of the Industrial Revolution, was the first to create a factory with a production line and job specialization. He built a showroom and shipped product around the world. And he sold bespoke pieces to royalty but first displayed those fantastic and expensive creations for several months so all could see. (Wedgewood was a marketing genius AND a business pioneer.)

Josiah Wedgewood took advantage of changes in society and technology and changed the way business is done, made millions, and founded a company still famous today. But his brother Thomas Wedgewood stuck to the ways that all potters have worked in the past, barely made a living, and is forgotten today.

Godin says fourteen trends are completely remaking what it means to be a marketer. And while these trends are transforming organizations that have the right approaches, they are crippling the organizations that are stuck with nothing but meatballs. Once again, marketing is transforming what we make and how we make it.

For more information on the book, check out Meatball Sundae on Squidoo.

On Monday December 17 you can learn more about Meatball Sundae as Bryan Eisenberg of Future Now interviews Seth Godin on WebmasterRadio.FM. The show is called Meeting of the Marketing Titans. Bryan is a co-author of Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? I’ve spoken with Bryan several times and he is a great choice to lead the discussion on Seth’s new book.

* > If you are the boss, you should buy copies for your board members and investors...

The Best & Worst Business Books

This morning my Google news & blog alerts lit up with the following headlines: "The Best & Worst Business Books" and "10 Overrated Business Books." I'll admit that I momentarily freaked out about it because I knew that the alerts were triggered by my name or my book title so I immediately linked to Charles Tan's Bibliophile Stalker blog.

Phew, The New Rules of Marketing & PR was on the "best" side of the list, which was compiled by Geoffrey James at BNET. I'm so excited because the lists aren't just recent business books, but all time business books such as Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People (also on the "best" side). Great company indeed.

Here's what Geoffrey wrote in the introduction to the featured article: "Your time is limited — but the number of business books aren't — and many of the bestsellers aren't even worth their weight in your carry-on. We've sorted through the fads, pop theories, and half-baked research to find the ones that will actually give you information you can — and should — put to use."

Ten Overrated Business Books

BNETs take: "We think that some of these classics became popular not because they were particularly insightful, but because they reinforced conventional business wisdom."

Read the details for each book to learn why it was chosen.

Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution by Michael Hammer and James Champy

In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman

Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun by Wess Roberts

Jack Welch & the G.E. Way: Management Insights and Leadership Secrets of the Legendary CEO by Robert Slater

Jesus CEO by Laurie Beth Jones

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey

The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson

Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson

Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work by Jack Canfield, etc.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids -- That You Can Learn Too by Robert Kiyosaki

Ten Underrated Business Books

BNETs take: "These 10 books might not tell you want you want to hear, but they will give you information you need to significantly revise your personal and business strategies."

Read the details for each book to learn why it was chosen.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Devitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting,
Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott

Managers Not MBAs: A hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development by Henry Mintzberg

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Wow. Quite amazing company to be in!

Separately, The New Rules of Marketing & PR scored a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Only a few business books gain this honor. You can see the review on the book's Amazon page.

Social media style book event with Michael Raynor for The Strategy Paradox

Deloitte Consulting LLP is cleverly hosting a meet up and social media style book launch in Boston on Tuesday, March 27 for Michael Raynor, author of The Strategy Paradox. Raynor will be at Vintage Lounge amid free drinks and snacks, happy to share his thoughts on the book and engage in any conversation participants would like.

I really like the idea of using online media in the form of a Wiki to market a book and offer an offline event as an opportunity for mere mortals to have very casual access to a business guru. What other offline events could be marketed this way?

Unfortunately, I will be speaking at a conference in Scottsdale AZ and unable to attend myself. But if you are in the Boston area, sign-up for the free event on the wiki.

Here is a review of The Strategy Paradox from the Financial Times.

Search Engine Marketing resources for entrepreneurs and marketers

One of the best things about building a marketing plan using the new rules of marketing and PR and using thought leadership strategies is that you create Web content that your buyers want to read. Instead of advertising to people, you create content that is welcome and appreciated by your buyers and helps them solve problems.

As many smart marketers know, a well crafted white paper, e-book, or Webinar contributes to an organization's positive reputation by setting it apart in the marketplace of ideas. This form of thought leadership based Web content brands a company, a consultant, or a nonprofit as an expert and as a trusted resource.

This form of content is also terrific search engine marketing fodder. As I work with technology companies and entrepreneurs on thought leadership strategies, inevitably, the question of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) comes up. People want to know how to make the content they create work as hard as possible.

I'm an expert in thought leadership strategy, but not in SEM. I can recommend the following to resources to entrepreneurs and marketers who want to learn much more about SEM:

Turning Clicks Into Leads Through Search Engine Optimization: A How-to Guide for One-Person, Small, and Mid-sized Businesses by Dianna Huff -- If you've wanted to know more about SEO but find it all too technical, then this guide is for you. Written for one-person, small, and mid-sized businesses, Turning Clicks Into Leads Through Search Engine Optimization is an easy-to-read, easy-to-use guide for optimizing your site and compelling site visitors to take action. Dianna's guide is a quick and easy read and immediately gets to the essence of what you need to know.

Web Marketing for Dummies by Jan Zimmerman lays down what you need to know in the engaging style of this popular series. I've read some dozen Dummies books (Writing Copy for Dummies, Dogs for Dummies, France for Dummies, QuickBooks for Dummies…) and they always teach me something and make me giggle. Jan gives you the scoop on search engine rankings, pay per click, and driving traffic and much more.

Read them both and get really smart!

Book Review: Second Life: The Official Guide (or more accurately, the "official travel guide")

One of the reasons why I love Web marketing is that the tools, techniques, and content are constantly evolving. This stuff is more art than science, and your buyers reward creativity by responding to your online efforts. But the Web moves very quickly. Just when you figured out that blogging thing, along comes podcasting and YouTube.

But if you're open to trying out new things, you can be first in your industry to use something new to communicate to your buyers. Some of the very first blogs are still the most popular in their niches—the authors are rewarded for their foresight with popularity.

During the process of researching and writing my new book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, I became fascinated with the online virtual world Second Life. For those of you who aren't residents yet, I'll give an overview (if you know this stuff, skip to the next paragraph for the book review): Second Life is a 3-D online world entirely built and owned by its residents. But this is not a "game" because there is no goal and nobody is keeping score; rather (except with money), it is a world with well over a million residents (as of this writing) and an economy built on the Linden dollar in which millions of U.S. dollars (at the current exchange rate) change hands each month. The Second Life World is teeming with people who use a self-created, in-world avatar to interact with others by buying, selling, and trading things with other residents (and just milling about and chatting). You can purchase land, build a store or business, and make money. People sell clothes for avatars, artwork and furniture for homes and businesses, and, well, basically anything that you need in the real world. There is an, ahem, underworld of sleaze as well. But you don't have to be into commerce, you can just walk around and hang out.

I'm most interested in what organizations are doing in Second Life from the marketing and PR perspective. Examples: CNET, an interactive media company, has opened an office in Second Life that looks like its real-world San Francisco office. Sun Microsystems has a presence where they work with their gaming developers. The rock band Duran Duran is playing a live concert in Second Life. John Hockenberry, host of The Infinite Mind, NPR’s popular mental health program, interviewed author Kurt Vonnegut inside Second Life. But there is so much more.

The best way to learn about Second Life is to become a resident. It's free to get started.

But if you want to bone up first (or if you are already a resident to learn about things you never knew before), I highly recommend the excellent new book Second Life: The Official Guide by Michael Rymaszewski, Wagner James Au, Mark Wallace, Catherine Winters, Cory Ondrejka, and Benjamin Batstone-Cunningham. The book is due out mid December 2006. (I had the pleasure of receiving an advance copy.)

Wow. Second Life: The Official Guide is just great. But I need to explain where I am coming from.

I'm happy to be a reasonably early technology adopter and I usually practice the "jump in and try it" mode. For example, I figured out my blog in 2004 without any guidance. But as I was thinking about Second Life as a brand new resident a few months ago, I was sort of feeling like this isn't a new technology metaphor, it's a travel metaphor. Second Life is a new place that needs to be learned more than it is a new technology that needs to be learned.

I've traveled the world a great deal. For example, I lived in Japan for six years and Hong Kong for two as Asia Marketing Director for Knight-Ridder (at the time, the second largest newspaper company in the U.S.). My entire career has been as an internationalist. I've visited some 40 or 50 countries on business or pleasure and logged several million air miles. Before departing for somewhere like Bombay or Bangkok or Brussels, I always purchase a travel guide and read it on the plane. I just like knowing the basics like what's a funky old restaurant to try, how to hail a cab, and how much to tip (or not).

What Second Life: The Official Guide does is act as your travel guide to a new place. The authors got that right. Thanks! Just like a great Frommer's travel guide, the book is chock full of places to go, people to see, etiquette, currency exchange, what to wear, and more. In fact, the publisher, Wiley, could do a version of this book as an actual Frommer's guide, to complement the Sybex computer book imprint that Second Life: The Official Guide is published with. Wouldn’t that be cool!?

Yes, there is also a boatload of stuff for Second Life experts including details on the Second Life scripting language. This stuff is beyond me but if it is as well written as the parts that I devoured, than even long time residents will get a great deal of practical information from the book. Several of the authors work at Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life so it must be accurate.

Thanks for doing this book, guys. It is important.

Disclaimer, the publisher of Second Life: The Official Guide, Wiley, is also publishing my new book.

Book Review: Marketing Champions

Marketing and PR people have a collective difficulty getting our departmental goals in sync with the rest of the company. And our management teams go along with this dysfunction. Think about the goals that most marketers have. They usually take the form of an epic to-do list: "Let's see, well, we should do a few trade shows, buy yellow page ads, maybe create a new logo, get press clips, produce some T-shirts, increase Web site traffic, and oh yeah, generate some leads for the salespeople." Well, guess what? Those aren't the goals of your company! I've never seen "leads" or "clips" or "T-shirts" on a mission statement or balance sheet. With typical marketing department goals, we constantly focus on the flare-up du jour and thus always focus on the wrong thing. This also gives the marketing profession a bad rap in many companies as a bunch of flaky slackers. No wonder marketing is called the "branding police" in some organizations and is often the place where failed salespeople end up.

Many marketers and PR people also focus on the wrong measures of success. With Web sites, people will often tell me things like "We want to have ten thousand unique visitors per month to our site." And PR measurement is often similarly irrelevant: "We want ten mentions in the trade press and three national magazine hits each month." Unless your site makes money through advertising so that raw traffic adds revenue, traffic is the wrong measure. And simple press clips just don't matter. What matters is leading your site's visitors and your constituent audiences to where they help you reach your real goals, such as building revenue, soliciting donations, gaining new members, and the like.

This lack of clear goals and real measurement reminds me of seven-year-olds playing soccer. If you've ever seen little children on the soccer field, you know that they operate as one huge organism packed together, chasing the ball around the field. On the sidelines are helpful coaches yelling, "Pass!" or "Go to the goal!" Yet as the coaches and parents know, this effort is futile: no matter what the coach says or how many times the kids practice, they still focus on the wrong thing—the ball—instead of the goal.

I was delighted, then, to read Marketing Champions by Roy A Young, Allen M. Weiss, and David W. Stewart. In the book, the authors analyze why marketers have fallen into the traps of not focusing on organizational goals and more importantly, what can be done to align marketing with the rest of the company. There's a ton of practical advice for managing "north" (with your bosses), "east" (peers—such as sales), "south" (building marketing’s brand in the organization) and "west" (opportunities, technologies and the like). This is a great way to look at marketing and the book organization works.

One of the authors, Roy A. Young is Vice President of Development for MarketingProfs.com, a terrific site providing both strategic and tactical post-MBA marketing know-how to Internet and offline marketing professionals in medium and large corporations, through a combination of provocative articles and commentary.

Read the book to learn how marketers must champion marketing in order to surmount such obstacles—to deliver their promised value so that they and their companies can reap the benefits.

Disclaimer: I write occasional articles for, and have conducted a Webinar with MarketingProfs.

Book Review: Robert C. Parker's Design to Sell

Many readers of my blog and my most recent book Cashing in with Content: How Innovative Marketers use Digital Information to turn Browsers into Buyers know that I insist (and often rant incessantly) about content as the most important aspect of a Web site, ebook, white paper, newsletter and the like. I really hate seeing cool deign with nothing of substance in the way of content behind it.

But I do have to admit that I don't know a lot about design and decided to learn. Robert C. Parker's Design to Sell provided me a terrific overview of how to use design as a competitive asset. While the book has a focus about using Microsoft Publisher to plan, write, and design great marketing pieces, the chapters in the front of the book gave me the grounding I needed.

One of the reasons that I chose this book is that Parker understands marketing and content and how to use design in concert with goals. I didn’t want to read a book that was just focused on pretty stuff – I wanted to know how design is an important component to enhancing the great content that is created in newsletters, white papers, ebooks, Web sites and so on.

Check out Parker’s companion blog to his book. Is this an awesome deign or what?

Book Review: What No One Ever Tells You About… Blogging and Podcasting

I just finished reading the fun and fast book What No One Ever Tells You About… Blogging and Podcasting by Ted Demopoulos. This is a great read for anyone looking for some encouragement and case examples of real people who blog and podcast. Unlike some books that focus on celebrity bloggers such as Bob Lutz,
GM Vice Chairman and his Fast Lane blog, Ted profiles "regular people" and also spends some time on other aspects of blogging such as why you should be monitoring blogs to find out what people are saying about you and your organization and its products and services.

With real-life advice from 101 people who successfully leverage the power of the blogosphere, the book is made up of very short chapters that can be devoured on planes, trains, and hopefully not while you're driving your automobile (but as a passenger is OK). The book is best read it in snippits.

Ted has a blog The Ted Rap: Ted Demopoulos' thoughts and musings on Technology, Business & Their Intersection that you should check out for more details.

Disclaimer: I am profiled in chapter 31 "Marketing with Content: Don’t interrupt people; instead, attract them with value." Thanks for including me, Ted.

Blog on.