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10 Recommended Books on Digital Marketing

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Books on Digital Marketing may feel as short-lived as books on How to Use Computer Software because the marketplace is changing so rapidly. As soon as a book goes to print, the advice is already obsolete.

Thankfully, like the timeless non-technical advice from several sources that can be applied to How to Grow an Email List, many books on digital marketing are more about strategy than technology.

Digital marketing is also referred to as content or copy marketing for the web. It takes the proven value of the written and spoken word and applies it to digital channels like blogs and emails.

What follows in this short article are 10 recommended books on digital marketing.  The first two books are not about digital marketing per se, but they are about sound marketing strategy.  The next four books (3 to 6) are about specific digital marketing strategies. The last four books (7 to 10) offer sound advice on content writing for the web.

One Unexpected Book on Digital Marketing

One additional book – based on hostage negotiations! – is also mentioned at the end of this post because of its potential to completely change (and improve) the way you communicate in life (and therefore, how you also communicate in digital marketing).

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10 Recommended Books on Internet Marketing

A summary from Amazon.com is included for each book for your quick reference – along with a non-affiliated link to the resource on Amazon.

  1. Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D.

    “The author of the legendary bestseller Influence, social psychologist Robert Cialdini shines a light on effective persuasion and reveals that the secret doesn’t lie in the message itself, but in the key moment before that message is delivered.  

    What separates effective communicators from truly successful persuaders? Using the same combination of rigorous scientific research and accessibility that made his Influence an iconic bestseller, Robert Cialdini explains how to capitalize on the essential window of time before you deliver an important message. This “privileged moment for change” prepares people to be receptive to a message before they experience it.

    Optimal persuasion is achieved only through optimal pre-suasion. In other words, to change “minds” a pre-suader must also change “states of mind.” – Amazon Book Summary

  2. Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions by Carmen Simon, Ph.D.

    “This practical guide is filled with case studies, examples, and a checklist to help you put the power of cognitive science to work for your business. Whether you’re giving a presentation, conducting a meeting, delivering training, making a sales pitch, or creating a marketing campaign, these field-tested techniques will help you develop content that speaks to people’s hearts, stays in their heads, and influences their decisions. It’s not just memorable―it’s Impossible to Ignore.” – Amazon Book Summary

  3. Invisible Selling Machine: 5 Steps to Crafting an Automated Evergreen Email Campaign That Literally Makes Sales While You Sleep by Ryan Deiss

    “In the Invisible Selling Machine, entrepreneur, Ryan Deiss, walks you through all 5 phases of the prospect/customer lifestyle, and shows how each step can be automated and perpetuated to invisibly convert strangers into friends, friends into customers and customers into raving fans. This book is for startup founders, small business owners, marketing professionals, consultants, service professionals, authors, speakers, and even brick and mortar butcher, baker and candlestick makers.” – Amazon Book Summary

  4. Dotcom Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company Online by Russell Brunson

    “If you are currently struggling with getting traffic to your website, or converting that traffic when it shows up, you may think you’ve got a traffic or conversion problem. In Russell Brunson’s experience, after working with thousands of businesses, he has found that’s rarely the case. Low traffic and weak conversion numbers are just symptoms of a much greater problem, a problem that’s a little harder to see (that’s the bad news), but a lot easier to fix (that’s the good news). DotComSecrets will give you the marketing funnels and the sales scripts you need to be able to turn on a flood of new leads into your business.” – Amazon Book Summary

  5. Ask: The counterintuitive online formula to discover exactly what your customers want to buy… create a mass of raving fans… and take any business to the next level by Ryan Levesque

    “Do you know how to find out what people really want to buy? (Not what you think they want, not what they say they want, but what they really want?) The secret is asking the right questions – and the right questions are not what you might expect. Ask is based on the compelling premise that you should NEVER have to guess what your prospects and customers are thinking. The Ask Formula revealed in this book has been used to help build multi-million dollar businesses in 23 different industries, generating over $100 million dollars in sales in the process.” – Amazon Book Summary

  6. Launch: An Internet Millionaire’s Secret Formula to Sell Almost Anything Online, Build a Business You Love, and Live the Life of Your Dreams by Jeff Walker

    “Launch is the treasure map into that world—an almost secret world of digital entrepreneurs who create cash-on-demand paydays with their product launches and business launches. Whether you have an existing business, or you have a service-based business and want to develop your own products so you can leverage your time and your impact, or you’re still in the planning phase—this is how you start fast. This formula is how you engineer massive success. Now the question is this—are you going to start slow, and fade away from there? Or are you ready for a launch that will change the future of your business and your life.” – Amazon Book Summary

  7. Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt

    “In Platform, Hyatt will teach readers not only how to extend their influence, but also how to monetize it and build a sustainable career. The key? By building a platform. It has never been easier, less expensive, or more possible than right now. . .  The book includes:

    • proven strategies
    • easy-to-replicate formulas
    • practical tips

    Social media technologies have changed everything. Now, for the first time in history, non-celebrities can get noticed―and win big!―in an increasingly noisy world. Amazon Book Summary

  8. How to Write Copy That Sells by Ray Edwards

    “Writing copy that sells without seeming “salesy” can be tough, but is an essential business skill. How To Write Copy That Sells is a step-by-step guide to writing fast, easy-to-read, effective copy. It’s for everyone who needs to write copy that brings in cash – including copywriters, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. Inside, you’ll find copywriting techniques for email marketing, web sites, social media, sales pages, ads, and direct mail. – Amazon Book Summary

  9. Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley

    “Everybody Writes is a go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is, in fact, a writer. If you have a web site, you are a publisher. If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers. Yeah, but who cares about writing anymore? In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, by click-bait headlines and Twitter streams and Instagram feeds and gifs and video and Snapchat and YOLO and LOL and #tbt. . . does the idea of focusing on writing seem pedantic and ordinary? Actually, writing matters more now, not less. Our online words are our currency; they tell our customers who we are. – Amazon Book Summary

  10. Master Content Marketing: A Simple Strategy to Cure the Blank Page Blues and Attract a Profitable Audience by Pamela Wilson

    “During her award-winning 30-year marketing career, Pamela Wilson has helped local, national, and international clients communicate their messages effectively. Her passion is teaching — and she has a gift for making complex topics simple and easy to understand. She wrote Master Content Marketing to provide step-by-step help to empower people (even non-writers) to create effective content marketing in a stress-free, fun, and repeatable way. What will happen to your online presence when you lose your fear of hitting publish? Read Master Content Marketing and find out.” – Amazon Book Summary

Plus One Unexpected Book on Digital Marketing…

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss

“A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations – whether in the boardroom or at home. After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists.

Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator.Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’ head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: in saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles – counterintuitive tactics and strategies – you, too, can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal lives.

Life is a series of negotiations you should be prepared for: buying a car, negotiating a salary, buying a home, renegotiating rent, deliberating with your partner. Taking emotional intelligence and intuition to the next level, Never Split the Difference gives you the competitive edge in any discussion.” – Amazon Book Summary

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Other Resources for Your Online Success

  1. Lead Magnet Guide (5 essential characteristics of a lead magnet)
  2. Lead Magnet Project (an interactive online project launching June 2017)
  3. Lead Magnet Examples (email subscribers can add their own web address for free)
  4. Lead Magnet Survey (share your own opinion and discover what other entrepreneurs recommend)
  5. Recommended Website and Email Software Resources (along with the reasons why these resources are recommended)

Cheering for your online success – one project step at a time!

Brent

4 Lessons Learned from the Digital Commerce Summit

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I just returned home to Virginia from a trip out west to Denver, Colorado for the 2016 Digital Commerce Summit.  The Summit was hosted by Rainmaker Digital (formerly known as Copyblogger Media). This is the same company behind the Rainmaker software platform I use for this website.

The 2-day conference at the old Paramount Theatre in Denver was well organized. As a technology project manager by trade, I have a big heart for events that communicate and stick to a daily schedule from start to finish.

There were also several social opportunities to “work the room” each evening, but I will confess that I’m terribly shy in a crowd of strangers (even with a shared interest) so that aspect of the event was admittedly difficult for me.

But I’m a better person from the overall experience.

DigitalCommerceSummit

I also arrived a day early in Denver to participate in a workshop on developing online courses.

One of my intentions with Graceful Resources is to offer online classes for entrepreneurs that outline easy-to-follow actionable steps for web/email design, setup, and integration.

If technology is not really your thing, then you are my target audience! 🙂

I now have a journal full of notes from the event, but let me start with my four main lessons learned and then follow with more conference insights via this blog (click here to stay connected to my upcoming posts and announcements).

4 Lessons Learned from the Digital Commerce Summit

Lesson Learned #1: Rainmaker Digital Team is Made Up of Good People

In Denver, I got a chance to meet members of the Rainmaker Digital leadership and support team and the experience reinforced my trust in Rainmaker (the company and the product).  They were approachable, friendly, and sincere. As someone who has been burned by software developers and so-called marketing experts in the past, I believe the right people are more important than the right solutions.

Yes, good software (and hardware) is critical in today’s digital economy, but don’t underestimate the value of people you can trust. If interested, here are 9 more reasons I use and recommend Rainmaker for my online business.

Lesson Learned #2: Email is Still King for Online Commerce

As a Gen-X professional, I’m hopelessly addicted to email and I assumed Gen X’ers (ages 35-50 as of 2015) and Baby Boomers (ages 51-69) were the last generations to actually use email on a daily basis. Wrong.

Millennials may be more social media savvy than my generation, but there are also habitually reliant on email in their professional and social lives. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur like me (whether part-time or full-time), you have to build your email list every day through your website (as outlined in this earlier post I wrote).

By the way, millennials (ages 18-34) are now the largest living generation in the U.S.

Lesson Learned #3: Conversions Occur Primarily on Mobile Devices

If you are planning to sell new digital products online (like an online course) to people who would benefit from your knowledge and approach to solving problems, the conversion of a business lead to a paying consumer will likely occur over a mobile device.

Any conversion process takes time, and all generations today are using their phones and tablets to first exchange information via email, blogs, podcasts, and social media communities (plus countless messaging apps).

That being said, it is imperative that your initial online content and conversations are “mobile friendly” (especially your website). If not, someone else with similar authority to you may win the trust of your audience simply out of convenience.

Lesson Learned #4: Content Marketing is Critical for Your Success

Content marketing is a bit of a buzz term, but according to Copyblogger, it means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers.

In other words, it means choosing your online messages strategically. There is an art and science to content marketing (especially the use of buyers’ emotional triggers like scarcity – we buy more because of the fear of missing out).

Online content marketing is often in written form (e.g. blogs and emails), verbal form (e.g. podcasts and webinars), and visual form (e.g. online videos and infographics).

Good content marketing doesn’t happen overnight for any of us just because we have something to sell.  Like anything worth pursuing, it takes practice and coaching.  And your own blog is great place to practice (see also 3 Benefits of Blogging).

In my next journal entry, I plan to share a new post titled  “3 Content Marketing Suggestions from an Expert Blogger“. It will be based on insights from one of the Digital Commerce Summit guest speakers Kevan Lee. Kevan is the director of marketing for Buffer, a popular social media publishing tool for brands, agencies, and marketers.

4 Lessons Learned from the Digital Commerce Summit

So in summary, here are my main lessons learned from the October 2016 event in Denver:

  1. Rainmaker Digital Team is Made Up of Good People
  2. Email is Still King for Online Commerce
  3. Conversions Occur Primarily on Mobile Devices
  4. Content Marketing is Critical to Your Success

These lessons may align with your experience and research as well.

Hope this helps,
Brent

FREE QUICK REFERENCE TECH GUIDE (click here): Discover the Graceful Resources I use and recommend for websites, including the reasons why, plus the mistakes to avoid when starting out in digital commerce.

Please let me know if you have any questions via my contact form or in direct response to my free Graceful Journal email mailing list.

I’m here to take away the pain of figuring out how to use new web technologies so you can gracefully profit online from your passion in life.