microMarketing. Get big results by thinking and acting small. Greg Verdino. 2010 ISBN 9780071664868.  This is more of a guidebook to making sure what you do in marketing is in sync with the way things work today. Mass no longer matters, it is better to to be everything right to the right someone rather than something for everyone.  E.g.  Why are Maxwell House and Folgers coffee in such a deadgrowth  zone compared to  specialty coffees?  Many great points here but just like the movie the Jone$es, Verdino reminds you to connect with  masses of communicators, not mass communications. (So if you sell to advertisers, you better be very smart)   Too much to detail here, but this is a good statement of the state of the art today. Its all about being heard.  Concise easy read.

• Personal Branding Interview: Greg Verdino (personalbrandingblog.com)
• Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small: microMARKETING (conversationagent.com)
• 3 Questions About Micromarketing: Get Big Results by Thinking Small (mpdailyfix.com)
• Slides: get big results by thinking and acting small (gregverdino.typepad.com)
• book review: microMARKETING (jonburg.com)
• microMARKETING live at Brand ManageCamp 2010 (gregverdino.typepad.com)
• Folgers, Maxwell House tinker with coffee (sfgate.com)

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Take the Cold out of Cold Calling. Web Search Secrets. Sam Richter. 2010 ISBN 9781592982097.  This is a got-to-buy book. Readers of my reviews may have realized that I am not a fan of  ”Cold Calling ” as practiced by too many companies. In order to call effectively I encourage and show my clients how to find information about their markets and prospects/ businesses before calling/contacting.  Well Sam Richter puts   everything I have ever taught and on steroids.  Harvey Mackay says, ”  A must -have resource for anyone involved in sales and business development,” and I agree.  Every marketer and sales person needs this book on their desk  and the copy will soon be well thumbed and well used.  There is no book out there like this one for immediate and direct utility for more effective sales.  As marketing realizes that their job is to drive sales,  buyer information becomes key – and this book provides the tools, lessons and examples of how to do that research job.  What a find!  Check out www.warmcallcenter.com !

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eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale. Ardath Albee, 2010. ISBN 9780071628648.  At last, a thoughtful effective marketing book written on how to accelerate sales!  I have waited so many years for a book such as this. ( Recently I was getting resigned to having to write it myself!)   I am adding this book to the must read list for sales people new and old.  She thinks, talks and  writes about things from the buyers perspective. I took forever to read this book, each section was chock full of terrific content and strategies causing me to take copious notes. It just makes so much sense to what we see every day in our practise.   So it you take this book , with Jill  Konrath‘s new one and Sharon Drew Morgen’s work you will have the trifecta of today’s real world sales approaches.  Albee also references Brian Carroll’s great work on lead generation (and you see his sales ready leads comments come through) . Albee’s blogs and sites (more than one) are highly referenced in marketing today.  Anyone who has to sell products and services today must buy this book.

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Facebook Marketing. Designing your next marketing campaign. Justin R. Levy.  2010.  The second edition of a very valuable book that encompasses all the changes to Facebook to date.  I found his chapter on setting up Pages to be very valuable. He goes into great detail showing you how to make your corporate Facebook page a valuable marketing asset. One chapter of best practices is worth the price of the book.   Easy read worth the time investment

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Different. Escaping the competitive herd. Youngme Moon. 2010 ISBN 9780307460851. Sub sub head , Succeeding in a world where conformity reigns but exceptions rule.   This author has really nailed todays marketplace.  In her words, “ Differentiation is a way of thinking. It’s a mindset. Its a commitment  …It is not a tactic. It’s not a flashy advertising campaign; it’s not a sparkling new feature set ”

I enjoyed her indentification of types of brands:

• Todays vast all the same stuff, Minstrel marekting – the pursuit of maximally agreeable ( from Grant McCracken
• Breakaway brands , like Swatch or AIBO
• Reverse -positioned brands like Google
• Hostile brands like Red Bull or Marmite

Her identification of aggressive competition and endless market data forces companies to become more and more alike as they pile more and more features ti create more

• Hyatt-like hotels
• Boring airlines
• A plethora of choices for a TV

So that working like crazy to beat the competition does exactly the opposite – making the product mediocre and more like the competition.

If you are responsible for a product of any kind or want to become a more aware consumer, this is wonderful book for you. It starts differently, from the uneven cut pages,  and avant garde layout. Yet the content over delivers, with an easy insightful read, that will grip and hold your attention.  This is the 2010 marketing book so far.

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Rework. Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson. 2010 ISBN 9780307463746. These are the two  chaps of 37 signals who started  Basecamp and a host of other tools.  They were also early advocates of Ruby on Rails.  A breathless book that runs through the gamut of pragmatic business advice. You will find your self agreeing with them much more than disagreeing. Their comments on software design ( It should be simple, practical, easy to use but often is not) resonated today as I was running through Microsoft Office 2010. sigh, I can see why Open Office is attractive – Microsoft changed the paradigm yet again, breaking all of Don Norman’s rules.  37Signals say marketing is not a department which is bang on since it is something every one in your company is doing 24/7. For example:

• Every time you answer the phone its marketing
• Every time you send an email its marketing
• Every time someone uses your product, its marketing
• Every word you write on your website is marketing
• If you build software, every error message is marketing
• If you are in the restaurant business. the after-dinner mint is marketing
• If you are in the retail business, the checkout counter is marketing
• If you are in the service business, your invoice is marketing

Marketing is the sum total of everything you do.

Buy it read it and pass it on to someone you like. Its short but right on. Website www.37signals.com/rework

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The Design of Everyday Things. Donald A. Norman. 1988. ISBN 9780465067107. This is the classic text on design. All players in the tech industry need to read this.  An early quote,”  Each time a new technology comes along, new designers make the same horrible mistakes as their predecessors. Technologists are not noted for learning from the errors of the past. They look forward, not behind, so they repeat the same problems over and over again.”

Norman spent a lot of time in Apple’s early days as VP Advance Products Group, and the rest is history.  A fascinating easy to read writer, he fills the book with concrete examples of horrid mis design, drawn from all around us.  And he is right, present wireless devices are horrid.  While reading this you will become sensitized as to how bad design permeates our life.  From the huge (Chernobyl and Challenger) to the almost trivial (bathroom taps), you will start to see what he sees. Computer programs of course come in for a lot of abuse. (My favorite is the brutal treatment we receive from telco and Revenue Canada voice mail systems.  Enjoy. (He has other  books , Emotional Design, The Design of Future Things and Living With Complexity)  By the way his website http://www.nngroup.com/ is a bit of a surprise.   a sample of his writing https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://jnd.org/dn.mss/LWCChapter1.pdf

• How to get better at UI design (ui-patterns.com)
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The 1 % Windfall. How successful companies use price to profit and grow. Rafi Mohammed. 2010. ISBN 9780061684326. Rafi  is the guru on pricing as he has been consulting on it for over 20 years.  His previous book ,  The Art of Pricing, was a good book, but this one goes much further into the topic with great examples , worksheets and a step by step plan for a pricing strategy . Did you know that when it comes to pricing there are :

• Four fundamental pricing strategies
• Fifty pricing tactics
• Two offensive pricing blossom (his model) strategies
• Six defensive pricing blossom strategies and
• Thirteen culture-of-profit principles?

This is a very thorough study and it is so clearly written that you can read it like a novel. I could not put this one down. It is the best writing on pricing I have ever come across. if you run a business you need this book.

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Putting the Public Back in Public Relations. How social media is reinventing the aging business of PR. Brian Solis & Deirdre Breakenridge.  2009. ISBN 9780137150694.  The two authors have served their time as PR pros and have written a very definitive book on how to meld PR with the social media to create  much stronger  customer/reader conversation.  From mentions of the beginning pof PR in 1906 through to the most recent innovations this is a very good book. It makes good use of case studies, examples and market truths. As well it is a good easy read.  I especially enjoyed the very thorough treatment of metrics which show numerous ways to bring ROI to the social media space as well as accountability to PR.  A must have book for your marketing dept. In our practise we stress teh effectiveness of good PR to your customers, investors, prospects and employees. It certainly beats out advertising on every level.

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The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Second ed. How to use social media, blogs, news releases, online video, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly David Meerman Scott.  2010 ISBN 9780470547816.    I reviewed the first edition in June 2007, and really found it ground breaking.   This Second Edition is even better than the first.  His original truths are still true, however he has added the smart use of social media to the arsenal of marketers.   His examples are updated,  pithy, timely and very useful.  Recommended to anyone who thinks they know anything about marketing and also for those who do not.  As ever a well written speedy book. You will remember what he says – it just makes so much sense.

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