Jeff Bennett's Blog

There is a fundamental shift occurring in the way we pursue marketing.   Gone are the days that a cool 30-second television spot or nifty jingle on the radio would monopolize a companies marketing program.  These remain brand building channels but it is not possible to drive efficient action from these channels or campaigns…a visit to a site, completion of a lead form, purchase of a product and other actions.   The Internet has changed all of this.   With the Internet companies can do so much more beyond brand building that drive action and allow for a more intimate connection to targeted customers.  I stress the word “company” here and not just “brand” because these new marketing concepts are leveling the playing field where the small companies can be as effective as General Motors.  This is stimulating a wave of books that are being published to help all of us identify, learn and practice these new marketing concepts.

Last week Scott Kirsner assembled a list of these new marketing books authored by Bostonians who are active practitioners.  Scott’s list includes 21 books and cover a wide range of topics such as content creation in the digital age, video blogging for business, social marketing and word of mouth marketing:

1. Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah
2. Sticks and Stones: How Digital Business Reputations Are Created Over Time and Lost in a Click by Larry Weber
3. Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business by Steve Garfield
4. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan
5. Twitter For Dummies by Laura Fitton
6. Fans, Friends And Followers: Building An Audience And A Creative Career In The Digital Age by Scott Kirsner
7. World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories by David Meerman Scott
8. Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely
9. Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success by Dan Schawbel
10. Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business by Erik Qualman
11. YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day by Greg Jarboe
12. Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business! by Paul Gillin
13. Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business by Larry Weber
14. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
15. The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II by Dave Balter
16. The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media by Paul Gillin
17. The Provocateur: How a New Generation of Leaders are Building Communities, Not Just Companies by Larry Weber
18. 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
19. Grapevine: Why Buzz Was a Fad but Word of Mouth Is Forever by Dave Balter
20. The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition by Rick Levine
21. Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin

Could Boston be emerging as the Madison Avenue of this millenium?   Time will tell but this list is very impressive.  Key is for this group and all of us to take this thinking and make it work.  We surely have the thinking and the know how.  Let’s go!