Book & Product Reviews

It is hard to miss the current  marketing trends:

• Customer-centric environment
• Social media
• Multichannel marketing

The one thing that businesses use throughout all of the current marketing trends in content.  Content connects businesses with their customers.

Get Content Get Customers by Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett covers one of the most critical subjects marketers need to understand today:

Content Marketing

Definition:  “Content marketing is the art of understanding exactly what your customers need to know and delivering it to them in a relevant and compelling way.”

I  bought this book  last summer,  just after it came out.  I had been waiting for it to come out.  It has taken a while for me to read this, or should I say re-read.  I kept returning to dip into it.  So this book review is long overdue.

What Content?

This book explains how content today is more than interruption marketing based on content about your products.  Today businesses need to also provide content on:

• Best practices
• Case studies
• Success stories
• Thought leadership
• White papers

The Advantages Of Content Marketing

Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett believe we are now in the middle of a full-fledged content marketing revolution.  This is because in today’s customer-centric environment, content marketing:

• Gets customers to invite you to interact with them
• Creates relationships with your customers that go beyond the sale
• Builds trust
• Enhances the experience and value businesses give their customers

Many businesses are finding that they can side-step the traditional media and advertising companies.  Their own content marketing is bringing in the same results

Reasons To Adopt Content Marketing

After reading Get Content Get Customers you will want to adopt content marketing.  Chapter 2 gives you six reasons why:

1. Buyers no longer find traditional media as credible as in the past
2. Traditional media methods are not working as they used to
3. Media companies are struggling to provide quality content
4. Sales have become more challenging
5. Content marketing is even within a small company’s means
6. Customers know the difference between valuable content and anything else

Mindset To Connect With Your Customers

I was not surprised to read about the importance of mindset within a content marketing strategy.  Mindset is also critical in cross-cultural marketing… and it is always about connecting with people.  And the mindsets of the individuals within a company all count.

This chapter alone makes it worth buying the book.  Most marketers know they need content today.  But they do not know how to implement an effective content strategy.  Get Content Get Customers shows you how to think like a publisher and how to use the B.E.S.T. Formula to create a content marketing roadmap.

• BEST = Behavioral – Essential – Strategic – Targeted

The “How To” Guidelines

Chapters 4, 5 and 6 show you how to create your content marketing strategy.

There is a very useful chapter on how to choose the type of content that matches your overall business strategy.  I actually use this as a quick reference resource when I am not quite clear which when to use print publications and when to use online publications.

Get Content Get Customers goes into detail about how you create content according to your business strategy:

• Content to get you the results you want

There are also easy-to-follow guidelines on how to put the marketing into the content.

Case Studies

This is not all.  At least half of the book is a series of case studies.  Sixteen in all.  Each case study gives you content marketing takeaways.

The book ends with a fictitious in-depth case study to help you develop your own content marketing strategy.

Who Should Read This Book

Every marketer today needs to become a content marketer.

The truth is that many businesses have not yet become accustomed to marketing in this new customer-centric environment. There are several new marketing tactics in play.  And marketers find it difficult to put a content marketing strategy in place simply because this is not how marketing was done in the past.

This book:

• Simplifies the process of developing a successful content marketing strategy
• Shows you how to put it into action

Numerous case studies give you a broad vision of how businesses are using content marketing today.

Read more Book Reviews:

Communication For International Sales

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with communication for international sales:

• A Writer’s Guide To Powerful Paragraphs By Victor C. Pellegrino
• Content Rich By Jon Wuebben
• Get Content Get Customers by Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett
• Letting Go Of The Words – Writing Web Content That Works By Janice Redish
• Stories That Sell By Casey Hibbard
• The Culturally Customized Web Site By Nitish Singh And Arun Pereira
• The Magic Of Pre-Writing By Steven Osborne
• The Secret To Writing A Successful And Outstanding Blog By Liz Strauss

International Sales

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with international sales:

• All of the Little Sales Books by Jeffrey Gitomer
• Asinine Advertising By Herschell Gordon Lewis
• Influencer: The Power To Change Anything by Kerry Patterson – Joseph Grenny – David Maxfield – Ron McMillian & Al Switzler
• Sales Strategy From The Inside Out By Duane Sparks

International Web Marketing

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with international web marketing:

• Bit Literacy Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload By Mark Hurst
• Dotcomology The Science Of Making Money Online By Stone Evans
• How The Internet Works By Preston Gralla
• How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders By Catherine Seda
• Landing Page Optimization By Tim Ash
• Mastering Online Marketing By Mitch Meyerson
• Multichannel Marketing By Akin Arikan
• Online Competitive Intelligence By Helen P. Burwell
• ProBlogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett
• Stats Faceslap By Ed Rivis
• The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy By Ed Rivis
• Website Optimization by Andrew B. King

Here are some Product Reviews:

• Ed Rivis’ Stats Faceslap
• Success Chef’s Marketing E.S.P.
• The Management Tools I Use For Content Created To Be Re-Packaged
• The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach By Tony Flores
  
• Web Video University And International Marketing
  

All of the book and product reviews here are totally unsolicited… spontaneous …and without affiliate links. These are books I have read recently and only the ones that I share with friends. So all of the reviews you find here are on books and products that I highly recommend.

Also, as these are books and products that I have recently read since, this is not a list of my all-time favorite books. Hopefully I will get around to reviewing my favorite culture and international business books sometime soon.

Use these skills in your international tactics on the…
Get International Clients International Sales Road Map:

Guide To Multichannel Marketing • Do you know how to communicate with different countries? This guide shows you how

Guide To International Web Marketing • Do you know how to pull all of your different international marketing pieces together? This guide shows you how

Step 5 – Connect With Your International Markets Connect… • With culture customized content • With trust and empathy • With strong cross-cultural communication

International Business Success Basics • Do you feel at a loss with regards to dealing with international business? This guide gives you the background information you need right from the start.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Get Content Get Customers by Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett