Doc Brown: "There's that word again: "heavy." Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?"
Wouldn't we all like to predict the future? Or at least be ahead of the marketing curve?
As search marketers, we are rabid seekers of knowledge - any and all knowledge, that can help us make sense of our strange and rapidly evolving industry. However, our job should not revolve around reacting to the latest push by a search engine. We should be staying ahead of not only the latest search marketing changes, but as some of the savviest knowledge professionals in business, we should be ahead of marketing trends, period.
With that in mind, let's look at five not-so-well-known books that can help us understand current marketing trends and perhaps even provide a glimpse into what the future of marketing looks like.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.
Leading off with a classic from 1984, Mr Cialdini writes about the psychology of decision making, arguing that in an increasingly complex world of information overload, we rely on single, highly representative pieces of information to make our choices.
What are some of these lone cues? Cialdini introduces us to the six universal principles of persuasion, with Facebook as my example:
1. Reciprocity - Will has superpoked you! Would you like to superpoke back?
2. Social Proof - 59 people have invited you to Facebook. Would you like to confirm your registration?
3. Liking - Congratulations, you are best friends and 88% compatible with...
4. Authority - Danny Sullivan has invited you to join the group Sphinn...
5. Scarcity - Today's new gift: Annoying Widget for $1, only 599 left!
6. Commitment - Facebook is a public commitment.
With our fascination for social media marketing, this book reveals weapons of influence that sales and marketing people have employed in the past and will continue to employ long into the future.
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
by Michael Lewis
Moneyball is a book about Major League baseball, but don't let that dissuade you from the real story - the science of exploiting inefficiencies in a market. Michael Lewis investigates how the Oakland A's, a team with a shoestring budget, is able to consistently win more games than just about any other Major League team.
Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane recruits 'defective parts' that other teams have given up on but have skills that are hugely undervalued by the rest of the league. Unlike the rest of the league at that time, Billy Beane appraises players using sabermetrics, a form of objective statistical analysis. As the only team using this valuation model, he is able to buy players valued 'low' by the rest of the league and then sells them 'high' after turning them into ridiculously productive players.
By the end of this book I was laughing at the inability of the big-spending teams to understand Beane's scouting methods. I was even looking up OBP and OPS percentages of my favorite players. But more importantly, I was struck by the similarity between Beane's ability to exploit gaps in the baseball market and the search engine and domain arbitrage occurring in our industry. What search marketing gaps will be available to exploit in the future? Just like Beane's use of sabermetrics, I believe objective web analytics will be the foremost predictors of future performance online...
Web Analytics: An Hour A Dayby Avinash Kaushik
No offense to my colleagues, but working at an online publisher, I'd trade in just about every market analyst and business analyst in our company for someone with less work experience but more web analytics know-how.
Failing that, I'd buy each of them a copy of Avinash's web analytics book.
Forgive me as I break out into rant mode, but the state of web analytics in our industry is ridiculously laughable. For one, our industry depends on data collection, whether it be through an internal web analytics package or one of the publicly visible providers like Nielsen, Comscore, or Hitwise. Yet probably 1 in 50 people understand how these vendors actually collect their data and or the discrepancies in reporting. Worse, the vast majority of companies are still using redundant metrics to set their KPIs and objectives. Page views and, to a lesser extent, unique visitors, are not objective enough to solely define your company's entire business model.
For the love of God, please read Avinash's book to understand the foundations of web analytics. It'll be worth it. If you still don't believe me, I know of two marketers who received salary raises (one of $10,000) soon after reading this book ;)
The web analytics industry is only going to get hotter and hotter...
Marketing Warfare
by Al Ries and Jack Trout
The fact that this book is still in print after 20 years is a testament to its value. Long before the concept of a global economy existed, Ries and Trout were already positioning companies for worldwide marketing warfare.
Ries and Trout have converted the principles of successful war, as gathered by a Prussian general named Karl von Clausewitz, into a strategic square of marketing warfare:
- Defensive marketing warfare for market leaders
- Offensive marketing warfare for No.2 companies
- Flanking marketing warfare for smaller companies
- Guerrilla marketing warfare for local or regional companies
There's a great quote in Marketing Warfare that I'll paraphrase:
"Whenever you hear your commander say 'We have to redouble our efforts,' you know you're listening to a loser talk. The lights don't need to burn late in places like Cupertino. Apple wins by thinking smarter, not longer."
Just like war, marketing is not fought on a fair battleground. How is your company's marketing positioned today? Where will it be tomorrow?
Advertising Secrets of the Written Word
by Joseph Sugarman
Remember the influence of authority that Cialdini talked about? Well, Brian Clark of CopyBlogger is perhaps the authority on online copywriting so when he recommended copywriting books you should buy, I barely read his review before I clicked on the Amazon link to Sugarman's book on copywriting basics.
"I have a lot of copywriting books and courses, and if I were starting out fresh from square one today, I’d want to start here. Joe Sugarman is a direct marketing legend, and he does a great job of getting basic copywriting concepts across in an enjoyable way. So if you’re brand new to copywriting, start here."
If you blog, write Adwords creative, create online newsletters, dream up Digg headlines, heck if you write online, you will love this book. Sugarman exposes 24 psychological triggers in writing copy, the primary purpose of every element in any ad and includes 16 examples of Sugarman's legendary direct mail ads, including some that failed abysmally.
After you read this book, you'll recognize a lot of terrific techniques that great bloggers use to capture your attention. Now you'll be able to use them yourself in your next blog or ad!
So, there you have it.
Five more books that SEOmoz recommends a search marketer should read. Two books on psychological triggers, a book about arbitrage, a book on analytics, and a book about marketing positioning.
The future doesn't need to be heavy if we have identified the latest trends before they go mainstream!
Pick a few of these up for yourself or your company. The return on investment will far outweigh the cost, and if you've already read any of these books, I would love to hear your reviews and similar recommendations.
by Paul N. Edwards
So I lied about five. Here's an extra treat for the readers of SEOmoz. I often get asked, "How do you find the time to read all these business books?" The secret is simple: learn how to read for information, not for pleasure.
Paul N. Edwards from the School of Information at the University of Michigan has written a PDF guide on how to read, in which he describes the strategy for rapidly digesting business books. The key concept is to read a business book three times:
i) Overview: discovery (one-tenth of total time)
ii) Detail: understanding (six-tenths of total time)
iii) Notes: recall and note-taking (three-tenths of total time)
The important thing to remember for this technique is to set a timeline for each book. If you want to read Avinash's book in 10 days at 2 hours apiece before bed, that gives you 2 hours for the initial scan, 12 hours for the detailed read and 3 sessions for note-taking. It's an effective little system once you get used to it.
If you're interested in more SEOmoz book reviews, check Andrew's YOUmoz review of Ambient Findability, Call To Action, Don't Make Me Think!, The Long Tail, and The Search, as well as Rand's analysis of the Jim Collins' book, Good to Great.
UPDATE: A few readers emailed to say Joseph Sugarman's hardback copy is now retailing for over $150 and is no longer available direct from Amazon! I purchased my copy in March of this year for under $40, so perhaps Amazon will restock this book soon.
The good news is there is a paperback version of this book available under a different name.
Hey Lucas,
Thanks for the shout out! Great job digging up some classic books. I'll admit I haven't read them yet, but they are now on my list to check out.
I think you did search marketers a great favor by referencing some "old school" marketing and advertising books. I get the impression from a lot of SEMs (especially the younger, less experienced ones) that they are operating in a vacuum and only focusing on the "SE" part of "SEM". It's important to remember that the "M" stands for Marketing, which has been studied, tested, written about, theorized, proven and deconstructed for centuries.
There's no need to re-invent the wheel when a lot of the subconcious and psychological triggers have already been identified. It's up to us to build on the learnings of others and apply them to a new medium. Your book choices confirm this, and there are literally tens of thousands of others out there that would be valuable. Last time I checked there were 168,907 results for "Advertising" on Amazon....
So many books, so little time.
I only just got around to Ambient Findability... thanks for the recommendation!
I couldn't agree more with acm - its so easy to decide that because we are in a techy field, we can only use techniques and practices specific to the web. Its exciting to see and realize that people have already done the work for us. Good stuff.
I'm glad you agree. I originally pinged shor with this idea, but I think it is worth repeating for the community:
As SEM becomes more mainstream and part of the "traditional" marketing mix, the best SEMs will be able to apply their marketing experience to search engines, not the other way around.
Great post, Shor. The analytics book is the one that you suggested in your Whiteboard Friday appearance a while back, isn't it?
I'd add another "not at first blush about web marketing" book to the list: The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Think of it as "Getting Things Done" with a more aggressively proactive stance, LOL. And best of all, if you're cheap or broke, you can download the whole thing for free online, thanks to the good folks at MIT.
Great post shor for many reasons, but the ones that really stand out in my mind are that, to be successful in SEO/M you need...
and quite possibly even more important is the demonstration this list makes because none of the books were what most would consider "SEO/M" books.
The challenges and the bar in this industry will continue to rise, and while we may not ever be able to become experts in everything, we must be very knowledgeable in a lot of things, many of which are outside of SEO/M, and to some extent, we must have or gain at least a little bit of knowledge in just about everything else... especially our client's businesses and industries.
SEO/M truly is an intersection of business, technology, psychology, science, and art.
I hope you plan to post on Monday morning more there (down under) because in America it means we get SEOmoz articles on Sunday!
I may not get as much traffic, but being able to entertain Pat on an easy Sunday morning?
Priceless.
Great post shor. Thanks! I love reading non-fiction and learning stuff. I am only really familiar with Avinash's book off your list so I'll look forward to picking up the others.
Haha, maybe SEOmoz ought to sign up with Amazon's affiliate program, the referral fee from this post could help pay for... I don't know, maybe a flight from Sydney to Seattle? :P
Sounds like it might be a good time to be buying one of those flights. I've been hearing rumours...
Reading Aaron Wall's latest post "Too Smart for Your Own Good" reminded me of the mention of Moneyball in this post.
I was just at a conference where Mike Moran spoke about using measurable data--web analytics, site optimization, etc.--to make decisions about your site, rather than guesswork or the marketing methods that used to be accepted as gospel back before internet marketing became so big. I haven't read the book, but if his presentation was any indication, it's probably a great read:
https://www.doitwrongquickly.com/
You should signup as an Amazon affiliate and link via affiliate links next time. You may be surprised just how much an affiliate program can make for you. Maybe you already did this and have fancier links than I am familiar with to Amazon.
Note: It took serious restraint not to self-promote here too. ;-)
I thought about that, but didn't want readers to question the rationale or sincerity behind my recommendations. Also, I didn't want to step on the Mozzers' toes by profiting off of their audience.
I might have if I had written the original post for my own site...but it wouldn't have been read nearly as many times. Catch 22...
We actually have a policy against using affiliate links. It helps to let our audience know that we're always endorsing out of true recommendation and not self-interest. I know that many folks DO this and still have affiliate links, but we're sensitive to potential criticism :)
Damnit, that's the one I wanted to read the most!
There's a cheaper paperback version (with a totally different name just to confuse you)!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470051248/
*Bump*
Would love an update to this post. Any noteworthy new publications worth picking up?
Very intuitive post. You went above and beyond the call of duty. I am in the processing of reading most of the books you referred to. In regards to Advertising Secrets of the Written Word, I found it quite expensive. So what I did was head down to my local library to see if they had it. Of course they didn't but they ordered from another library within their network. I had the book delivered to my door approximately two weeks ago. I should be done reading it soon. Thanks again for the post and pdf on how to read more effectively. Cheers.
Alright...you motivated me. I'll go for the Web Analytics book. In that sea of industry related books and articles its always nice to get the thumbs up on a particular book. Thanks!
"Blue Ocean Strategy"
Summary: create a niche by finding a new market then dominate it... a better road than competing on price or offering more value and still selling widgets!!
Just wish I had thought of curves, maybe we can take the gym online!
Thanks for the suggestions Shor,
Nobody told me that getting involved in search marketing would involve so much homework.
"Good morning class, today we are going to look at keyphrase arbitrage and how animal sacrifice can help your rankings!"
Nice to have some alternative reading outside of the standard SEO and Internet marketing arenas. Thanks for the recommendations.
thanks for the tips - ill want to check out the web analtics and advertising secrets (bit pricy but looks really good). Copy Blogger also looks pretty valuable so ill be popping around there.
Good week ahead
I've only read the analytics book and it is amazing! I went from no knowledge to the self tought anayltics guru of our company. Although now I'm at uni I'm just slowly forgetting it all...
Nice post with an excellent list of reading material. I've been meaning to read "Advertising Secrets of The Written Word", and your post reminded me to go ahead and order it. It's expensive, but from everything I've heard - well worth every penny.
Converse to a statement Rand made at the begnning of his Good to Great review, I am somewhat of a business book fanatic - not the trend books, but rather the classics.
I also don't read them in the same manner I would a fiction book, whereby I am merely reading for enjoyment. That's why I think you've done the Mozzers a great service by referencing Paul N. Edwards free pdf on "How To Read", (wish I had read it back in my college days), which gives a great and quick overview on how to best approach reading/learning from non-ficiton, reference material.
On a final note, I think no "best of" marketing book list would be complete without including "Ogilvy On Advertising", by marketing legend David Ogily. In his own words, "Advertising is Salesmanship". Truer words have never been spoken...
Advertising Secrets of the Written Word is indeed a great book. It's both amazing and scary to read about the seemingly easy ways you can manipulate... err... convince people to buy stuff.
The only thing that bothered me was Joe's insistence that gas tank additives could improve fuel efficiency, but I guess it helps to really believe in the things you sell.
Thanks Shor, For sharing the nice list of Search Marketing Books.
Hey Shor,
You just helped get my pile of books to read a lot bigger. :-(
Thanks for the PDF "How to read". I definitely need it.
Cheers
Yep, sorry to add to the pile! I used to read business books just for pleasure, until I was referred to that pdf :)
Oh Jesus – as if us search marketers don't already have enough to read!
Seriously though, these are all excellent recommendations. I've read Sugarman, Trout and Ries, and Kaushik... and it's all great stuff.
Web analytics was incredibly dry and overwhelming to me until I read "Web Analytics in an Hour A Day." Hey, it's still dry, but at least it's a lot clearer and more manageable.
I think you should mention Dave Chaffey's Emarketing Excellence book, This is a really good introduction not only to SEM but also E-Marketing as a whole, some nice strategic models and loads of tips for the average newbie..