The Big Red Fez  - How to Make Any Web Site Better - By Seth Godin

The Big Red Fez is short book on web site usability, and it was the first web marketing book I read. The analogy on the red fez is

Purple Cow  -  Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

by Seth Godin

 For me, this is probably Seth Godin's key book. The analogy is that while there are lots of cows out there, a Purple Cow would be “Remark-able”. Something special, something

The War Room

Political Strategies for Businesses, NGOs, and Anyone Who Wants to Win.

By Warren Kinsella

 The War Room outlines, in entertaining and easy to read fashion, Warren Kinsella's “In the trenches” philosophy on public debate,

Inbound Marketing

Getting found using Google, Social Media, and Blogs

by Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah

If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing by reading this book. (Guy Kawasaki)

Inbound Marketing does a great job of tying together the wide range of new marketing tools that are available, and creates a new paradigm by differentiating between “outbound marketing” -

Search Engine Visibility

by Shari Thurow

 While SEO is a rather dynamic field for the most part, and one is best to get the most up to date and cutting edge news

Tested Advertising Methods

by John Caples

 While John Caples is a legend and master of the past, his “Tested advertising methods” are as much, if not more relevant today in the internet age. Caples specialized in

Word of Mouth Marketing - How Smart Companies Get People Talking

by Andy Sernovitz

Word of Mouth Marketing is essential to anyone in today's marketing

Made to Stick

Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Chip & Dan Heath

Made to Stick is an excellent investigation into what makes certain ideas travel well. Stickiness is defined as the ability to be recalled and passed on – essential to

Free Prize Inside

The next BIG Marketing Idea

Seth Godin

 “A Free Prize isn't a gimmick. Its a game-changing soft innovation; a cool twist that does not cost a fortune but that transforms the way people think about your product or service.”

 Building on the concept of the need for Remarkable businesses and products discussed in Purple Cow, Seth Godin digs deeper

Microtrends

the small forces behind tomorrows big changes

Mark J. Penn

 “A microtrend is an intense identity group that is on the rise with needs and wants unmet by the current crop of companies, marketers, and policymakers, and others who would influence society's behaviour. “

 Mark Penn discovered/uncovered “Soccer Mom's” in Bill Clinton's campaign, and For the marketer, this is about hundreds of niche markets that

Stumbling on Happiness

Daniel Gilbert

 While not obvious from the title or the summary, this book is a treasure trove of information and insights for the marketer or

A Whole New Mind

Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

Daniel H. Pink

In the opinion of Daniel Pink, we are entering a whole new era due to “The 3 A's” - Abundance, Asia, and Automation. And while living standards have drastically increased, people are not happier....the pursuit of

The New Rules of Marketing and PR  -  How to use Blogs, News Releases, Podcasting, Viral Marketing, & Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly  -  David Meerman Scott

Dealing with how to leverage the “Word of Mouth Market” that has become so much more efficient over the last decade, this book is comprehensive in guiding you through key strategies and ideas that you can leverage to promote your business, cause, or idea, often without spending a lot of money.

Buy-ology  -  Truth and Lies about why we buy

Martin Lindstrom

 “In fact, scientists have found and area in the frontal cortex of the brain called Brodmann area 10, which is activated when we see products we think are “cool”

Neuro-Marketing: interesting, enlightening, taboo, and perhaps one of the best ways to gain insight as to why people make the purchase decisions they do.

The age old question:

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?

Persuading Customers when they ignore your marketing

By Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg

“Any conversion process is like a leaky bucket – you pour water in and water spurts out all the holes. You can keep adding more and more water, to the bucket, or you can patch up the holes. Clearly, patching the holes first makes more sense.”

First off, a lot of this information is probably very relevant to B2B marketing where one is going to

All Marketers are Liars

 The power of telling authentic stories in a low trust world

By Seth Godin

“Successful Marketers don’t talk about features, or even benefits. Instead they tell a story. A story we want to believe.”

This book lays out the strategy behind storytelling – Godin argues that when you look at any company, product, church, or job seeker, what you believe is much different from what is actually there. Once you know this, everything

Influence

The Psychology of Persuasion

By Robert B. Cialdini, Phd

 This book on “the psychology of compliance” is a classic, and may well be references in half of the other books I have reviewed here. There are very powerful

Call to Action

Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results

Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffery Eisenberg

This book is very dense on online marketing information – just about every page has a good idea, cites a useful study, or strong recommendation based upon

Ca$hing in with Content 

How Innovative Marketers use Digital Information to turn Browsers into Buyers

By David Meerman Scott

Looking at a number of top web sites, Scott makes the case that:

“Marketers working at companies with innovative web sites know that first and foremost, site visitors want access to information, not just fancy graphics and advertising hype”