DIGITAL MARKETING QUICKSTART GUIDE

A comprehensive guide to digital marketing.

In this latest QuickStart Guide in an ongoing business-book series, digital marketer and author Sweeney wants to challenge the idea that digital marketing is an impenetrable “black box” that marketers and entrepreneurs will never understand or are discovering too late. Quite the contrary, he insists: “modern digital marketing methods are intuitive, user-friendly, cost-effective, and more accessible to businesses of all sizes than ever before.” There’s no better way to inexpensively publicize elements of one’s business, he asserts, than by pursuing a digital marketing strategy, and here he presents the basics of how to proceed. He explains nuts-and-bolts components like search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising as well as a host of other marketing tools as they might be used in both business-to-business and business-to-customer contexts. He includes clear illustrations throughout to help readers grasp the central concepts, which is particularly helpful as his book gradually deepens into marketing specifics. At every step, Sweeney is direct and accessible, first defining concepts and then explaining them and how they relate to one another, as when he clarifies the necessity for marketers “to narrow their focus from the TAM—total addressable market—to a subset of the serviceable available market (SAM) that is most likely to purchase”; it’s the kind of detailed attention that gives the book broad value for readers looking to learn the mechanics of marketing in general. Indeed, the author’s smooth, energetic skill at demystifying this topic is the book’s highlight. Readers who were leery or skeptical of online marketing before opening this book will close it feeling confident that they can—and very much should—give it their serious attention.

A powerful, no-nonsense breakdown of a key aspect of modern business.