Easy-to-read fable that makes a convincing case to develop a content marketing strategy.
A financial adviser/digital marketing guru uses a fictional story to demonstrate the importance of content marketing, or authority marketing, to attract customers and grow your business.
In a 27-page preface, Simonds, a financial adviser and digital marketing consultant, outlines why all businesses should be in the business of creating free, useful digital content in order to become a trusted “authority” that will attract today’s surfing consumers. Simonds then uses the rest of his book to underscore the importance of content marketing, or authority marketing—essentially, marketing through telling personal stories of expertise, “helping as many people as they could, regardless of if they sold anything”—by presenting a fable featuring fictional financial adviser Steve Kennedy. Steve is stressed: His radio airtime costs are being increased, and a great prospect ends up not hiring him due to his skimpy online presence. Thankfully, he then attends an inspiring session by marketing guru Dave Utley at his industry conference. Though Steve returns home to find his neglected wife on the cusp of divorce, he soon improves his work/life balance as he implements Utley’s advice. He creates a website that clearly spells out how he can help his ideal client and includes a “call-to-action” that is attractive enough for surfers to provide their names and email addresses, allowing for further prospecting. He develops blogs that offer useful content and include key words that keep pushing up his presence in online searches. A year later, Steve is a speaker at his industry conference due to his phenomenal increase in sales. Simonds, who apparently has practiced what he preaches, has an engaging from-the-trenches perspective and infectious can-do spirit that should be appealing to businesspeople overwhelmed, even paralyzed, by today’s exploding digital marketing environment. While his preface is a bit lengthy and his story could be seen as a bit too simple, Simonds includes enough compelling facts (e.g., consumers increasingly hate the “interruption marketing” of traditional advertising) and helpful tactics (Steve sets aside four hours every Friday to develop his blogs) to make this book a helpful one-two push to get started in this critical marketing arena.
Easy-to-read fable that makes a convincing case to develop a content marketing strategy.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500387013
Page Count: 226
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...
A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.
Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.
Two distinguished technology executives share the methodology behind what made Google a global business leader.
Former Google CEO Schmidt (co-author: The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, 2013) and former senior vice president of products Rosenberg share accumulated wisdom and business acumen from their early careers in technology, then later as management at the Internet search giant. Though little is particularly revelatory or unexpected, the companywide processes that have made Google a household name remain timely and relevant within today’s digitized culture. After several months at Google, the authors found it necessary to retool their management strategies by emphasizing employee culture, codifying company values, and rethinking the way staff is internally positioned in order to best compliment their efforts and potential. Their text places “Googlers” front and center as they adopted the business systems first implemented by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who stressed the importance of company-wide open communication. Schmidt and Rosenberg discuss the value of technological insights, Google’s effective “growth mindset” hiring practices, staff meeting maximization, email tips, and the company’s effective solutions to branding competition and product development complications. They also offer a condensed, two-page strategy checklist that serves as an apt blueprint for managers. At times, statements leak into self-congratulatory territory, as when Schmidt and Rosenberg insinuate that a majority of business plans are flawed and that the Google model is superior. Analogies focused on corporate retention and methods of maximizing Google’s historically impressive culture of “smart creatives” reflect the firm’s legacy of spinning intellect and creativity into Internet gold. The authors also demarcate legendary application missteps like “Wave” and “Buzz” while applauding the independent thinkers responsible for catapulting the company into the upper echelons of technological innovation.
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1455582341
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Business Plus/Grand Central
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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