I had the chance to ask Mitch a few questions about his new book, Six Pixels of Separation:

With so many Social Media books out there, how is Six Pixels of Separation different than the others?

I’m not sure that Six Pixels of Separation is a “Social Media book.” I think
it explains how some of those channels are very important to business today
and going forward, but I don’t think that’s the crux of Six Pixels of
Separation. Also, a lot of the Social Media books I have read tend to be
written by people giving their perspective of the new online channels either
through the lens of a Marketer, Consultant or Technologist. I wrote this
book as an Entrepreneur for businesspeople. Using real business language and
case stories that really illustrate how business can grow (and yes, that
includes making money). This book is the strategy, tools and tactics my
business partners and I used to grow our business (as Entrepreneurs) from no
employees in 2002 to nearly 85 full-time team members with multiple offices.
Basically, by taking part and engaging in the many online channels, my
company, Twist Image (with me as “the voice”), was able to build this
multi-million dollar business. We continue to grow by still using the same
channels. This book is much more about how to think strategically different
and engage in a much more human way in this new world. It’s also not a book
written by a pundit. It’s written from one businessperson to another. There
is also a lot of influence from the Future Now Inc. people too – especially
the work that both Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg have done. For me, and the
audience of Six Pixels of Separation, having great “scent” for your
marketing and driving to conversation is also a big part of the message in
the book.

If you think the Digital Marketing channels are so powerful and important for business, why not just publish this on your Blog? Why a book?

Yeah, I get that a lot! The reason I wrote a book in the first place – and
did not just tell people to read my Blog – is because when I go out and
speak in public (which I do about 70 events a year), it is amazing to me how
many businesses are simply not engaged online or thinking like the way
people online tend to think. So, I wrote this book using a medium they are
comfortable and used to.

That being said, I am hopeful that you (and anybody else reading this) will
pick it up. I think there is also a ton of value for those who have already
gotten a tipsy on the Kool-Aid. I have been told that there are some
different and unique perspectives even for someone who is highly engaged in
these digital channels. I’m also hopeful that you (and your community) will
see the value in passing a book like this on to clients or peers who keep
asking the questions we get asked on a daily basis.

What are some takeaways people will get from the book? What priorities do they need to focus on for the next quarter?

One of the main takeaways that I hope people get from this book is the
notion of “Digital Darwinism”. Companies quickly jump on to YouTube and post
videos, they add widgets and downloadable applications to their websites,
they start a Facebook Page and then sit around the boardroom slapping each
other on the backs and handing out lollipops for how well they have managed
to “evolve” their digital and online properties from where they were.

The general train of thoughts is that if you add Twitter or a Blog into the
mix you were able to evolve your Digital property by the simple act of
having these new channels as a part of your digital ecosystem.

Digital Darwinism favours the community, not the creator or enabler of the
content.

Digital Darwinism is what your users, community members and readers do with
your content. If you don’t have any of those, you don’t evolve (you become
extinct). If you have readers and users but they’re not active (taking part,
reading, adding their own comments, passing your information around), again,
you become extinct.

Charting a course to evolution is a process (not a campaign).

Can you continue to create content in hopes that people will connect with it
and help you evolve? Of course, but you have to do the heavy lifting at this
point. You have to be the one out there beating the drum and letting people
know that it’s not a self-promotional environment you have created, but
rather one to benefit the community. It’s easy to see why this can be
challenging. In one breath, we want people to connect to our content so they
become loyal customers. In another breath, we have to be sensitive to the
fact that the more self-promotional we are with our material the less likely
it will be that a community spawns and extends our evolution.

For me, the next quarter is about taken a very hard look at your website,
database, micro-sites, search engine marketing campaigns, web analytics and
social media platforms and make some tough decisions: which ones are
working? Which ones are duds? How are you going to open up and let your
community engage and help you “evolve”?

What other books should people be reading now?

I think you mean, besides Six Pixels of Separation? Seriously, I have broken
them down:

..    New business thinking:
o    The Cluetrain Manifesto – The End of Business as Usual, by Rick
Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger.
o    Here Comes Everybody – The Power of Organizing Without
Organizations, by Clay Shirky
o    Life After the 30-Second Spot – Energize Your Brand With a Bold Mix
of Alternatives to Traditional Advertising, by Joseph Jaffe
o    Made To Stick – Chip and Dan Heath.
o    Purple Cow – Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, by Seth
Godin
o    Re-Imagine! – Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age, by Tom Peters
o    Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.
..    Tactics to get it done:
o    Call To Action, by Bryan Eisenberg and Jeffrey Eisenberg (no, I am
not sucking up!)
o    Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? – Persuading Customers When They
Ignore Marketing by Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg, and Lisa T. Davis.
o    Web Analytics – An Hour A Day, by Avinash Kaushik
o    Winning Results With Google AdWords, by Andrew Goodman.

Mitch has been one of my best supporters and he deserves our support as well. If you need more information about the book you can read a synopsis, see some videos and read testimonials from the Twist Image website. Take a couple of moments and order the book. I am sure you will enjoy it.

My question to Grok readers is:
Will Amazon’s infamous pressure-cooker culture eventually overtake all the innovations and friendliness of Zappos’s culture? Or, is the alliance a perfect shot-in-the-arm for both groups?  Will Zappos start bundling books with patent leather pumps?

How many people craft different blog posts tackling the same subject from different angles and designed to appeal to different Temperaments?

How many people publish their nonfiction/business book in mind with a firm understanding of what they want the book to accomplish for them, what a book reasonably can accomplish, and what it takes to make that happen?

The simple truth is that it’s incredibly unlikely for authors to make money on their non-fiction book, but fairly common for authors to make money because of their book – IF they intelligently market their book.

Seth Godin recently wrote about Blogs, books, and the irony of short, saying essentially that business book should contain more than could be conveyed in a few blog posts, while the market essentially demands that authors be able to summarize their book within the space of a blog post.  Seth then ends the post, saying:

“This is irony (we say we want long and deep and rich but we also insist that it be condensed to a sentence) so it’s not clear what you should do about it as a marketer, other than to accept that it’s going on.”

Well, if you’d like a detailed answer to what you should do to market your book and develop a content strategy to leverage your unique views, I can think of no better authority on the subject than my friend and book marketing genius, Michael Drew.  Michael’s currently running 50 for 50 in putting his client’s books onto the New York Times Best Seller list.  And his answers on how to plan the content, writing, and marketing of a book in this brave new-media world are available through his Book Publishing 2.0 class.  The next one will be held in New York City, May 8th-10th.

Mike has given me 5 free tickets to giveaway. If you can be or are going to be in New York City those days, just comment below and we’ll pick 5 people to attend this amazing course for free.

So we debated, scoured our bookshelves, debated, and finally came up with a list of several team favorites and grouped them into a few categories. The resulting list, below, is in no particular order and is far from comprehensive. It includes books and a few other resources that we know to be unavoidable if you want to talk shop and play like a real conversion analysis.

Usability and Information Architecture

• “Designing Web Usability” by Jakob Nielson
• “Web Site Usability: A Designer’s Guide” by Jared M. Spool (don’t miss his research at UIE.com, either)
• “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites” by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville (a.k.a., The Polar Bear Book)
• “Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks” by Luke Wroblewski
• “The Persona Lifecycle : Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies)” by John Pruitt and Tamara Adlin
• “The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web (VOICES)” by Jesse James Garret
• “Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition” by Steve Krug

Web Analytics

• “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day” by Avinash Kaushik (of Occam’s Razor fame)
• “Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics” by Brian Clifton
• “Web Analytics Demystified: A Marketer’s Guide to Understanding How Your Web Site Affects Your Business” by Eric Peterson
• “Marketer’s Common Sense Guide to E-Metrics” (PDF) by Bryan Eisenberg and Jim Novo
• “Information Anxiety 2 (Hayden/Que)” by Richard S. Wurman
• “Envisioning Information” by Edward R. Tufte

Copywriting

• “Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank” by Bryan Eisenberg and Jeffrey Eisenberg (yes, we did write this. But it’s received an impressive amount of acclaim, and we’ve seen it on Amazon selling for over $1,000 (see screenshot). It really is an important book if you’re serious about writing online), you can get an e-book version now.

  click the image above to enlarge

• “Breakthrough Advertising: How to Write Ads That Shatter Traditions and Sales Records” by Eugene M. Schwartz
• “Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs” by Joseph Sugarman
• “The Associated Press Guide to Good Writing” by Rene J. Cappon
• “Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer” by Roy Peter Clark
• “Copyblogger Blog” by Brian Clark (while we’ve tried to keep this list to books, if you want to learn more about writing copy online, you must become a Brian Clark reader, possibly even a disciple)

Direct Marketing Techniques

• “Scientific Advertising” by Claude C. Hopkins
• “Tested Advertising Methods (Prentice Hall Business Classics)” by John Caples
• “DRILLING DOWN: Turning Customer Data into Profits with a Spreadsheet – Third Edition” by Jim Novo
• “The Copywriter’s Handbook, Third Edition: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells” by Robert W. Bly

Psychology, Human Behavior, and Persuasion

• “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (if you keep running into brick walls with your messages or you feel that you just don’t have a strong message, start with this book)
• “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing” by Bryan Eisenberg and Jeffrey Eisenberg
• “Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do (Interactive Technologies)” by B.J. Fogg
• “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini
• “Your Key to Sports Success : How Understanding Your Brain Type Will Enhance Your Athletic Ability” by Jonathan Niednagel
• “Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types” by David Keirsey
• “The Art of Speed Reading People: How to Size People Up and Speak Their Language” by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger.
• “Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping” by Paco Underhill

Testing

There is a lot of science and rigor in the area of testing and statistics. And while marketing is becoming more accountable, we aren’t quite ready for the amount of rigor possible in this critical area. But we will be, and when we are there will be a few more books that make this subject palatable for the average marketer and conversion analyst. Until then these are two solid choices to devour and have more than enough info to get you started testing and testing well:

• “Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions” by Tim Ash
• “Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer” by Bryan Eisenberg and John Quarto-vonTivadar

Marketing, Branding, Selling

No doubt this is the hardest category because there are plenty of fine marketing, traditional advertising, and branding gurus. What we wanted to identify some books that will influence a lot of the great books still to come. Every one of these books is still relevant to marketing and the challenges we face online. You simply can’t go wrong reading anything on this list:

• “Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy (this is a true classic that can’t be ignored)
• “Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads: Turning Paupers into Princes and Lead into Gold” by Roy H. Williams (this book will ground you in the principles of advertising and marketing success)
• “Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results” by Bryan Eisenberg and Jeffrey Eisenberg
• “The Psychology of Selling the Art of Closing Sales (Book and 6 Audiocassettes)” by Brian Tracy
• “How to Master the Art of Selling” by Tom Hopkins
• “The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource, New Edition” by Jeffrey Gitomer
• “Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing” by Harry Beckwith
• “5 Steps To Successful Selling” by Zig Ziglar
• “Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It” by Al Reis
• “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” by Dan Ariely
• A few tomes by our pal Seth Godin; our faves are “Purple Cow,” “Permission Marketing,” and “Meatball Sundae.”
• “How to Win Friends & Influence People” by Dale Carnegie

SEO, SEM, Social Media

When it comes to search marketing and other dynamic markets, most of the treasured resources are blogs or sites like this. Search Engine Watch and ClickZ are a must (like Mike Grehan who writes about SEO (define); he’s a friend and a fave). Here are a couple recent books worth mentioning:

• “Winning Results with Google AdWords, Second Edition” by Andrew Goodman
• “Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day” by fellow ClickZ columnist Dave Evans
• “Email Marketing: An Hour a Day” by fellow ClickZ columnist Jeanniey Mullen

Get Reading

As you can see, we likely left a few out. But every resource we listed will move you well on your way to understanding the ins and outs of how to be a great conversion analyst. Many of these books are required reading for our analysts, and they should be for yours.

Did we leave out one of your must-reads? List it in the comments section below.

I recommend Roy Peter Clark’s book frequently and have even given copies of it away during Persuasive Online Copywriting courses.   In fact, the famous screenwriting coach and video game guru, David Freeman, won a copy at our last POC course and he was every bit as impressed with the book as I am.

So then why was I disappointed with the Lifehack post?

The links are all broken.   You see, Roy Clark wrote the book as individual short essays or articles, one on each writing tool, and published them online as he wrote them.   Yet when he finally compiled all 50 tools into a printed book, he (quite understandably) pulled the complete essays offline.

But you can still get an abridged version in audio here.  You’ll want to listen to them all, but go ahead and treat yourself by skipping ahead to tools 14, 27, and 28, titled:

• “Get the name of the dog”
• “Reveal Traits of Character,” and
• “Put odd and interesting things together”

You can also read the continuing thoughts and advice of Roy on his Writing Tools Blog.  It’s on my short list of daily blog reads and I highly recommend it for any writer.

I read their book. It’s a great book. I’m just trying not to read any books that aren’t available for my Kindle. I love my Kindle! You just have to love a device that allows you to travel with an entire library and is even easier on the eyes than ink on paper.

I love my Kindle even more now since the newly revised Call To Action: Secret Formulas To Improve Online Results just became available for the Kindle.  I bought a copy and added the PDF of the index that you can download here. I now have the best version of Call To Action you can own.

Whether it’s the Contact Us form on a B2B site, the Sign Up form on a social networking site, or the Checkout of an eCommerce site, they all have forms in common. And in every case, forms are what stands between our site visitors and the action we’ve persuaded them to take.

The irony is that companies spend thousands, sometimes millions, on making their sites functional, accessible, usable, intuitive, and sometimes even persuasive, but don’t always spend enough on making their transactional pages (forms) as optimized as possible. Add to that the money spent starting a relationship with customers via online or offline marketing.  And when it’s time to take that relationship the next level and close the deal, online forms have the responsibility.

So like the title of this post, I have questions:

• How much have you spent on your homepage and landing pages in the last 12 months?
• How much have you spent on your forms?
• How many resources work on your homepage and landing pages? Designers, testers, marketers, copywriters?
• How many resources work on your forms?
• Do you test your homepage and landing pages?
• Do you test your forms?
• Do your homepage and landing pages employ the latest technology like flash, video, AJAX, and widgets?
• Do your forms employ the latest technology?

Of course homepages and landing pages are important, and deserve lots of attention.  But don’t forget that the bottom of your conversion funnel is where all the serious action is.  It’s where dollars either flow into your bank account or…elsewhere.

So what can you do, short of reading the whole book yourself?

1. Start a “Forms Task Force” within your company–make it cross-disciplinary–and take a good, hard look at your forms.
2. Look at every question on your forms.  To paraphrase Web Form Design, consciously decide to “keep,” “cut,” “postpone,” or “explain” every question you ask your customers.
3. Once you’ve revisited your forms, begin the ongoing process of testing and optimization.

Editors note: You can also learn more about the book and read the author’s book blog here.

Our good friends at Rosenfeld Media, were kind enough to extend a 10% discount to our readers on their books; just use coupon code GROKDOT for your 10% off.

Hard:  Write another book.

Easy:  Tell people where they can get a free sample chapter.

Idiot:  Skip the Easy part.

With all the hoopla surrounding the release of our latest book, “Always Be Testing“, both Bryan and I forgot to let you know we’ve a sample chapter available online as a PDF.  Enjoy.

So busy was I trying not to drink the kool-aid, that I forgot to watch out for banana peels on the floor! Whooops!

Bryan will be presenting the session “Pay Per Conversation” together with Brett Crosby, Group Manager of Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer, on the 18th at 11:15am and immediately after, Bryan will be available to sign copies of his book being provided as a courtesy by Google.

Get there early since Google will only be giving away a few hundred books. If you can’t make it there you can always sign up for our next Always Be Testing webinar for your chance to win 1 of 3 signed copies (by both of us).

Want to know more about the book? Watch the interview below or read one of the online reviews:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click Z (Mike Grehan):
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630480

100 Dollar SEO (Carlos Del Rio):
http://www.100dollarseo.com/always-be-testing-a-cookbook-for-web-optimizer/landing-page-optimization

DamnIWish (Andy Sernovitz):
http://www.damniwish.com/2008/08/use-reviews-to.html

Click here to view the embedded video.

Better yet, why don’t you buy a copy for yourself and send us your own review to link to.

The first reviews on Amazon are live (including the first time that I have seen a video review for a book). Daniel Waisberg writes:

When I first saw that this book was coming to light I had mixed feelings. On one hand, I was hunger for more testing knowledge, both theoretical and practical. On the other hand, I am always apprehensive when books talk about tools. However, the book impressed me as a comprehensive guide to Online Testing. And when I read the following (p.18), I was sure the book is what the market needs:

“The important thing to keep in mind is that the Google Website Optimizer is a tool. (…)It cannot do your thinking for you. It cannot plan your tests. It cannot produce the creative. It cannot interpret your results beyond demonstrating numerical significance and confidence. These things are up to you. If you want the tests you run on the Google Website Optimizer to be meaningful and to provide the intelligence you need to make well informed marketing decisions, then this is the book you need.

“The authors cover very thoroughly the Why, the What, and the How of Online Testing. All you need to know from the value of testing to how should you get started. The examples are very enriching and illustrate the power of testing and the bottom line: Testing = $$$.

Part I covers the Why; the authors delve on the power of testing and provide some amazing examples of it (including a masterpiece on Amazon’s testing efforts). In addition they walk us through the Google Website Optimizer and provide powerful tips on the tool.

Part II covers the What and the How; the chapters are structured in a very actionable way: “Questions to ask”, “Exercises”, “What to test”, and “Apply this to your site”. As you read you can implement the tips instantly. A few examples of what to test are: usability, look & feel, searchability, product presentation, up-sell/cross-sell……

Part III covers some technical aspects of testing. The authors provide interesting information about Google website Optimizer scripts, statistical tests, and other special issues.

*The book is well structured, insightful and action oriented: exactly as online marketing should be! I warmly recommend it.*

Thank you Daniel for the kind words. I hope you get as much out of the book as Daniel did. The book is selling on Amazon for $19.79 and includes a $25 Adwords coupon. That’s a pretty good ROI

The official launch of the book will be at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose on August 18th. If you are going to be there join me for a book signing courtesy of Google and the fine support of the SES crew. I’ll also be at SES doing a presentation with Group Product Marketing Manager for Google Analytics, Brett Crosby titled “Pay Per Conversation.” I hope you can join us.

2 Webinars to Improve Your Conversion Rates

If you can’t join us live then make sure to sign up for the Always Be Testing webinar with Tom Leung and myself. This one is going to be extra interesting. We’ll be covering some interesting case studies and how to start testing in your orginzation (large and small). You can register here and if you missed last month’s Always Be Testing webinar you can see it here.

I also recently completed a webinar with Wes Funk,  Director of Online Marketing for Omniture titled “Using Personas to Skyrocket Conversion.” You can view it on demand. If you want to understand the power of using Personas to enhance your segmentation and content planning, this webinar is a must see.

Which Do You Prefer?

We’re also conducting our own “A/B test” on the covers of the book. When you get your copy you can go and vote for your favorite Always Be Testing cover. Or you can always head to the website to find out more about the book before you order it.

Joe Nocera lists 14 books he likes in no particular order in “The Best Business Books Ever?”

“Liar’s Poker,” by Michael Lewis (even though I’ve since become convinced that the anecdote that gives the book its title never happened).
“The Devil’s Candy,” by Julie Salamon. (Greatest dissection of the movie business ever written.)
“The Box,”, by Marc Levinson. (Hard to believe you can write a great book about the rise and importance of the shipping container, but he pulled it off.)
“Indecent Exposure,” by David McClintick. (Published in 1982, it single-handedly created the business narrative genre).
“The Go-Go Years,” by John Brooks. (The best book by the most elegant writer to ever make business his subject.)
“The Kingdom and the Power,” by Gay Talese. (Yes, the subject is The New York Times, but how can you leave it off any list of great business books?)
“Titan,” by Ron Chernow. (Chernow’s magisterial biography of John D. Rockefeller.)
“Do You Sincerely Want To Be Rich,” by Godfrey Hodgson, Bruce Page and Charles Raw. (Hard to believe that this committee of authors could write a sensational narrative about the rise and fall of Bernard Cornfeld, but that they did.)
“Disney Wars,” by James Stewart. (”Best corporate psychoanalysis I’ve ever read,” says John Huey.)
“The Informant,” by Kurt Eichenwald (Forget his Enron book, “Conspiracy of Fools.” This book, about the strange saga of Mark Whitacre and Archer Daniels Midland, is his masterpiece.)
“Father, Son and Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond”, by Thomas J. Watson and Peter Petre (The only great ghost-written C.E.O. autobiography ever written. No one else — not even Lee Iacocca or Jack Welch — even comes close.)
“When Genius Failed,” by Roger Lowenstein. (Another one of those “how-did-he-do-it?” books: this account of the fall of Long Term Capital Management, which by all rights should be a tough slog, is crackling good read.)
“Greed and Glory on Wall Street,” by Ken Auletta. (This book, about the crack up of Lehman Brothers, has a great cast of characters, starting with Steve Schwartzman.)
“The Smartest Guys in the Room,” by Peter Elkind and Bethany McLean. (O.K., O.K., they are former colleagues of mine, and I was deeply involved in editing this book — but I have to say, I think it turned out pretty well!)

I like this list a lot. Now I’ll check if the books are available in Kindle format yet.

It’s time to engage in some word of mouth marketing. Do you have any other business fiction books to recommend? Please let me know.

Fellow marketers, webmasters, executive decision makers, including first timers and SES Alumni, will converge to learn how to maximize their business’s Search Engine Marketing (SEM) opportunities, including Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search advertising, in addition to staying informed of the latest industry, tools, and algorithm developments and solutions. This is the one event of the year you do not want to miss.

Our own, Bryan Eisenberg will be presenting at the Pay Per Conversation session on Monday with Google’s Brett Crosby. Immediately after the session, join Bryan and Brett for the launch and book signing of the Always Be Testing book.

Here’s a great example of using video to sell a book online:

Riverhead Books and Penguin Books hired Lindsey Testolin to make made the words of Daniel H. Pink and the illustrations of Rob Ten Pas come to life in the shape of a film trailer — complete with gratuitous needle-dragging-on-record sound effect to suggest a sudden change of expectations. There’s a strong call to action for the book’s website and it insists at the end credits that Johnny Bunko is the best graduation gift of 2008.

Poor Johnny may not know where his career’s headed, but he sure knows how to market a book.

ERRATUM: Turns out that the publisher had nothing to do with the creation of the trailer. Hmm… No surprise there, really. Publishers, take note. This sort of content is worth your money.

According to MediaPost,

…a new study from Canadian research firm Pollara, self-described social media users put far more trust in friends and family online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace “friends.”

Of more than 1,100 adults polled in December, nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, while only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a product pushed by “well-known bloggers.”

But what if your friend happens to be a “well-known blogger”?

When Bryan swings by the office between conferences — as he did this morning, after speaking at eMetrics Summit last week in Toronto — there’s always some new website, product, blog or book he’s recommending. This time around, he had a stack of books. “Pick one,” he said. So I grabbed a copy of Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov’s Online Shopping Through Consumers’ Eyes.

“It’s a quick read,” Bryan insisted. “Lots of great research in there.”

I haven’t read it yet, but the first page I flipped to had a chart, illustrating that “86.6% of online users would actually follow recommendation links/advice sent to them by their friends and peers.”

Before I had a chance to share that with Bryan, he was already onto the next thing.

“Have you seen TripIt.com yet,” he asked. “It’s brilliant. You can upload your entire trip itinerary — not just flights, but everything — and email it or text it out to friends and family in one step.”

Sure enough, I put down the book and went to TripIt.com to check it out. (Sorry, Bryan, but I researched it because you’re a friend, not because you’re a “well-known blogger.” )

UPDATE: More interesting stuff on this topic from MediaPost.

• Women-owned firms employ nearly 13 million people and generate $1.9 trillion in sales.

• Between 1997 and 2006, majority women-owned firms (51 percent or more women-owned) grew at twice the rate of all firms (42 percent vs. 24 percent).

Want some insight into who these business owners are and what they want? Check out Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs by Kaira Sturdivant Rouda. It’s a great read, whether you’re targeting female business owners or are one.

I knew I liked Kaira as soon as I read this:

“As a kid watching Bewitched, I was entranced by Samantha and her creative power, and I wanted Darrin’s job.”

In Real You Incorporated, Kaira hits on one of my favorite topics: Not all women think alike.

The book features real life stories from women entrepreneurs. It was interesting to see how different women approach their businesses. One business owner named the company after herself. It made perfect sense. Another wouldn’t dream of naming the company after herself. Again, not all women business owners think alike.

But many female business owners share similar problems. There’s a whole section on “Snarks,” folks masquerading as friends and confidantes who don’t have your best interest at heart. You’ll learn how to spot these people and avoid the problems they create. This section alone is worth the price of the book.

If you’re a women business owner (or any business owner targeting women), be sure to check out Kaira’s website. There are lots of interactive elements. You’ll find an “Ask Kaira” section where women entrepreneurs can write in with common questions. She has a downloadable chart where you can fill in your own “Real You” information. She has a featured entrepreneur section where you can be inspired and learn from different women business owners . There’s even a section where you can share your heroes.

I really like the interactive nature of the site. If you’re marketing to women, you want that interactivity. It’s a great way to build a relationship with your readers or customers.

If you’re marketing to women, business owners, or both, add Real You Incorporated to your list.

. .

[Editor's Note: Holly Buchanan is co-author of The Soccer Mom Myth — Today's Female Consumer: Who She Really Is, Why She Really Buys, and co-instructor of our Persuasive Online Copywriting seminar on March 28th in San Francisco.]

The book addresses the most common mistakes in marketing to women, both online and offline, and shows us how to really understand who our female customers are. The authors then pull back the curtains for a realistic look at what women really want. Or, as they warn on The Soccer Mom Myth website, “This is not your typical dry business book. It includes politically incorrect views, some unladylike language, and tequila stories.”

The early reviews have been fantastic, and we’re looking forward to hearing what the rest of you think.

You can read sample chapters at TheSoccerMomMyth.com or order your copy today from Amazon.

Congratulations, Holly & Michele!

In “Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business” — which, as one might expect, is available for free at Wired.com* — Anderson argues that, across industries, businesses are baiting new customers with free stuff.

Of course, that’s nothing revolutionary. But it is evolutionary in the sense that we’ve come to expect some level of “free” something. In fact, we’re willing to pay top dollar for “free”! (Here’s how Ryanair does it.)

Back in 2002, Bryan evangelized “The ROI of Free“…

“An innocuous question can hit you where you live. I should have expected one day someone would ask me, “How do you measure your ROI for that?”

How does someone who writes “ROI Marketing” justify publishing so much content for free? Do we charge for advertising, rent our list, or bombard those names with commercial offers? No. In fact, Jeffrey, my brother and partner who handles such things, estimates we’ve invested about $100,000 developing free content for our newsletter, free whitepapers and other publications. How do we measure its ROI?

As our CFO will tell you, that $100k figure is nothing compared to what we’ve spent since “The ROI of Free” was published. Still, our dedication to free content remains — and for good reason.

Much like he did with The Long Tail (which also began as an article), this latest piece is Anderson’s way of cleverly cross-promoting-in-advance his upcoming book, FREE, which won’t be available in 2009. Looks like Anderson’s on his way to generating some positive word-of-mouth for the magazine and the book.

Has your business discovered the ROI of Free?

*Putting their money where your mouth is, WIRED will send you the print edition of its March 2008 issue for free — so long as you’ll offer a name and mailing address in exchange.

From now on, you can now read about all things marketing-to-women-online at GrokDotCom.com/women.

And now for the really exciting news…

Michele Miller and I have a new book coming out March 10th: The Soccer Mom Myth — Today’s Female Consumer: Who She Really Is, Why She Really Buys.

To find out more about the book (and laugh at our bad dance moves), visit us at TheSoccerMomMyth.com.

As a thank you to the frequent commenters on my posts (you know who you are), we’re giving away 10 free copies. Just reintroduce yourself in the comment field and tell the world to “Stop stereotyping your customers!” and I’ll email you to get your address so we can send you a copy.

If you’re lucky, I may even autograph it for you.

Oh, and if you end up being commenter #11, no worries. You can always order the book from Amazon.

UPDATE 3/10: The winners have been notified. If we’ve been in touch, your copy of The Soccer Mom Myth is on its way. If you missed out on the contest, no worries, the book has officially been released today. Get yours today at Amazon.

If every designer (and the marketers who hire them) read Web Design for ROI, the new book by Lance Loveday & Sandra Niehaus, the Web would be a better and more profitable place.

Sure, the book will show you design techniques that help generate positive ROI, but the best of all is that it’s easy to follow. The authors dissect a website into six common sections — homepage, detail or landing pages, category pages, product pages, forms, and checkout — found on commerce sites, and they walk the reader through various optimization tactics for each. The book is a pragmatist’s dream, full of examples and “best practices” (or is that “best principles”?) that make it easy to take leaps and bounds in understanding how to use your website to make more money by reducing friction in the customer experience.

If you manage an e-commerce site, or design them, and haven’t read this book or Call to Action by Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg and Lisa T. Davis, there’s probably a lot of low-hanging fruit left to grab on your site by modifying simple design changes and testing the results. These types of fixes don’t take a lot of effort but they yeild nice results in terms of boosting conversion rates and average order value.

While Web Design for ROI doesn’t venture as deep into the principles of conversion as Call to Action, its solid approach, combined with the authors’ personality, make it a worthwhile read for anyone fixing the money-leaking holes on their website. This book is about making your e-commerce site a strategic extension of the company’s business model while building it around the customer experience.

This is definitely not your typical design book, and thats why we’re giving it the thumbs-up here at Future Now.

For more info, check out WD4ROI.com before you checkout at Amazon.

That’s how I felt after reading Dr. Susan L. Reid’s Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Journey to Business Success. I felt like we’d been having this great conversation, and I didn’t want it to be over.

So I picked up the phone and called Susan. I felt comfortable using her first name because I felt like I knew her after reading the book — and more importantly, I felt like she knew me.

How cool is that?

Not just another new-age analogy…

Discovering Your Inner Samurai is for women entrepreneurs, but it’s also for anyone who wants to understand — or market to — female entrepreneurs (which is why I read it). The book will also give you deep insights into who they are and why they start businesses, while uncovering their deepest fears, challenges, passions and joys.

Think that might be helpful if you want to market to this group?

If you’re a woman entrepreneur, Susan will help you with the five biggest questions you’re likely asking:

1. Is my idea good enough?
2. How to I obtain the money to start up?
3. Can I run a successful business and still have a life?
4. Do I have the necessary education and experience to do this?
5. What if I fail?

Respecting Your Inner Samurai

“How many times have you known what was right for you yet made another choice – one that was wrong for you? How many times have you gone against your inner knowing? How many times have you heard yourself say, ‘I knew I should have gone that way, done that thing, or spoken my truth?’ It happens to all of us – women more than men. Why? Because women generally worry more about the opinions of others.”

Sound familiar? That’s why getting in touch with and trusting your Inner Samurai is so important.

“Our Inner Samurais are the repository of all our life experiences, alchemized from lead into pure gold. A woman’s Inner Samurai is her place of absolute knowing and personal power. It is the seat of her inner wisdom and strength. It is also the place of her extraordinary uniqueness. The journey to discovering your Inner Samurai is the connective thread that unites us all.”

Insight About Women In General

Women are looking for a way to better integrate all aspects of their lives into one whole being that reflect who they really are. Dr. Reid calls this a “whole-istic” tendency.

“Women are polymathic by nature. They view their lives form a whole-istic viewpoint. They don’t break their lives down into separate pieces. Women create lives, not life parts. Our ability to unite seemingly contrasting parts into a whole is one of our greatest strengths.”

Women have a harder time with resistance when building their business. When things aren’t working out as they hoped, they have a different response than men.

“The man most likely would try to figure out what was going on by taking a hard look at his business. The woman would turn inward and look at herself. The man would look at his business with a critical eye toward what is going wrong. The women would turn a critical eye towards herself.”

Women have different priorities in their buying process.

“Women like to buy-in before they buy. Men do, too. Men, however, will more likely buy into value of the product before they buy. Women are more likely to buy into the seller. This is a key difference between marketing to men and marketing to women.”

Advice for the Would-be Samurai

• Create only two priorities per month. What are the two things you are most passionate about doing? This will help you prioritize and focus by aligning you with your “Inner Samurai Priority System.”

• Check in with yourself often. If you hear a lot of chatter, explanation and justifications, that’s the voice of doubt inside your head. Learn to recognize and ignore it. If you check in and feel a one-word pulse, pay attention! That’s your Inner Samurai.

• Three vital qualities that have contributed to the success of Susan’s clients:

1. They have the courage to take the Start-up journey
2. They have a vision
3. They are guided by an inner-knowing (Inner Samurai) that what they have to offer to the world matters

Susan ends with three qualities that will always lead you down the right path:

1. The importance of knowing who you are
2. The value of accepting yourself as you are
3. The significance of daring to be who you are

Inner Samurai is full of real life examples and practical advice, inspiration, and support. If you’re a woman entrepreneur or want to market to them, you must understand the fear of start-up seppuku in order to transcend it — and that’s why you should buy the book today.

Mitch points out that this restriction isn’t entirely unprecedented. I just hope it doesn’t become a permanent reality.

If I could only travel with 5 books, I’d have to choose…

Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads: Turning Paupers into Princes and Lead into Gold by Roy H. Williams

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath

Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping by Paco Underhill

I found it difficult choosing just 5. I imagine you will too.

What 5 books would you bring along?

What’s a “meatball sundae,” you ask? In addition to something you probably shouldn’t eat, it’s an analogy for what happens when product development, management, strategy and tactics are out of sync with today’s “new marketing” era. But Seth will explain all of that in his own words.

So, be sure to join us today @ 2pm (EST) on WebmasterRadio.fm (home of our daily Blog Buzz podcast) for this rare conversation between two of the most respected minds in modern marketing. It’s 30+ minutes, so grab a cup of coffee, tea, or whatever you think might help you wash down a meatball sundae.

UPDATE: The podcast has been archived and is now available here (right-click to download).

Click here for Seth Godin and Bryan Eisenberg

Don’t get me wrong. I believe hardly any of the folks who people consider online experts are acting in bad faith. They tried some tactics, it paid off, and now they want to share them with others. But true experts never achieve any level of certainty without a deeper understanding of all the circumstances contributing to their success. To reach “expert” status in other industries — say, the medical field — it takes well over a decade of experience focused in one specialty. Most cardiologists would be hesitant to give you dermatological advice, as they know it’s outside of their domain. It’s why Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr once said, “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”

Sharing your missteps and learning from other people’s mistakes is the surest path to online success. Are you up to helping your fellow entrepreneurs or future clients?

Have you ever taken bad Web advice from a so-called expert?

The challenge we face as marketers is that there’s no solid set of criteria to hang out the shingle and say, “Congratulations! You’re a marketer.” It can be frightening when clients say they plan to use some very specific tactic before the strategy’s been clearly defined. Usually when that happens, if you ask where they got the idea, it’s from an “expert” who may have a technical or other background but certainly not a marketing background.

We’ve all seen designers or developers who are now preaching “expert” search engine marketing advice. While design and code have something to do with search engine optimization, the bigger issues are usually marketing-related. The same is true about conversion optimization advice. While conversion has something to do with usability, multivariate testing and web analytics, the bigger overarching issue is almost always marketing (read: persuasion)-related. When our clients have a challenging search-related issue, we refer them to a search marketing firm we trust. Are there really any social media experts yet (although we may be getting there)?

We’re looking for these types of stories:

• Did you get blacklisted from a search engine for following bad advice?
• Did you spend a ton of money on a tool no one uses?
• Did you do a “redesign” and get poor results?
• Did you create a “viral” campaign that nobody noticed?
• Did you invest in the latest and coolest Web 2.0 initiative only to see a small return?

How You Can Help + Get Published

We (as in “you and I”) are going to publish a free ebook. (No need to kill trees on this as I’m sure it will keep evolving with the Web).

We’re not looking to name names or discredit anyone. And of course, sometimes, good advice gets executed poorly. But with your help, we’ll take all the stories and distill them into a collection of truisms, then list the horror stories on so-called expert opinions and freely distribute How to Leverage “OPM” (Other People’s Mistakes): Online Advice from People Who’ve Been There and Done That. If you wish to share a story anonymously, it must be verifiable, so we can keep you anonymous.

Will you share your “expertise” and stories?

If you’d like to be included, tell us your online marketing-related stories either as a comment below or in an email to: feedback [at] grokdotcom dot com

The Byzantines were connectors, bridging cultural divides between East and West, reshaping our world in the process.  I’m definitely excited to read Bronworth’s book once it comes out early next year.  In the meantime, if you’re as fascinated with history as I am, you’ll want to hear the podcast for yourself (iTunes – Feed – Site).
Sometimes looking back is the best way to look forward, don’t you think?

We spent most of this particular lunch discussing the challenges faced by today’s publishers. (This Brand Autopsy post should shed some light.) Ray used industry averages to illustrate just how it’s become critical for publishers to be extremely selective with the authors they choose to bring on board.

Here’s how those averages break down on a per-book basis, for those with the gag tolerance to stomach the facts:

Retail price = $20

• Trade discount to bookstores: $ 10
• Co-op displays at bookstores: $ 2
• Distributor cut (15%): $ 3
• Author royalties (15%): $ 3
• Printing costs: $ 2

Left for publisher = $0

Nice margin, isn’t it? I’m not positive, but I think convicts make more in prison.

So how do publishing houses like Bard Press survive? By holding out for authors who have either the money or the over-the-top marketing platform to make a serious run at the bestseller lists.

I can always tell when Ray finds an author with bestselling potential. At the end of those lunches, he’s a lot quicker to reach for the tab.

[Author's Note: Read more about selecting the right authors in my article, “A Few Good Books: Just Say 'No!' to Authors without Healthy Marketing Platforms.”]