I'm looking to learn more about web marketing and the best ways to do it today. Do you all have any suggestions on where I should start? Print books, ebooks, and articles are all welcome!<p>Thanks!
I somewhat disagree with lavish that your marketing methods depend on your business category. In some cases you might choose one channel over another if it suits your content or audience better but, generally speaking, the core concepts of good marketing don't change much across industries and time.<p>I've consumed a great deal of information on marketing and I can tell you that most (quality) materials are going to give you similar information. The tactics of marketing change depending on the platforms you use, but the actual principles of marketing are quite simple.<p>Most of the useful information you'll come across is geared toward understanding your audience and mostly centers around a series of steps similar to the following:<p>- understand your brand (what your mission is, etc...)
- identify your audience
- identify where your audience spends time
- engage with your audience in an honest and authentic way by sharing valuable information (helpful, funny, inspiring, etc...)
- build funnels to move people from interest to your end goals.<p>Telling compelling stories and offering valuable content are lessons that pop up time and time again.<p>Like I said above, the core principles of marketing are simple and timeless. The most effective kind of marketing is the kind where you're not really "marketing" at all, you're just sharing valuable stuff that gets your audience excited in some way.<p>For a very comprehensive collection of online guides, I'd take a look at QuickSprout: <a href="http://www.quicksprout.com/blog/" rel="nofollow">http://www.quicksprout.com/blog/</a>
You can find a list of guides in the sidebar.<p>CopyBlogger, IttyBiz, Moz, Social Triggers — all good resources for marketing ideas.
I'm a fan of
- Moz.com hosts an overwhelming amount of information.
- Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
- UnMarketing by Scott Stratten
- Influence by Robert Cialdini
- Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff<p>While it's focused on kids, you might find some additional ideas in this article: <a href="http://kidscreen.com/2013/08/12/marketing-to-kids-and-families-with-dr-carlas-appistential-crisis-marketing-tonic" rel="nofollow">http://kidscreen.com/2013/08/12/marketing-to-kids-and-famili...</a>
If you haven't looked through Quora yet, here's a decent place to start: <a href="http://www.quora.com/Web-Marketing/What-are-some-good-web-marketing-books-blogs-and-forums-to-get-started-and-become-a-pro" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Web-Marketing/What-are-some-good-web-ma...</a>