Digital Marketing Growth Hacks: The World's Best Digital Marketers Share Insights on How They Grew Their Businesses with Digital Paperback – Import, 15 August 2018

It's a good but very superficial book. Overall, I haven't learned a lot from it. But it wasn't a total waste of time.

I'm surprised to see only one other review of this book here, though I'm glad it's a five star. This is a terrific resource that ought to be getting a lot more love.It may not be immediately evident from the Amazon page, but this offering features first-rate contributions from 14 of the most prominent thinkers and influencers in the industry: Ian Cleary; Andrea Vahl; Dave Kerpen; Phyllis Khare; Brian Massey; Emeric Ernoult; Erik Qualman; Jamie Turner; John Jantsch; Martin Shervington; Viveka von Rosen; Michael Brenner; Andrew Davis; and Lon Safko.If you know the marketing space, you'll immediately recognize what an all-star lineup this is, these are folks who routinely are ranked by both their peers and leading industry pubs as among the most influential marketing professionals. To get great insight from such an awesome variety in one power packed book is worth the price in and of itself.The book is also remarkable in that it truly does provide highly actionable and detailed guidance and it does so across a widely sweeping panorama of topics. The book is broken down into sections on:1. Marketing Tools2. Facebook Ads3. Blogging on LinkedIn4. YouTube5. Conversion6. Leadership7. Live Video8. Better SEO9. Virtual Reality10. LinkedIn Branding11. Content Marketing12. Connecting13. Fusion MarketingIn order to appreciate why these topics were selected and to get the most out of the no frills, non-theoretical, here's what works style, it's useful to have familiarity with what "growth hacking" is and how it applies in a marketing context. I'll spare the history of myriad and divergent efforts to arrive at one simple, universally agreed upon definition of "growth hack." Sean Ellis coined the term in 2010. Initially, it was thought of as really only relevant to startups. While still hugely important to early stage companies, it's clear at this point that any firm of any age can employ growth hacking. Instead of a definition, the concept is best captured by a brief list of characteristics:1. Growth hacking is a process, not a standalone.2. The overarching objective is growing the firm as much as possible, as fast as possible and as efficiently as possible.3. Growth objectives are set out with specificity and assessed quantitatively.4. Informed by empirically testing growth strategies via a fast and tight loop of experimentation and validated learning.5. Willingness to think creatively and outside the box and try out new/unconventional growth strategies.6. Digitally-focused.7. Relies on analytics and empiricism at each stage of the marketing (revenue) funnel.8. Willingness to think entirely differently about distribution channels.Technically,"marketing growth hacks" means the application of growth hacking to the marketing function - "growth marketing." There's some agreement that a business ought not embrace growth marketing before it establishes product-market fit.What growth hacks do not concern themselves with. at least not as the core objective: branding, reputation management, and generally, traditional marketing theory. Growth hacking by definition doesn't have the time to wait on elaborate new theoretical or academic concepts.In any event, to the extent that my above effort at context is confusing, taking in the numerous examples across numerous platforms in the book will bring the idea home.Just don't go in expecting an academic treatise or much in the way of abstract philosophy. This book is designed so that it can be acted on. As such, it's packed with detail and lays out comprehensive systems.The book begins with a bang, with a masterful overview from Ian Cleary of the newest and most relevant technology tools available to assist marketers in a variety of categories. We're talking 40-50 tools introduced here,In her chapter on Facebook advertising, Andrea Vahl does a strong job in covering, among other key items, prerequisites for advertising on Facebook in the first instance; how to target; distinguishing between ads designed to generate leads and ads designed to generate sales; how to measure and monitor results; the author's own personal experiences; and summary action items for the reader.David Kerpen doesn't waste a word - but every word is worth reading - in laying out a comprehensive and executable six-step process for blogging on LinkedIn and then effectively leveraging the content created.Phyllis Khare's chapter "5 Steps to a Solid Lead Using YouTube" is among my favorites. She does a magnificent job of first laying out the key steps in a digital lead generation initiative generally. She provides perhaps the best insight I've seen on the notion of creating an "attractive exchange process" and, just as critically, the vital need for the marketer to capture all of the traffic that visits the exchange =she also sets out a terrific checklist of technical items that need to be in place and functioning in order for traffic to be fully captured. Ms. Khare than applies her process specifically to YouTube, using detailed examples with helpful screenshots, again emphasizing the technical adjustments that need to be made to a YouTube channel to ensure that leads are captured. This chapter really is a 2 for 1, you get great YouTube tips and outstanding coverage of how to set up to maximize traffic capture.In introducing conversions, Brian Massey writes with great skill in proving a concise yet sophisticated primer on the data analytics and metrics that ought to inform an optimized conversion funnel, also offering a Q&A. Emeric Ernoult, founder and CEO at Agorapulse then weighs in with a tremendous chapter that attacks conversion strategy by drawing on his own experiences in building Agorapulse into the powerhouse solution that it is, despite entering a crowded marketplace, This very cool chapter also, as a side benefit, provides an overview of Agorapulse, which is a very cool tool.Erik Qualman's offering, touching on ten lessons to be learned from Steve Jobs, is a delight - clear yet a sophisticated deep dive, and also a great example of one of this book's nice qualities - the variety of formats in which the authors present their pieces.Live video marketing is where much of the action is at these days (IMHO, live video plus mobile plus voice is the new holy trinity) - it's a channel that marketers would, in most cases, be silly not to tap, but it's also one that can present some pretty specific challenges - namely, being highly skilled in live video production. The author comes at his topic comprehensively, but with first-rate organization, providing a keen sense of both technical steps involved, as well as best practices. Even if you don't come away feeling ready to produce live video yourself, you'll know what to think about as you go about hiring or partnering with a producer.John Jantsch takes a unique and, I think, really great approach to discussing SEO, though it may seem off point at very first glance. The entirety of the focus in on leveraging BuzzSumo's content research tools to help in the creation of systematic content that has all of the characteristics of the kinds of posts that Google looks on favorably in respect of SEO ranking, I've been using BuzzSumo myself after reading this chapter.Martin Shervington's chapter introducing virtual reality for content marketers is a tour de force, One might come to this book with no knowledge at all of VR (or AR or MR) and I'd expect you to walk away feeling like you could hang in there with any content marketer on all aspects of leveraging VR - and you'll be well equipped to know where to look to learn more.Viveka von Rosen may be, alongside Melonie Dodaro (read her book, soon) the foremost expert on the market in respect of LinkedIn branding and her crazy good 36-step chapter makes clear why she's so universally well regarded.Similarly, Michael Brenner enjoys well-deserved acclaim as in the most elite of tiers in terms of leading thinkers and practitioners of content marketing, and his chapter, focusing on relevant research tools is a must read for anyone practicing content marketing (even those without interest in some of the other subjects covered here).Andrew Davis does a great job in reminding readers that while so much of marketing - and pretty much the entire focus of this book - is online, ultimately to sell, conversations need to take place offline as well. Andrew's 4-1-1 strategy for optimizing the ultimate shifting of conversations from online to offline is invaluable.And finally, in a very appropriate concluding chapter seeking to bring together a number of concepts and approaches, Lon Safko, the man who literally invented the concept of, and wrote the bible on, fusion marketing brings it home in style, The approach, defined as traditional marketing + digital marketing + social media marketing = fusion marketing is intuitive, cohesive and forward-looking, based on thinking about what each of the constituent components will look like 5 years out.**I meant it when I said, this book ought to have so much more love. There aren't a ton of comparable titles that jump to mind that bring together the all-star authorship team, the breadth and depth of coverage, and actionable processes nearly as well as Digital Marketing Growth Hacks,

If you are in digital marketing you will want this book. So many gems in this book! You will want to take notes and implent them.

Great tools, easy to read, missing cases of study

I'm pinching myself that this book is complete and for sale. I have been a fan of most of these authors for years and years. To be included in this line up is AMAZING. Some of the folks in this book literally INVENTED social media and guided it to the amazing behemoth it is today. Anyway, you should most definitely download and read this book! (And not just because I contributed a chapter to it.)