Web Marketing Book Review: 'Launch'
Launch is a recently published book about marketing using new ideas, new tools, and a new approach. It's grounded in the personal experience of the author who operates one of the most popular social media blogs on the Web. It reads fast and offers both hands-on how-to information as well as a more conceptual explanation of how marketing has changed.
Who Wrote It and Why
Michael Stelzner wrote this book to help people learn a new and better way of marketing. Stelzner is the founder and chief driving force behind SocialMediaExaminer.com, one of the most popular social media site on the Web today.
The good news is, Stelzner's "new way" of marketing is built on solid Web 2.0 and social media concepts. These ideas are not so new to anyone who's been paying attention over the last half decade. But Stelzner wraps them up in a nice, tight package that's easy to understand and should be eminently doable by anyone who reads this book.
What Is It About?
As the title suggests, this book is about how to launch a product or service (or a business or even a blog) using new media tools, strategies, and ideas. Much of the content and value comes from Stelzner's hands-on experience with launching his own business, SocialMediaExaminer.com. He pulled some useful lessons from this venture and has refined them into a usable process.
But beyond launching a new product or service, this book is about changing your marketing mindset. It's more about how to connect and collaborate with people than it is about promotion or pitching. Stelzner understands the importance of people and relationships in building successful business ventures.
This book is also about how to use content as a way to grow your business, product, or brand. He offers an experienced perspective and a boatload of useful ideas to create and publish content that builds an audience and attracts the people who fit your business or brand.
Why You Should Read It
If you want more customers, clients, readers, viewers, volunteers, or just more people to play with in the social media sandbox, then you should read this book. Michael Stelzner knows how to build an audience. His website currently serves 111,000 subscribers and has an Alexa rank of 2,099. He speaks from experience.
Even better, Stelzner offers chapter after chapter of specific ideas on how to produce valuable content. And he includes specific samples of some his recommended types of content.
What I Like Best
There are two things I like best about this book.
One is that Stelzner offers very tangible ideas and tactics you can use to create content and attract more people to your online presence. He present it in an easy to understand way that enables you to quickly piece together the key ideas you need to build your own social media drive content marketing plan.
The second thing I like is the Appendix. He includes five appendices with samples of content and further details on what they are and how to use them.
By offering such detailed and concrete ideas and examples, Stelzner has made this as much a toolkit as a book. By filling it with his road-tested resources, he has delivered more value than a typical business marketing book. And while you won't necessarily us every idea here, you should find plenty to try as you plan the launch of your next product or service.
