Business To Business Internet Marketing: Seven Proven Strategies for Increasing Profits Through Internet Direct Marketing

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive but Basic & Boring
Review: A good book for beginners, but not for anyone with at least a few months of marketing experience. All chapters have good summaries and occasional case studies. I've been doing marketing for about 2 years and find some of the general strategies helpful. For example, he advises using call-to-action strategies, but doesn't go into details about the tricks of the implementation. Also, the first chapter on direct marketing is excellent in that it ties in well conceptually with internet marketing. Overall, I would say not worth your time if you're a professional, skim it if you've had some experience, and a good buy if you're an absolute beginner.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive but Basic & Boring
Review: A good book for beginners, but not for anyone with at least a few months of marketing experience. All chapters have good summaries and occasional case studies. I've been doing marketing for about 2 years and find some of the general strategies helpful. For example, he advises using call-to-action strategies, but doesn't go into details about the tricks of the implementation. Also, the first chapter on direct marketing is excellent in that it ties in well conceptually with internet marketing. Overall, I would say not worth your time if you're a professional, skim it if you've had some experience, and a good buy if you're an absolute beginner.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding book and terrific companion Web site
Review: Extremely thorough but conceptual in approach. Not enough URLs cited so that reader can see these principles in action. No screen shots at all. Requires the reader to already know what the author is referring to in discussing Web strategies.

Rating:
Summary: Versatility of B2B Internet Marketing
Review: This book starts with a very good refresher course in B2B direct marketing. Barry Silverstein then covers seven different B2B Internet direct marketing strategies for increasing profits in a luxury of details. The companion site is a good complement to the book for that purpose. Barry Silverstein is very good at generating ideas that both beginners and experienced marketers could use for building marketing programs. The author gives some ROI applications to illustrate his point. Unfortunately, Barry Silverstein does not give screenshots of good and bad direct marketing applications. To paraphrase Jakob Nielsen at the beginning of his last book, "Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity", the reason to give those screenshots is not to criticize or praise specific sites, companies, designers or marketers. The screenshots are used to illustrate direct marketing techniques because it is difficult to understand abstract theory without concrete examples. Unlike Arthur Hughes in his last book, "Strategic Database Marketing", Barry Silverstein seems to limit his description of case studies to success stories. One of the main goals of a reference book is to help other marketers avoid making the same mistakes again and again. Despite those shortcomings, Business-to-Business Internet Marketing is currently the leading authority on the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Versatility of B2B Internet Marketing
Review: This book starts with a very good refresher course in B2B direct marketing. Barry Silverstein then covers seven different B2B Internet direct marketing strategies for increasing profits in a luxury of details. The companion site is a good complement to the book for that purpose. Barry Silverstein is very good at generating ideas that both beginners and experienced marketers could use for building marketing programs. The author gives some ROI applications to illustrate his point. Unfortunately, Barry Silverstein does not give screenshots of good and bad direct marketing applications. To paraphrase Jakob Nielsen at the beginning of his last book, "Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity", the reason to give those screenshots is not to criticize or praise specific sites, companies, designers or marketers. The screenshots are used to illustrate direct marketing techniques because it is difficult to understand abstract theory without concrete examples. Unlike Arthur Hughes in his last book, "Strategic Database Marketing", Barry Silverstein seems to limit his description of case studies to success stories. One of the main goals of a reference book is to help other marketers avoid making the same mistakes again and again. Despite those shortcomings, Business-to-Business Internet Marketing is currently the leading authority on the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding book and terrific companion Web site
Review: This is an outstanding book. It covers 7 specific b-to-b Internet marketing strategies in detail with plenty of real-world examples. It's one of the best books on the topic. The companion site is a real bonus - it has a "living table of contents" with links to every site mentioned in the book, plus an exhaustive resources section. Highly recommended!