Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, from "The" "New York Times" to "The Economist, " and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy. Companies that now flourish are finding that the connections they foster are more important than the content they create. Success comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole. Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand" "teaches us how to recognize and navigate. Filled with conversations with key players and in-depth dispatches from the frontlines of digital change, "The Content Trap" is an essential new playbook for navigating the turbulent waters in which we find ourselves."

    He believes “in the wonder and exuberance of someone who gets paid-by clients to do what he loves.” Howe places immense value on curiosity and passion to help designers develop a point of view, a strong voice. He explores the creative process and conceptualization, and delves into what to do when inspiration is lacking. If there’s a villain in these elegant, incisive, amusing, and inspiring essays, it’s ad agencies and marketing directors, but even villains serve a purpose and illustrate the strength of graphic design “as a system, as a way of thinking, as almost a life style.” Howe believes that advertising and design must merge, but merge with design in the leadership role. He says that designers should create for clients and not in the hope of winning awards. He believes designers should swear “a 10-year commitment to make everything we do for every client a gift.” If this sounds like the designer is the client’s factotum, not so. Howe also argues in favor of offering clients a single solution and being willing to defend a great design. Organized not only by topic, but also by how long it will take the average reader to complete each chapter, Designers Don’t Read is intended to function like a “daily devotional” for designers and busy professionals involved in branded communications at all levels. Begun as a series of weekly essays sent every Monday morning to top graphic designers, Designers Don’t Read quickly developed a passionate and widespread following. With the approximate time each chapter might take to read, Designers Don’t Read’s delight and provocation can be fit into the niches in the life of a time-challenged designer. Or it may be hard to resist reading the entire book in one sitting!

    Why? It is the competitive edge of new-era business—in any market and any economy.Renowned customer experience expert Shep Hyken explains how consistently amazing customers through stellar service can elevate your company from good to great. All transformations require a role model, and Shep has found the perfect role model to inspire your team: Ace Hardware. Ace was named as one of the top ten customer service brands in America by Businessweek and ranked highest in its industry for customer satisfaction. Through revealing stories from Ace’s over-the-top work with customers, Shep explores the five tactical areas of customer amazement: leadership, culture, one-on-one, competitive edge, and community.Delivering amazing service requires everyone in your organization to step up and be a leader. It doesn’t take a title. It takes the right set of tools and principles. To help you empower employees at all levels, Shep brings the content to a deeply practical level. His 52 Amazement Tools—like “Ask the extra question” and “Focus on the customer, not the money”—are simple, clear, useful for almost anybody, and supported with compelling research and stories. Between these covers, you will find the tools and tactics you need to transform your company into a seriously customer-focused operation that will amaze every customer every time.

    Now in Free Prize Inside, Seth Godin is back with practical advice on how to put Purple Cow thinking to work inside your organization (big or small, profit or non) to MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN. The next big marketing idea is a proven strategy for making your products or services so remarkable that they practically sell themselves. Purple Cow taught marketers the value of standing out from the herd, which is how companies like Krispy Kreme and JetBlue made it big. But it left readers hungry for more: How do you actually think up new Purple Cows? And how do you get them adopted by risk-averse Brown Cow companies? Free Prize Inside delivers those answers and much more. It’s a fun guide to doing innovative marketing that really works when the traditional approaches have all stopped working. Thirty years ago, the best way to sell something was to advertise it on television. But today’s consumers are cynical, and your product or service had better be more than just hype and clever advertising. Even better, it ought to come with a market-changing innovation—a free prize inside. You don’t have to spend a fortune to create something cool that virtually sells itself. Think of simple but powerful innovations like the Tupperware party, Flintstones vitamins, G.I. Joe (a doll just for boys), Lucille Roberts (a gym just for women), and frequent flier miles. Free Prize Inside will teach you how to create those kinds of blockbusters at your own company without a bunch of MBA-brainwashed marketers. You don’t have to be a genius—you just need curiosity, initiative, and a strategy for overcoming resistance when you champion your idea. We’re all marketers now, no matter what our job titles. With Godin’s help, we can find the free prize that will transform our companies.

    In the world of Facebook, Twitter, and beyond, that recommendation can travel farther and faster than ever before."Likeable Social Media" helps you harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing to transform your business. Listen to your customers and prospects. Deliver value, excitement, and surprise. And most important, learn how to truly engage your customers and help them spread the word.Praise for "Likeable Social Media"Dave Kerpen's insights and clear, how-to instructions on building brand popularity by truly engaging with customers on Facebook, Twitter, and the many other social media platforms are nothing short of brilliant. Jim McCann, founder of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM and Celebrations.comAlas, common sense is not so common. Dave takes you on a (sadly, much needed) guided tour of how to be human in a digital world. Seth Godin, author of "Poke the Box""Likeable Social Media" cuts through the marketing jargon and technical detail to give you what you really need to make sense of this rapidly changing world of digital marketing and communications. Being human -- being likeable -- will get you far. Scott Monty, Global Digital Communications, Ford Motor CompanyDave gives you what you need: Practical, specific how-to advice to get people talking about you. Andy Sernovitz, author of "Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking"

    Written by Julia McCoy, who spent years of her life teaching herself the elements of successful online writing and launched a writing business that hit seven figures within five years, this book is your essential blueprint to learning what it takes to write great online copy, both as a freelancer and brand/business owner.In this book, Julia walks you step-by-step through the process of how to craft the seven forms of online content:1. Web Content2. Blogging3. Social Media4. Advertising/Sales Copy5. Industry Writing6. Journalism 7. Creative WritingJulia also takes you through the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) for the online writer and creator, without overloading you: you'll get a key list of the top tools on the web to research keywords, learn how to hone your best key phrases, and the tactics of how and where to place them in your content. Illustrated, easy-to-understand, and fun to read, this is a comprehensive yet digestible resource for writers and businesses alike on how to create successful online content.After you read this book, you'll be able to: Define your audience and the terms they use to search in Google Write great content that will get picked up by Google Know the basics of what it takes to write all seven forms of online copy Create blogs that are evergreen and engaging Know how to write the "secret" bits of copy that search engines love: meta descriptions, tags and more Know how to use Twitter chats, live streaming, and Facebook groups, and other platforms to find your people and confidently market yourself as a writer Access a comprehensive list of online writing tools and resources in the final Appendix Julia McCoy has built a successful freelance writing career and a multi-million dollar copywriting agency out of nothing but the amount of hard work, time, and self-teaching she put into it: and she believes any writer has what it takes to create great online content, provided they learn the essential tactics of adapting to all online copy forms. But she knows it's hard to find these fundamentals in one place: which is why she decided to write a book to offer everyone just that opportunity. A writer and internet marketer from an early age, Julia started three companies, enrolled in college, and wrote a book by 16.

    And that evolution has huge implications for everything we see, buy and do online. Rejecting the zero-sum, vending-machine model of ecommerce practiced by other leading internet retailers, who view the Internet purely as a facilitator of speed and profit, Hiroshi Mikitani argues for an alternate model that benefits merchants, consumers, and communities alike by empowering players at every step in the process. He envisions retail "ecosystems," where small and mid-sized brick-and-mortar businesses around the world partner with online marketplaces to maximize their customer bases and service capabilities, and he shows why emphasizing collaboration over competition, customization over top-down control, and long-term growth over short-term revenue is by far the best use of the Internet's power, and will define the 3.0 era.Rakuten has already pioneered this new model, and Marketplace 3.0 offers colorful examples of its success in Japan and around the world. Mikitani reveals how the company enforces a global mindset (including the requirement that all its employees speak English, even in Tokyo); how it incorporates new acquisitions rather than seeking to completely remake or sell them for a quick profit; and how it competes with other retailers on speed and quality, without sacrificing the public good. Marketplace 3.0 is an exciting new vision for global commerce, from a company that's challenging all the accepted wisdom.

    Over 80 per cent of adults in the UK use caffeine every day, but when does this habit become a reliance? Caffeine is a bitter addictive drug which attacks the central nervous system and makes you jittery. Fooling you into thinking you are more alert, caffeine will often disrupt your sleep and actually increase overall fatigue. Quite simply, it's bad for you with no real benefits.In The Easy Way to Quit Caffeine, Allen Carr addresses the difficulties that coffee-drinkers and soda consumers face in trying to quit caffeine. By explaining what caffeine does to your body, and providing simple step-by-step instructions to free you from your addiction, Carr shows you how to lead a happier, healthier and more chilled life.

    As a professional C++ developer and former Harvard teaching fellow, I know what you need to know to be a great C++ programmer, and I know how to teach it, one step at a time. I know where people struggle, and why, and how to make it clear. I cover every step of the programming process, including:Getting the tools you need to program and how to use them*Basic language feature like variables, loops and functions*How to go from an idea to code*A clear, understandable explanation of pointers*Strings, file IO, arrays, references*Classes and advanced class design*C++-specific programming patterns*Object oriented programming*Data structures and the standard template library (STL)Key concepts are reinforced with quizzes and over 75 practice problems.

    Her mother, a distant relative of William Faulkner, told neighbors and family that her daughter had died. The two never saw each other again. Nearly twenty-five years later, after building her own family and happy home life, a lawyer called to say her mother was dead. In this story about the fragility of memory and the complexity of family, Beam decides to look back at her own dark history, and for the secret to her mother’s madness.

    If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.Yeah, but who cares about writing anymore? In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, by click-bait headlines and Twitter streams and Instagram feeds and gifs and video and Snapchat and YOLO and LOL and #tbt. . . does the idea of focusing on writing seem pedantic and ordinary?Actually, writing matters more now, not less. Our online words are our currency; they tell our customers who we are.Our writing can make us look smart or it can make us look stupid. It can make us seem fun, or warm, or competent, or trustworthy. But it can also make us seem humdrum or discombobulated or flat-out boring.That means you've got to choose words well, and write with economy and the style and honest empathy for your customers. And it means you put a new value on an often-overlooked skill in content marketing: How to write, and how to tell a true story really, really well. That's true whether you're writing a listicle or the words on a Slideshare deck or the words you're reading right here, right now...And so being able to communicate well in writing isn't just nice; it's necessity. And it's also the oft-overlooked cornerstone of nearly all our content marketing.In Everybody Writes, top marketing veteran Ann Handley gives expert guidance and insight into the process and strategy of content creation, production and publishing, with actionable how-to advice designed to get results.These lessons and rules apply across all of your online assets — like web pages, home page, landing pages, blogs, email, marketing offers, and on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media. Ann deconstructs the strategy and delivers a practical approach to create ridiculously compelling and competent content. It's designed to be the go-to guide for anyone creating or publishing any kind of online content — whether you're a big brand or you're small and solo.Sections include: How to write better. (Or, for "adult-onset writers": How to hate writing less.) Easy grammar and usage rules tailored for business in a fun, memorable way. (Enough to keep you looking sharp, but not too much to overwhelm you.) Giving your audience the gift of your true story, told well. Empathy and humanity and inspiration are key here, so the book covers that, too. Best practices for creating credible, trustworthy content steeped in some time-honored rules of solid journalism. Because publishing content and talking directly to your customers is, at its heart, a privilege. "Things Marketers Write": The fundamentals of 17 specific kinds of content that marketers are often tasked with crafting. Content Tools: The sharpest tools you need to get the job done. Traditional marketing techniques are no longer enough. Everybody Writes is a field guide for the smartest businesses who know that great content is the key to thriving in this digital world.

    On that first day we sold twenty-four bottles, and now we sell over 2 million a week, so we've grown since then. This book is about the stuff we've learned since selling those first few smoothies. About having ideas and making drinks, about running a business and getting started, about nature and fruit, about company life and working with friends, about the stuff we've got right and the stuff we got wrong, and about squirrels . . . and camping . . . and doing the right thing. We thought we'd write it all down in a book so we don't forget any of it, and to maybe help other people too. We started innocent from scratch, so we've learnt a lot of things by getting stuff wrong. Some other lessons have come from listening carefully to people clever than us. And some stuff we just got lucky on. But all of it, the good the bad and the useful, is in here. Plus, perhaps our mums will finally believe us when we tell them we haven't rung home for a while because we've been a bit busy these past few years.

    But don't be fooled--online advertising is exploding. Growing at a compound annual rate near 20%, it is now the second-largest advertising channel in the United States. Part history, part guidebook, part prediction for the future, Targeted tells the story of the companies, individuals, and innovations driving this revolution. It takes readers behind the scenes--examining the growth of digital advertising, its enormous potential, and the technologies that are changing the game forever. Leading the way is real-time bidding, which offers advertisers unprecedented precision in targeting ads and measuring their effectiveness. From keyword micro-markets and ad serving systems to aggregated virtual audiences and new business models, Targeted is sweeping in scope and stripped of technical complexity. It is an essential resource for anyone interested in finding and connecting with customers in the vast and shifting Internet universe.

    The old guard, rooted in tradition and resistant to change, will fall and new leaders will emerge. Hybrid marketing agencies that are more nimble, tech savvy, and collaborative will redefine the industry. Digital services will be engrained into the DNA of every agency and blended with traditional methods to execute integrated campaigns. The depth, versatility, and drive of their talent will be the cornerstones of organizations that pursue a higher purpose. The Marketing Agency Blueprint is a practical and candid guide that presents 10 rules for building such a hybrid agency.The new marketing agency model will create and nurture diverse recurring revenue streams through a mix of services, consulting, training, education, publishing, and software sales. It will use efficiency and productivity, not billable hours, as the essential drivers of profitability. Its value and success will be measured by outcomes, not outputs. Its strength and stability will depend on a willingness to be in a perpetual state of change, and an ability to execute and adapt faster than competitors. The Marketing Agency Blueprint demonstrates how to:• Generate more qualified leads, win clients with set pricing and service packages, and secure more long-term retainers.• Create diverse and recurring revenue streams.• Develop highly efficient management systems and more effective account teams.• Deliver greater results and value to clients, and win their loyalty.This is the future of the marketing-services industry. A future defined and led by underdogs and innovators. You have the opportunity to be at the forefront of the transformation.

    Whether you're just starting out or have been blogging for years, these two professional bloggers show you how to turn your passion for blogging into extra revenue. This practical guide to creating and marketing a blog with the potential for generating a six-figure income shows you how to choose subject matter that works for you, handle technical issues, and evaluate your blog's success so that you can use your blog to generate income indirectly.