Must Read [or Listen] Holiday Marketing Downloads

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily Acquisio by Web.com.

While the holiday season is a time of joy and giving, it can also be a stressful time of year, not only for travelers and shoppers, but also for marketers! We marketers are busy up until and during the holidays, either managing, pausing or reporting on campaigns and preparing our next moves in January.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take some time this holiday season for ourselves, to reflect on another year’s worth of successful campaigns and brush up our skills in time for 2018. From books to podcasts, there are a ton of resources out there to help marketers get up to speed. Just in time for the holidays we wanted to share some of the latest and best marketing reading and downloads to curl up to on your holiday season.

Be Like Amazon, Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It

Earlier this year we featured an interview with the authors of Be Like Amazon, Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It, Bryan Eisenberg and his brother Jeffrey Eisenberg. We didn’t have the pleasure of interviewing the third author of the book, Roy H. Williams, but we hear great things about him.

Instead we sat down with the Eisenberg brothers because we absolutely LOVED their little book of business insights based on the Four Pillars of Amazon. Bryan Eisenberg describes in his own words why this one is a must read:

“The goal of both the process and what we share in the book, talking about the Four Pillars and using the Four Pillars to develop this flywheel for growth, can also be used as a metaphor for personal growth. They’re on a journey, they’re trying to transform their business from where they are today, to be more like Amazon – to be more competitive. There’s a lot of similarities behind that road trip and having a conversation, and kind of being that person in the back seat listening to this conversation between the characters.”

Grab this quick and easy read over the holidays and reflect on your business values through a fictional journey full of real life brand name business insights and stories.

The Digital Marketing Podcast

The Digital Marketing Podcast is as its name suggests, a well-rounded one stop shop for digital marketing news, anecdote and know-how. Literally covering topics from social media to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), there is something in this podcast series for every type of marketer. The latest entertaining episode is titled What Makes an Effective Video Advertising Campaign and can be added to your holiday listening here directly from iTunes.

The Unbounce Conversion Benchmark Report

PPC marketers get caught up in all kinds of metrics, but at the end of the day, as we always say, conversions come first…and last. With all the optimization tactics in the world applied to active PPC campaigns, once a person click through your ad, only the landing page can save you. Knowing how well your landing page does or doesn’t convert is critical to your success past the click.

Sink your CRO chops into this amazing and visually pleasing benchmarking report and see how your landing pages’ performance stacks up against your competitors. Using your new insights you can set target conversion goals for your landing pages in 2018 and take your PPC campaigns to the next level.

What I Wish I’d Known, The Google Partners Podcast

Straight from the source, Google created a dynamic marketing podcast series, each episode featuring a different marketing thought or business leader and a fascinating topic. Well-spoken and well connected, Google has no problem attracting the most talented marketing experts to their podcast. It’s this star line-up combined with powerful and accessible marketing discussion that makes this podcast a must-listen.

While we’re captivated by every episode from the Google podcast series, we’d like to draw your attention to Episode 16: Finding Leads Through Fearless Marketing and the latest, Episode 21: A Look Back at the Future: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Here’s a quote from Jim Sterne, Founder of eMetrics Summit and Co-Founder of the Digital Analytics Association, featured in Episode 21:

“Machine learning is what marketers are going to be using, it’s what marketers need to understand in order to continue doing our jobs…Fundamental shift, very important, we need to be clear on what it’s about.”

If you’ve got 30-40 minutes, check out Google’s podcast, it won’t disappoint!

The Marketer’s Field Guide to Machine Learning

One of Acquisio’s best, this epic ebook goes deep on the topic of machine learning (ML). With AI and ML on every 2018 digital predictions list, any marketer who wants to understand the era of intelligent algorithms as we dive headfirst in, needs to get their hands on a copy of The Marketer’s Field Guide to Machine Learning.

This ebook helps unpack this complex topic from critical angles and perspectives that marketers should be thinking about. It answers where machine learning came from, it looks at the theory behind these emerging fields of data science, it discusses the ethical implications of adopting these technologies as well as introduces some of the biggest players in AI martech today. Download a copy of this epic ebook and go into 2018 being an expert on what machine learning means in marketing!

Happy Holiday Reading!

Now it’s time to take out the tablet, grab a blanket, and read [or listen!]. I highly recommend keeping a notebook close by in case you want to mark down anything interesting that you come across and want to inject in your next marketing campaigns. Come January’s strategic planning and implementation, you’ll be full of thoughtful marketing reflections and happy you have new tricks up your sleeve from all your holiday reading.

From all of us here at Acquisio, we’re wishing you safe and happy holidays and hoping these resources give you all the gift of marketing success in 2018!

Image Credits

Feature Image: Unsplash/Pavan Trikutam

Image 1: Screenshot by Chandal Nolasco da Silva. Taken December 2017 from Unbounce.

Image 2: Screenshot by Chandal Nolasco da Silva. Taken December 2017 from Acquisio