Internet Marketing Start to Finish: A Review

Got a website? Of course you do. Got an effective marketing strategy for it? You’re not alone. It’s becoming increasingly critical for businesses to invest in online marketing, but online marketing is also growing more complex. Small and medium size businesses are under great pressure to beef up their Internet marketing efforts, but often they don’t have the resources or the expertise to handle such an enormous challenge.

Internet Marketing Start to Finish, by Catherine Juon, Dunrie Greiling, and Catherine Buerkle, aims to provide some relief. Designed to outline “a breakthrough system for attracting more customers on the Internet,” the book lays out an online marketing strategy from beginning to end. It shows you how to gather and interpret data, plan and implement your marketing strategy, and evaluate and adjust your methods. Everything is covered, from search marketing to usability to CRM and analytics.

What I Like

The authors really know their stuff. They have over 48 years between them in Internet and marketing experience. Together they work as a team at Pure Visibility, a successful marketing firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan. (Full disclosure: I am acquainted with another person at Pure Visibility who did not author this book, and I’ve attended a workshop that they led.)

Internet Marketing lays out a complete, end-to-end strategy that is flexible enough to be adapted to businesses of all sizes and stripes. It includes tons of terrific resources and steps you through several processes in great detail. Case studies help illustrate concepts and an appendix shows a fictional company’s implementation of the concepts that are discussed throughout the book.

The authors have created a resource that is targeted toward veterans as well as beginners who haven’t a clue how to start an online campaign. No matter what your experience in online marketing, Internet Marketing can be a great resource.

What I Don’t Like

However, it has its difficulties as well. Although it can be a great resource for anyone at any level, its depth of information can also be pretty overwhelming for beginners. Ideally, I’d like to see this book split into two: one that serves as an introduction to online marketing, and another that digs deeper into the nitty gritty details. Internet Marketing does both, which may occasionally alienate beginners just looking for the basics.

The quality of writing also leaves something to be desired. The style is uneven at times (probably the result of a team effort) and occasionally unclear. The first two chapters are downright confusing due to poor organization and need of an editor; but because they serve as introductory material, the rest of the book is still a great resource. I recommend giving the first two chapters a quick read and moving on to the meat of the book in chapter 3 and following. Most of the writing issues can be easily resolved by a solid copy editor, and I look forward to hearing of a second edition one day.

What I Recommend

Internet Marketing Start to Finish is written by experts in online marketing, not in manuscript editing—they provide an excellent resource for those who want to learn basic Internet marketing concepts as well as in-depth strategy. Readers should be prepared for a book that isn’t the easiest to read, but it can serve as an indespensible tool for building a complete, end-to-end online marketing strategy for your business.