But which Book?

I got e-mail on the review I did of Akin’s new book.

“How is this book different from your book or Kevin’s books?”

Fair question.  Both Akin and Kevin read this blog and are free to add their voices and describe their books here in their own words.  I don’t presume for a second to be a “judge” of other people’s work – at least in this case.

Fundamentally, I think the difference between the books is the writer. 

I’m a Marketing guy, Kevin is an Analyst, Akin (I believe) was / is a Software Engineer.  So even through we talk about a lot of similar things, we approach these topics differently.

The intent of my book is to explain how very simple customer models can be used to drive tremendous increases in profitability, in virtually any business.  The book is about Marketing, it talks about how to create and measure Marketing Programs that maximize customer value while lowering costs.

Kevin’s books focus on multichannel retailing specifically, bringing varied and deep, often complex analytical insights to bear on this business model.  His books are about Analysis, models you can use to bring strategic insight to the business.

Akin’s book defines and explains a way to think about, measure, and execute Marketing in a complex multi-channel communications environment.  His book describes a System or “RoadMap”, a step-by-step way to break down this challenge and understand it.

There are similarities and differences between all these approaches.

The really interesting thing to me is this: across all three books, there isn’t any directly conflicting information or guidance, yet there isn’t a lot of redundancy either.  There are preferences for certain ways to approach Marketing issues, to be sure. 

But like I said, I think that’s simply based on where the writer comes from, what their background and experience is.

While we’re talking about Database Marketing books, any further suggestions on good books?  Please give a brief recap of the book.

4 thoughts on “But which Book?

  1. It is fair to say that the books approach things from different perspectives.

    And that is a good thing. We sometimes get too much of a one-dimensional view of the world from what we read. We need multiple perspectives from folks with very different experiences and skills. Often, “everybody” is right!

  2. Excellent point – different books give us different answers and clues as to how to best gather and utilize the data. I’ve read a lot of books, and each one has some kernels that I can usually take home, simply because the book comes from a slightly different perspective. Thanks for clarifying yours.

  3. Agreed. Doh! I had not seen it this clearly until Jim wrote it here. But it really is amazing that there is very little overlap between the three books.

    I treasure Multichannel Forensics for their ability to make sense of what is going on across channels without getting bogged down by all the jitter and noise. I learned from Drilling Down the power of customer data without the need of risking a hangover from econometric acronyms. And of course myself, I tried to describe what online, direct, and brand marketers have done separately from each other and what they could do together.

    (Man, the Internet is a beautiful thing when it makes connections such as this one happen, effortlessly … It is really too bad that the really cool people didn’t have an ISP, e.g. the Galileos, Da Vincis, and Newtons … What might have happend.)

  4. That reminds me…There is also McKinsey on Multichannel Marketing. They take yet another view on it, namely a totally strategy level one. Say, Blockbuster saying to Netflix: I see you and I raise you by 5000+ stores. You can download it here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.