Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars by Mitch Meyerson is a compilation of information from some of the best marketers on the internet. Each chapter is completely different and separate from the rest of the book, as each chapter is written by a different marketing expert. Despite this seemingly haphazard approach to writing a book, Meyerson put it together in a way that gives the information a logical order.

The first chapters begin, well, at the beginning. They start off with tips and tricks, advice and examples, of where and how to start your online marketing ventures. That is really a lot of what this book is – tips, tricks, advice, and examples. The second chapter, Creating Multiple Streams of Income on the Internet, explains that in order to succeed, you have to fail. The writer of this chapter calls it “Fail Fast for Free.” This ability is a great way to learn how to be successful. Because you can fail repeatedly with little or no cost to you, you can keep failing until you figure out how to succeed.

The middle of the book covers online branding, writing web copy and headlines, some SEM, and the Seduction of the Online Surfer, which is chapter 6. The writer of this chapter describes the sales process as a seduction. He describes how most web sites start with a blatant sales pitch that virtually says, “Marketing etiquette says I must first entice you with valuable content that’s of interest to you. But all I really want to do is sell you my product as soon as possible.” He then goes into why “seducing” your viewers is so important and how to do it.

The end of the book details approaches to online marketing that are a bit more advanced and expensive. Chapter 17, for example, is all about Mastering E-Mail Marketing. The writer doesn’t just talk about how to create a good email campaign, but also about how to carefully choose the people you send it to. At this point, there’s no rush, so take your time when building your mailing list. You’re looking for quality subscribers; you’re not trying to send out as many emails as possible.

By the time I finished this book I definitely felt like I had a better understanding of marketing in general as well as online marketing. There are some things this book talks about that are not necessarily user friendly, like using pop-ups; however, it is worth noting that pop-ups do bring in profit for companies that use them. Something else that I realized after reading this book is that there is a fine line between good UCD and good marketing. Sometimes the two do not agree.