Review of the book “Digital Marketing in Practice” by Paulo Faustino » Portal Insights

Paulo Faustino is a marketing consultant, speaker and author of numerous books that have more than 60 million readers around the world. Digital Marketing in Practice, which we talk about today, is just one of them – and, in the first pages, we discover that the work could have no other title than this.

At the beginning, the first statement about the importance of this reading is from Rafael Rez, author of the most read book on Content Marketing in Brazil. And, if the testimonials aren't enough, the summary reveals that this is not a book for those who like an easy life: there are more than 300 pages of pure practice, ranging from the creation of personas to the possibilities of marketing automation.

The main lesson of the work is its title: strategies can only be proven in practice and, therefore, knowing the correct digital marketing techniques is an essential skill. And, more than that, it must compose a dialogue with whoever is on the other side of the computer, and not a monologue.

Paulo Faustino constantly reminds us that no one is interested in the brand for the brand's sake: consumers want to enjoy the benefits that a brand's products or services provide. Therefore, leave the boring institutional content, those square and unimportant to the customer, for the internal newsletter.

On the internet, whoever enters must know how to play, and the game only starts when there is assertive, personalized and interesting content on the table. Each company needs to find its tone and move forward.

Your idea that is not yours

An important methodology suggested by Faustino is what many people know as “inverse psychology”: for a digital marketing strategy to yield conversions, the customer needs to believe that the idea of ​​purchasing was theirs.

It works more or less like this: you offer the benefits, the person assimilates them and understands, on their own, that you are the best option. Therefore, speeches such as “buy now!”, “don’t miss out” or any other with an imperative verb tend not to achieve the final objective.

In the author's words,

“No one likes to be ordered around. When performing an action on a landing page, whether filling out a form or downloading an e-book, the user seeks to make the decision himself. This means that the call to action needs to match this need. In other words, instead of using a CTA like 'click' to download the e-book, it's better to use something like 'I want the e-book!'. By clicking this button, the user feels that he was the one who made the decision to download, and not that he was ordered to do so.”

This also says a lot about the personalization and quality of the content: the more attractive it is, in the sense of placing their own action in the user's account, the more efficient it appears.

After all, if you study a product or service to make a decision, you tend to value it much more, right? The same goes for your customer.

Another cool insight from Paulo Faustino is to make the person behind each brand take advantage of their personal profile to establish themselves as an authority on a topic. Therefore, the main item on your list of priorities in digital marketing is to create your own style, which can be easily recognized as yours.

Practice from start to finish

When teaching how and why to do each of the digital marketing techniques he presents, Paulo Faustino also indicates tools and starting points so that the reader can close the book, practice what he learns and then return to reading.

That said, what we have in our hands when we read Digital Marketing in Practice is a very interesting class that goes from before having an established business to measuring the results of all the suggested strategies.

This is one of the thickest books, in terms of number of pages, about digital marketing (at least among those written in Portuguese or translated into our language) that we have come across on the Portal Insights journey. And that has a reason to be. Each page comes with important information that reveals ways to achieve greater success with each new attempt to establish communication with the customer.

This is a book focused on professionals who already work with digital marketing, or on people who really want to learn to start now, whether as a freelancer or as an entrepreneur who wants to understand more about the area. And, even with technical language, Faustino manages to be didactic and detailed. Nothing escapes the radar of those who follow your reasoning until the end.

Therefore, it is essential to set aside time to not only read the content of the work, but also to study it. This is a true digital marketing class taught by one of the biggest influencers of the new generation of marketers.

Reading the chapters separately works, but we strongly recommend that you read everything.

In the end, everything is practice! And there is no better way of learning than this.

Surprising, yes!

Many digital marketing professionals or enthusiasts are hesitant before purchasing any work on the subject because, from time to time, everything seems like more of the same. Therefore, investing in a reading that gives the impression of having already been done, but in another place, discourages a legion of people.

But you can rest assured: this does not happen with Digital Marketing in Practice.

Paulo Faustino has a unique way of writing – and, spoiler alert, he writes in Portuguese from Portugal, which may cause some strangeness at first, but soon passes –, distributing his knowledge in well-paced stages, and brings many interesting examples of how, Of course, get your hands dirty.

In fact, contrary to many authors or influencers on social platforms who are afraid to expose their portfolio, Faustino goes much further. He even demonstrates how he does his own digital marketing, which has already reached numbers that, in the 1990s, would only have been calculated for public figures.

Basically all the actions or strategies that Faustino deals with are explained with examples, arrows, bold and italics, facilitating communication between the ends.

This is the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff between people who really have something important to say and those who just want the title of digital guru. When the results are what the person obtained, and not another big brand of which he was not part of the team, the reader feels empathetic and follows the saga with the entrepreneur in the role.

Therefore, if what you are looking for is to specialize in digital marketing based on good content for your company (which, as the author himself says, is still the king of marketing), this book is precisely for you.

If you are looking to better understand the opportunities of digital marketing, this book is also for you.

And if you want to have a basic idea of ​​how digital marketing works so you can hire services in this area with more autonomy and negotiating power, this book is for you.

In other words, be sure to read.

It may be that, after reading Digital Marketing in Practice, you will review your online communication strategy, from scratch or in stages. You'll want to optimize every corner of your website and social media to give yourself a chance of getting results.

And you will certainly rethink all the times you told a Portuguese joke. After all, it is with great intelligence and expertise that Faustino shows us that, when it comes to digital marketing, practice does indeed make perfect.

If you want to know more about Paulo Faustino, check out our podcast talking to him.

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