5 Most Valuable Marketing and Analytics Blogs

5 Most Valuable Marketing and Analytics Blogs are listed below. No offense, if your's is not here; had to choose some five. Some tough call but I made it today.

5. Seth Godin's Blog
It is always fun to read his blog. Some critical thought and some humor; great flow in writing and very much readable. Not so much visionary and strategic thoughts, but cool views better read.

Godin is a writer of the book "All Marketers are Liers" and "The Dip". First one is a cool book and is full of criticism to the traditional marketers. Second one just sucked me.

If you are a Marketer, you have to read his books and follow his blogs. But do all these to know what you should not be doing. His recommendations are not that great, and they are as poor as IMF's suggestions for the developing countries; good to hear, hard to implement and if you implement, you are sure to fail.

4. Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik
Always comes with great articles; mostly heavy and highly informative write-ups. I like the way he presents technical stuffs in a business friendly way.

It however is very much limited to Web Analytics and is bit more tactical than strategic. Not always readable and usually posts with repetitive thoughts. His blog is more a Book than a blog. But this is certainly a blog no Analysts can miss out.

Avinash has written a book "Web Analytics : An Hour a Day". The name sounds like a Marketing campaign and is not different from Godin's one, but the Book is very well written. Great write-up. It has covered all areas of Web Analytics and is written for Analysts in a very tactical way.

3. Smart (Enough) Systems by James Taylor
James is a serious writer. Not a great flow in the language but very informative posts. The blog surrounds around Decision Management Systems.

James has software background and adds more technical stuffs, which bores people like me. But James articles on Business Rules and EDM are something hard to find else where. Blog is both informative and suggestive.

2. Marketing Geek by Michael Fassnacht
Its a underdog blog. Not much read and has fairly low page rank compared to other picks. It is all because Michael teaches others to market very well but he does not do it himself. Very few links in the blogs and not of any SEO work done. His articles too are very well thought but not framed well. In overall, Michael is a genius, who is very lazy.
Now you might be wondering why did I rate his blog so high. Read any of posts and you will find. The internal insights, the strategic vision and the well-thought recommendation that he makes is simply great. I just love his writings and I am waiting for the day when he comes with a book on Marketing. Great Blog.

1. Marketing ROI by Ron Shevlin
If you are a blog reader than this should not surprise you. Ron is by far a better thinker and presenter than most bloggers. He is one of the best criticizer I have seen around, and he criticizes anyone anytime.
Sometime I feel, Ron should have to be in Risk Domain and not in Marketing. Had he been looking after the Financial Institutions, the crises would have never come. He is always ready with don't do this and don't do that.
But good thing is he has few recommendations too. Most of his posts have great flow and posses mixed humor. Adding all of these, he is the pick of this year.

If you are a Marketer or a Analyst, or a Business leader having Business Development role, you have to follow these blogs. If you don't, believe me, you are really missing something.