Getting Things Done by David Allen.

If this surprises you, stop reading now.

If you think vacation reading should consist of Dan Brown and Maeve Binchy—well, we can’t help you.

But if the beach image doesn’t surprise you—if, like us, you think about business and technology and personal effectiveness all the time—then this post is for you.

With a slightly sympathetic nod to kill-joy high school teachers everywhere, we’ve put together a list of books we think you need to read this summer. We chose them because they’ve helped us become better digital marketers (although many of them aren’t actually about digital marketing at all).

Most are new favorites, but a couple are classics that we’ve been pushing on friends, family and clients for years.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

We’ve written and talked about this book so much that we’re continually surprised when people haven’t read it. Simply put, it’s a comprehensive look at the psychological factors that compel us all to act in certain ways—and if you’re in the business of trying to influence behavior yourself, it’s an absolutely invaluable resource.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath

Another book we endlessly and annoyingly press on everyone we meet, Made to Stick outlines what makes an idea “sticky”—that is, memorable to the point of becoming a virtually universal cultural reference. Heard the urban legend about the tarantula eggs in the gum? That’s a sticky idea—and by studying how other ideas have become sticky, Chip and Dan Heath show you the way to make your own efforts that much more memorable.

Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson

A must-read if you want to understand the emerging digital economy and how to make money by giving stuff away. This book is foundational to understanding the web and e-business—as much if not more so than Anderson’s previous effort The Long Tail.

Googled: The End of the World as We Know It by Ken Auletta

An in-depth account of Google that positions the company as the symbol and, in many ways, natural outgrowth of the internet’s impact on publishing and advertising. Media companies can blame Google for their declining revenue—but not only is that blame misplaced, it prevents them from understanding the internet’s disruptive potential and how it might be unleashed in future.

Crush It!: Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

If you’re like us, you’ve already built your career around something you’re truly passionate about. But if you haven’t, Gary Vaynerchuk shows how anyone can take their passion and turn it into a viable career. He also delivers both high-level and platform-specific strategy and analysis, allowing you to take advantage of the current business environment while preparing to succeed as it changes and evolves.

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

The founders of 37 Signals write a no-nonsense rethinking of how to successfully start and run a business as well as an examination of the ways that new companies are disrupting traditional business practices and making an impact.

You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier

Lanier presents a discussion of the technical and cultural problems that can grow out of poorly considered digital design, as well as a warning that our financial markets and sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter are elevating the “wisdom” of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and judgment of individuals.

The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen

This summary of the work of Amartya Sen, an Indian-born Nobel laureate, focuses on economic reasoning and the elements and measurement of human well-being.

Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial Systems—and Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Sorkin offers a fly-on-the-wall account of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resulting fallout.

There you have it—a list that will set you up nicely for a summer of good reading.

(Oh, and that guy reading Getting Things Done on the beach? I didn’t make that up. That was Simon last February on a beach in Cuba, the day before his wedding.)

Do you have any invaluable books you’d like to share? Leave a comment with your recommendations.

But there’s always more you can do to make your message believable—even if your marketing budget won’t foot the bill for a celebrity or expert endorsement.

For creating credible content on the cheap, Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the fascinating book Made to Stick, offer the following tricks.

Each will bolster your message without breaking the bank.

Cite an antiauthority

Let’s face it: People are wary of authorities.

Experts—even the ones who didn’t just play doctors on television—can be bought and sold.

But an antiauthority—someone like Pam Laffin, who starred in a series of incredibly successful anti-smoking ads in the 90s—can slice through cynicism.

Pam wasn’t a doctor. Or a scientist. But she did happen to be dying of emphysema.

And who could disagree with that?

So the next time you need an authoritative voice, remember that it doesn’t always take an accredited expert to truly understand a subject.

Sometimes, you just need someone who will silence even the most cynical skeptic.

Put it to the Sinatra test

The Sinatra test takes inspiration from the lyric "If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere."

In other words, since I’ve already done this, I can definitely handle that.

For instance, if you handle the security for Fort Knox, you can probably protect someone’s home from burglars.

The trick, then, is to provide an example so potent that its credibility covers your current claim.

If you’re looking to land a new opportunity or create a new message, comb through what you’ve already proven for something that covers your current goal or claim. 

Include relatable details

Ever heard an urban legend? Or maybe a ghost story?

Well, if your storyteller was any good, chances are they included a local detail that made the fiction hit a little closer to home.

Like the name of a nearby road—or an empty building that everyone’s heard of.

Because if even a small part of an idea is believable, it spills over onto the rest.

So once you know your audience, reel them in with something they can relate to and verify.

And the rest of your message will become just as believable.

Make it vivid

Statistics.

Bored yet?

Me too, so let’s look at a way to make numbers matter.

In the 80s, a group called Beyond War realized that scary statistics about nuclear arms did nothing to galvanize action.

Their solution?

Drive the message home with a format people can feel.

Rather than reciting quadruple-digit numbers that no one could cling to, they made their point by emptying 5,000 BBs—one for every warhead in the world—into a steel bucket.

The ping of each drop—and the time it took to drop them—made that number vivid.

And a once-slippery statistic became decidedly sticky.

You should never expect a statistic to stick. Instead, always make your numbers vivid by putting them in personal terms.

Humanize the scale

Scientists recently discovered that the average polar bear covers a range of 260,000 square kilometers in its lifetime.

Huh?

Sure, it’s a big number. But will anyone remember it in five minutes?

Let’s try again.

Scientists recently discovered that the average polar bear covers an area the size of Wyoming in its lifetime.

People have a general idea of what this means, so they’re more likely to find it credible.

Don’t make people grasp at your message.

Instead, place it within a human scale.

Because big numbers won’t mean anything outside of someone’s pre-existing schema.

Challenge your audience

Tossing around terms like "scientifically proven" and "double-blind study" might lend credibility.

But so will saying, "See for yourself."

In other words, let your audience be your guinea pigs by challenging them to prove you wrong.

The brothers Heath offer a great example from President Reagan’s 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter.

He didn’t quote statistics about unemployment and interest rates—all of which were on his side.

He simply asked, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

And that was all it took.

He didn’t work to prove anything to the audience. He made them prove it to themselves.

And you can do the same—if you trust your audience enough to let them try to disagree.

When you’re writing for the web, credibility makes all the difference.

So, what’s your credibility challenge? Post it below, and we’ll try to provide more advice in future posts.

Of course you do. Who could forget the affable but dangerously hefty student who ate his way out of an excess 240 pounds by dining at Subway?

And what about those pesky kidney thieves?

We’ve all heard some variation of this urban legend—usually involving a man who accepts a drink from an attractive woman in a hotel lounge and then wakes up in an ice-filled bathtub with a scar on his back.

When we hear these stories, we always arrive at the same question: Who could know that they would catch on?

Why did Jared’s story send Subway’s sales skyward? And why do we keep hearing about the underground organ market?

We usually assume that their persistence is simply an unpredictable quirk of our culture.

At least that’s what I thought. Until I picked up a copy of Made to Stick, a book that explains what makes a message memorable.

It turns out that stickiness is a phenomenon that you can understand.

And if you learn the following six principles, you won’t just determine which ideas will become sticky—you’ll create sticky messages of your own.

Simple

Maybe it’s because we live in an increasingly complex society. Or maybe it’s that "simple" doubles as a dis.

But for some reason, we’re constantly compelled to complicate things.

More reasons! Further justification! Bigger words!

And none of it sticks.

These complex messages lead to what’s called "decision paralysis." Complexity kills action. You have to give people a sure thing, or they won’t absorb anything.

To be truly heard, then, you have to cut your message to its core.

Don’t dumb it down—just focus on its essence.

Especially on the web, where your core meaning has to be front row center to keep visitors from vacating.

Unexpected

Whether we’re driving down a familiar road or snoring through an unproductive meeting, we all tend to turn on our inner autopilot.

And we leave it on—until something jolts us into taking notice.

To switch off the autopilot, you have to call people’s common sense into question.

But the surprise can’t be pointless.

There’s no shortage of ways to shock people. But if your idea is meaninglessly unexpected—if it has no tact—your audience will forget it just as quickly as they took notice.

A great example is President Kennedy’s 1961 speech in which he promised to put a man on the moon within a decade.

Certainly no one expected this kind of bravado. But the surprise meant something. It tapped into America’s aspirations—along with its fears of Russia’s head start in space.

His message was both simple and meaningfully unexpected. And sticky enough to accomplish the impossible.

Concrete

When you need to get the word out, abstraction is your enemy.

Like children learning how to subtract, your audience needs a concrete handle that lets them grip what you’re saying.

But unfortunately, the more we know about something, the more likely we are to think about it in abstract terms. Abstraction, it seems, is a sign of expertise.

This creates the "curse of knowledge." When we know something, we can’t imagine what it’s like not to know it. And that makes us terrible communicators.

Think about JFK’s sticky speech again. His message was profound, but he phrased it in concrete terms.

He didn’t say, "We want to our space program to excel." He used rock-solid words: man, moon and decade.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to unpack his goal. There was zero uncertainty—no abstraction.

And that’s why it stuck.

Credible

Once you’ve jolted people into receiving a simple, concrete message, you need to give them a reason to believe it.

If you have the means, you can easily do this with an expert or celebrity endorsement.

But what if you don’t have Oprah on speed dial?

Well, there are simple ways to lend credence to what you’re conveying—without stalking Stephen Hawking.

Depending on your subject, you could use an anti-authority, like the anti-smoking commercials that featured Pam Laffin, a smoker who later died of emphysema at 31.

She wasn’t a celebrity—or a scientist. But no one questioned her authority on the dangers of smoking.

Even the simple inclusion of relatable details can give a concept instant credibility.

When people pass along urban legends, for instance, they usually include a local detail that makes the story seem real: They found his severed arm in a ditch along Highway 403.

Because when people relate to part of what you’re saying, the rest becomes just as sticky.

Emotional

We often assume that if we want to get our point across, we need to give rational reasons to cling to it.

Not so, claims Made to Stick.

When people think rationally, they argue and debate. They judge your message and look for reasons to disagree with it.

But if you appeal to people’s emotions, you avoid internal arguments and connect on a level that wants to believe.

Take the slogan "Don’t mess with Texas." It started in the 80s as an anti-litter campaign. And nothing before it had worked.

Its audience comprised pickup-driving, country-music-loving rebels. Any plea for reason or respect was destined for deaf ears.

But "Don’t Mess with Texas" dug deeper than that. It appealed to Texan pride.

It hit people in their hearts instead of their heads. And that’s where it stuck, becoming the most successful campaign of its kind in history.

I’ve never even seen Texas. But I sure know better than to mess with it.

Stories

When you have an idea to convey, being direct is your best bet. Right?

Actually, it turns out that telling a story—one with your message embedded—is far more effective.

Think of any recent presentations you’ve seen.

Most presenters follow a simple, direct framework: They tell you what they’re going to tell you. Then they tell you. Then they tell you what they just told you. It’s straight out of a textbook.

The message may be direct. But it’s also lifeless. Those concise, carefully constructed bullet points just don’t draw you in.

Now think of the presenters who simply told a likable story that included their idea.

Was it the most professional approach? Probably not. Did it waste your time? You might have thought so.

But studies show you’re far more likely to remember a story—and the message it conveys—than a precise but unengaging outline.

When people hear a story, they actively construct mental models in their minds. They experience and empathize with the events. And they live the message.

So the next time you want a room full of executives to remember your idea, hide it in a story—one that’s simple and unexpected, with no abstractions.

And include details they can relate to emotionally rather than rationally.

Because as with Velcro, the more hooks that take hold, the stronger your message will stick.

To some, the connection between a strong brand and the repetition of sounds might seem farfetched. But researchers have studied the impact of alliteration and found that it may indeed aid memorability. In fact, studies have shown that alliteration is such a powerful mnemonic that providing students with alliterative sentences can help them more easily learn a new language.

Then there are the real-world examples, which include such well-known brand names as Gold’s Gym, Dunkin’ Donuts, Weight Watchers, Volvo, Palm Pilot and Krispy Kreme.

Clearly, something is going on here.   

Stick it in your ear

Of course, alliteration’s just one approach to branding. (And product naming’s not the focus of this post. For a good recent book on that subject, check out Wordcraft: The Art of Turning Little Words Into Big Business.)

The point is to demonstrate the power of alliteration in creating copy that infects readers’ minds, slips past their conscious filters and recurs later like a catchy tune they can’t forget.

To demonstrate, consider these fictitious marketing slogans that express the same core concept:

1. Your path to personal power
2. Your road to personal strength

Or how about these:

1. Find your freedom 
2. Discover your  freedom

Which one sticks in your ear? While word length and rhythm play a role in memorability, alliteration can often make a meaningful difference.

So next time you’re preparing to name a product or tackle a new tagline, spend some time carefully considering your consonants.