The key to a successful business is effective marketing, which evolves nearly every single day. If you’re not aware of the developing marketing tools, you won’t be able to reach your goals.
That’s why there are some books to help with this matter.
These 12 books will tell you everything you need to know to implement successful marketing strategies.
Additionally, they’re all upgraded to fit this year’s vision.
1. This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See – Seth Godin
Seth Godin is one of the leading marketers in our generation. This is Marketing is his latest book, and it isn’t short of his many brilliant ideas. Plus, it’s a good place to start if this is your first time reading about marketing.
The book’s central goal is indulging the reader in genuine ways to succeed in marketing. In one of the pages, he mentioned that full dependence on paid Ads is one way of being lazy. Therefore, he wanted to open our eyes to clever ways to implement marketing strategies.
He did it by adopting a somehow philosophical style, rather than technical talking. Godin talked about how the digital age affects mass media. Moreover, he delved into marketing’s development throughout the years and how it affects our methods.
You can think of the book as the fruit of Godin’s lifetime experience. He wanted to pour the remnants of this knowledge into a book, and he did a great job at it.
2. Building a Storybrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen – Donald Miller
Donald Miller addresses one of the most pressing issues of marketing; communication with customers. Most of the newbie marketers lack enough knowledge to deal with customers, which leads to failing marketing campaigns without an obvious reason.
The book talks about a strategy to build a story brand while focusing on communicating with the customers. The central focus of the book is to prioritize the customer over your business.
Furthermore, It tells you in detail how to get customers to take action, and how to present your idea reasonably. Not only that, but Miller also includes results of the implementation of his principles.
Reading the book will give you insight on how to correctly present your brand to the customers. We believe it’s a must-read book for business owners who have direct contact with their clients.
3. Contagious: Why Things Catch On – Jonah Berger
The social influence on our lives evolved to a point where going viral became more important than making valuable content. Or so people think. Upon reading this book, you’ll find out that both factors don’t stray too far from each other.
In Contagious, Jonah Berger talks about the reasons some things go viral. He summarizes his ideas in six factors that play a major role in the process:
- Emotion
- Public
- Narration
- Internal and external triggers
- Social value
- Practical value
When you see a meme that you like, you share it. You may think it’s a simple action, but it’s actually what Berger bases this book on. He studies the reason people feel obliged to share things.
Afterward, he utilizes these reasons to figure out how to use social influence to make things go viral.
4. Unleash Possible: A Marketing Playbook that Drives Sales – Samantha Stone
If you want to have a smooth read of a fun, clear book, you should seriously consider this one. Samantha Stone did a great job delivering the information in fun ways. You won’t feel a moment of boredom reading it.
The ‘playbook’ lays out all the templates and frameworks of newly found marketing tactics. It teaches you everything you need to know about marketing for a product, without digging into overwhelming theories and technical talk.
Additionally, Stone includes a section about account-based marketing. In this part, she pours her knowledge as a marketing consultant to explain how businesses can approach customers differently.
If you’re looking for marketing strategies for your new product, Samantha Stone’s book will be highly beneficial. It’s one of the few books that give you real value without having to go through a lot of reading.
5. Thinking Fast & Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman takes a different approach to this book from your typical marketing books. Using his experience as a psychologist, he addresses how human behavior affects marketing strategies.
In addition to that, he tells you how to trick the human mind into accepting your content and acting on it. The Nobel prize winner doesn’t stop here; he teaches marketers how empathy can change the results of their campaigns significantly.
The book covers a lot of topics, varying from economics to marketing tactics to psychology. However, its central premise is being able to separate the conscious and unconscious thoughts.
You’ll spend a lot of time reading this 600-pages book, but you’ll gain value out of every page. It’s a book that no marketer should miss.
6. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products – Nir Eyal
Marketing strategies aren’t for all people. Sometimes, your product doesn’t need a flashy campaign and some creative ideas to sell. But it instead needs to engage the customer into buying it.
Nir Eyal adopts a unique approach to his book. He ditches the common ideas of marketing campaigns. Instead, he addresses subtle engagement tactics that guarantee successful results.
Eyal has a vast experience in pulling customers to his side, thanks to his experience as an advertising and video gaming expert. He introduces a four-step strategy to develop a user habit, which he calls the’ Hook Model’.
So, to be brief, this book will teach you how to get customers hooked to your product without the need for advertising tools.
7. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert Cialdini
Influence by Robert Cialdini embraces the same idea of Berger’s Contagious, focusing on grabbing the attention of customers. However, it focuses more on the general idea of persuasion, rather than the specific topic of going viral.
By writing that book, Cialdini puts his 35+ years of experience at the disposal of every marketer who wants to pull customers. The book acquires the old-fashioned persuasion marketing, but it does it in a way that suits the digital era.
Cialdini specified six factors that’ll make you a master at persuasion. He goes into them in full-detail throughout the book’s pages:
- Social Example
- Approval
- Commitment & Consistency
- Scarcity
- Reciprocation
- Authority
The book mainly revolves around understanding the science behind marketing and using it to your advantage. It’s a must-read for all marketers, but it’s particularly useful for influence and public-relation marketers.
8. Everybody Writes: Your Go-to Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content – Ann Handley
Content is Marketing’s best friend. You won’t achieve your desired results unless you present your clients with the content that benefits them. That’s exactly what Ann Handley explains in full-detail in this book.
Everybody Writes illustrates everything you need to know about content creation, and how you can use it to carry out a successful marketing campaign. It’s a highly recommended book for content creators and writers.
A word can get you further than any other communication method. That’s why among the topics that the book acquires is how to develop the writing skills you need to write good content.
It teaches you how to engage your customers while presenting your idea in a way that’s formal enough. Plus, the advice applies to all social media platforms, websites, and blogs. You can basically implement it anywhere you want to post content.
9. Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create New Categories and Dominate Markets – Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney
The long title may overwhelm you, but this is one of the best marketing books ever written. The four authors poured their hearts and minds to give us a comprehensive guide about innovative marketing strategies.
The book adopts category creation, which is one way to present solutions to customers’ problems. However, it doesn’t work the way you think.
Think of Amazon, it offers you a chance to buy your stuff online and solves a problem that you never knew you had. That’s what category creation is all about, and the book tells you everything you need to know about it.
For example, the book teaches you how you can market a product that never existed before. Additionally, it gives advice on how you influence the customers to buy it. If this is your first time hearing about category creation, there isn’t a better place to start than this book.
10. Blue Ocean Shift – W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne
Thanks to this book, ‘Blue Ocean’ is now a widely-recognized marketing term that means finding new markets. The idea of this book is somehow similar to Play Bigger, but it steers in a completely different direction.
Rather than category creation, Blue Ocean Shift focuses on creating new value for your customers. It teaches you how to innovate, plan, and get output ready. Not only that, but it also tells you how to update your marketing strategies according to your results.
The book gives advice about dealing with the competition without overthinking it. Additionally, it provides ideas on how to set yourself apart and find the right markets for your product.
The authors chose this title because they used the example of the blue ocean to illustrate some of their ideas, including how to discover a new market, and how to achieve the growth that you want.
11. Marketing: A Love Story, How to Matter to Your Customers – Bernadette Jiwa
Bernadette Jiwa took it to herself to add new meaning to marketing. Instead of the typical approaches we got used to, she decided to study marketing in a romantic way. The book’s topic can be highly beneficial for B2B marketers and entrepreneurs.
In her book, she addresses the emotional aspect of marketing. Or in other words, how to form a bond with your customers to gain their loyalty. The book gives great insight into new methods to approach your clients.
Jiwa has a belief that every marketing act requires feelings. For example, she’s convinced that you won’t succeed in telling your story or selling your product without adding some emotion into it.
She built her book on the basis that successful marketing demands getting personal interest from customers, and it turned out to be one of the best marketing books in the digital era.
12. Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability – Steve Krug
The last book on our list is all about thinking from the user’s point of view. The book specifically focuses on websites and how to promote them. The title is actually a direct nod to its theme; making it easier for the visitors.
Moreover, since its release, it’s been the most important reference for marketers who want to improve users’ experience.
Krug focuses on the first impression on users. In his point of view, it’s the most vital aspect of website marketing, because it’ll attract the user to revisit. Furthermore, he goes into several different methods that can help you achieve that.
On top of that, the book isn’t too long, you’ll finish it in a short time, but you’ll get great value out of it.
To Sum Up
Here’s a quick survey of the 12 books we mentioned and what they’re best for:
- Best for marketing knowledge: This is Marketing
- Best for communication with customers: Building a Storybrand
- Best for going viral: Contagious
- Best for marketing strategies: Unleash Possible
- Best for psychological marketing: Thinking Fast & Slow
- Best for engaging your audience: Hooked
- Best for persuasion strategies: Influence
- Best for content creation: Everybody Writes
- Best for category creation: Play Bigger
- Best for finding new markets: Blue Ocean Shift
- Best for bonding with customers: Marketing, A Love Story
- Best for website marketing: Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited
Final Thoughts
Each book serves a different purpose, but what’s common between all of them is the great value that you’ll get. They’ll be highly beneficial for any marketer who’s looking to widen his insight.
We live in a world where selling takes center stage over almost all other business activities. Marketing is what gets a product the attention that it needs, and the success that it deserves. Pick a book, or three, from this roundup of the best marketing books. They’re all worth reading!