The two things that have helped me become a better marketer consistently throughout my career have been reading and doing. I love to read about new concepts, think about how they could apply to my work, and then… do it!
Best Books for Marketers
My reading generally falls into two categories. Industry blogs, and nonfiction books. I follow all of the same marketing blogs that you do, plus a few more, most likely. And I love to read nonfiction—sometimes directly about marketing, digital marketing, sales, etc.—and sometimes not.
Here are some of my favorite books, marketing-related, and otherwise, that have helped shape my marketing practice in one way or another.
Inbound Marketing: Attract, Engage and Delight Customers Online
by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah
Written by the founders of Hubspot, one of the platforms I trust and respect, “Inbound Marketing” outlines the hallmarks of Hubspot’s philosophy. This philosophy has simultaneously catapulted their business to unprecedented growth, and helped countless other businesses and marketers thrive in the process.
Shah and Halligan have the unique perspective of being dedicated inbound marketing professionals, and also industry leading tech entrepreneurs. They know how to use these skills to grow a massively successful business.
This book will show you how to build a content framework that brings leads to you on autopilot—and is especially worthwhile if you use or are planning to use Hubspot’s software solutions, as well.
Shop for Inbound Marketing: Attract, Engage and Delight Customers Online
They Ask You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer
By Marcus Sheridan
Marcus Sheridan is one of the leading voices when it comes to Inbound marketing utilization. Marcus has been able to transform a struggling pool installation company into a multinational conglomerate of retailers, installers, and fabricators, all through the use of inbound content marketing.
Throughout this process, Marcus has also created a valuable consulting and writing business—the crux of which is this awesome look into “Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer.” If you want to understand how to apply inbound practices to your business (and you aren’t running a marketing agency…) this is a must read.
Shop for They Ask You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer
Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History
By David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan
So, this one jumped out at me immediately… For anyone with even a passing interest in the Grateful Dead, or even the music industry in general, and marketing, this is a must.
Unbeknownst to many, the Grateful Dead pioneered inbound marketing through things like list-building, generating “freemium” content, and utilizing direct-to-consumer selling. They used many tactics that might look familiar today to build an engaged, highly-evangelized fanbase, which they could monetize in a variety of ways, without losing out on the culture they had created with their fans along the way.
Shop for Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History
UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.
By Scott Stratton and Allison Kramer
This is a great read because of how it intentionally makes you think about marketing in a different way. You’ll unlearn as much as you learn while reading this book.
Stratton defines and explains his “pull and stay” method of bringing your audience in close, and continuing to engage with them over time—developing relationships and making your business the obvious choice when the time to purchase does arrive.
Shop for Unmarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
By Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Made to Stick is an instant classic in the field. This book isn’t so much about marketing, as it is about communicating ideas. This book will change the way you look at communicating, and about how to describe and frame an idea from the start. What makes your idea, or how you convey your idea, stick in people’s minds.
This is one of those books that weaves together seemingly unconnected stories to paint a vivid portrait of what it means to be an effective communicator of ideas. It’s almost like the “Freakonomics” of communication and marketing (another great read, if you haven’t already).
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This is Marketing: You Can’t be Seen until You Learn to See
By Seth Godin
Seth Godin is a force in modern marketing. He’s helped countless business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs through his businesses, consulting, and killer content—like his blog and books. As you might guess, This is Marketing is a compendium of Godin’s most impactful insights, and serves to summarize his overarching philosophies and strategies.
This book will teach you how to market an idea or product, start to finish. If you have very little experience, you will grow in leaps and bounds through reading this book. If you do have experience in the field, this book will help you to consolidate your ideas, prioritize your efforts, and make meaningful gains. This is Marketing, is marketing.
Shop for This is Marketing: You Can’t be Seen Until You Learn to See
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant
By W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
Another research-based book that will really change the way you think about marketing, business, and innovation. The Blue Ocean Strategy involves utilizing market research and data to innovate in such a way that your business grows into sectors with no, or very little, competition. Often, this has to do with how you define or frame your product/service—how you market.
This book focuses on a number of real world situations and decisions, describing how these corporations, modern and historic, utilized Blue Ocean Strategy to pivot into wide open markets, create demand, and render competition irrelevant. A very thought-provoking read.
Shop for Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant
The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand Out From The Crowd
By Allan Dib
This is a great one for effective, easy-to-implement planning strategies. If you’re having trouble developing a comprehensive plan for your marketing strategy, this book will whip you into shape and make it seem relatively easy, as well.
Allan Dib has pulled together a great framework, which he has fine-tuned through his own successful businesses, and this book is packed with tips for how to make it work for you, whether you are a small-medium business owner, or a marketing professional/agency owner. This is another one that can really help you go from zero to hero, or take a seasoned marketer and really force them to think about their planning a concise and systematic way. Worth reading, no matter your experience level, especially if you work with small-medium sized businesses.
Shop for The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, and Stand Out from the Crowd
Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success
Bt Morgan Brown
Hacking Growth is another great look into how certain companies manage to seize opportunity before it seemingly exists, and harness it for massive growth. It lifts the curtain to see how these companies implement growth hacking strategies to explode in influence and market share.
Beyond exploring the fascinating possibilities of growth hacking, Hacking Growth also provides a framework and toolkit for readers to create their own customized growth hacking plan. This is a great, practical read for business owners and marketers who want to develop consistent strategies for growth.
Shop for Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success
Drop a comment or a message to let me know if there are any other great marketing books I should check out!
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