|9 min read
As a marketer, it can be tough keeping up with the latest information. It’s hard enough tackling what’s already on your plate. But… if you don’t keep up, you risk falling behind the competition.
Staying up to date with industry blogs and news sites is essential, but if you want to take your marketing expertise to the next level, nothing beats reading the best marketing books.
That’s why we’ve analyzed the top marketing books to help you brew new marketing ideas to give you an edge up on the competition.
Whether you’re working on building your brand positioning, creating a new inbound path through content marketing, or trying to maximize your conversions, you’ll discover business insights to help you ramp up your marketing skills so you can run more successful campaigns.
Our list of marketing books includes some of the best on marketing strategy, positioning, and viral marketing to take your selling savvy to a whole new level.
Ready to grab a hardcover or load up your Kindle?
Let’s dive in.
1. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
This is the only book on our list that was written by two authors: Jack Trout and Al Ries. And boy does it ever pack a punch with this one.
Jack Trout is the Chairman of Trout & Partners. Al Ries is the Chairman of Ries & Ries and Focusing Consultants. These two have authored several best-selling books and are some of the world’s most popular marketing strategists.
This book should be on every marketer’s shelf. Known as one of the most excellent all-time marketing books, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing acts almost like a marketer’s Bible.
In The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, these two marketing wizards hammer through a list of fundamental marketing rules that every marketer must follow to succeed in the game of business.
This book is an easy read and offers incredibly valuable insights into why certain brands will always dominate entire industries and how you must position yourself if you want to succeed. If you want to make sure you lay a firm strategic foundation as a marketer, this is probably the essential marketing book you could read.
2. This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See
Seth Godin. You either love him or hate him.
Even if you don’t like the guy, the fact is… he’s written 19 best-selling books, including Purple Cow, Linchpin, and Permission Marketing. You can’t ignore his ability to sell lots of books. That’s hard to do without some marketing prowess.
Seth Godin is the internet marketer. He founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne, which was acquired by Yahoo!. He also runs arguably the most popular marketing blog on the planet. You can find it by typing “Seth” into Google. It’s the first result.
Godin’s latest work, “This Is Marketing” was published in 2019, and was an instant hit. It explains how marketing is nothing more than offering a simple solution to your customer’s problems. Sounds pretty basic, right?
That’s because it is. Or, at least, Godin makes it incredibly easy to grasp and then put into action. He teaches that rather than using spammy email funnels and attention-stealing ads, the best marketers rely on tactics of connection, empathy, and emotional labor.
Regardless of what your offer is, This Is Marketing will help you reframe how you present your marketing ideas to the world.
3. Contagious: Why Things Catch On
Contagious: Why Things Catch On was named “Best Marketing Book” of 2014 by the American Marketing Association. It’s also a New York Times bestseller.
So who’s Jonah Berger?
He’s a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He’s been an advisor to several early-stage startups and consulted for top-tier companies like Google, Apple, and Vanguard.
In his book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Berger shares the secrets to why some things go viral while others fail. He explains why specific brands and products took off.
In this book, you’ll learn how to build virality right into your product and brand. You’ll also learn how to craft messages, content, and ads that people will bend over backward to share.
4. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Charles Duhigg is a writer for the New York Times and has written several famous business books. The Power of Habit is his most famous book, and for a good reason.
This book is so much more than a marketing book. It’s a personal and professional life-hacking guide. In it, Duhigg explains how habits form, how to spot habitual behaviors, and how to create new patterns you want and eliminate habits you don’t like by hacking the habit loop.
In the book, Duhigg covers multiple business examples of utilizing the insights of the habit-loop, like when Target used big data to determine which of its customers were pregnant, and how Procter & Gamble turned Febreeze into a billion-dollar product line.
While this isn’t technically a book specifically on marketing, it’s an incredible resource for building effective habits in both business and life. As a marketer, you can use the science of hacking the habit loop to ignite new marketing ideas and grow your brand.
5. Inbound Content: A Step-By-Step Guide To Doing Content Marketing the Inbound Way
Justin Champion is the author behind Inbound Content. He’s the Principal Content Professor for HubSpot Academy and is the creator of the HubSpot Academy’s Content Marketing Course. The course has awarded over 40,000 certifications to students around the world since 2016.
Within Inbound Content, Champion takes you through a step-by-step formula to attract the right customers, transform them into leads, and convert them into paying customers.
He teaches that if you want to connect with your audience, you have to create rich content that draws them in. Rather than trying to reach as many people as possible, it’s about being hyper-specific about whom you want to attract.
Champions explain that rather than merely chasing a sale, the right inbound marketing approach allows customers to come right to you.
Cultivate New Marketing Ideas
While you may not think you have enough time to read, the truth is, you can’t afford to ignore the best marketing books.
If you want to make sure you don’t fall behind the competition, you’ll need to stay up to date with the latest marketing insights.
Here at Rizen, we’re committed to ongoing professional development to ensure we remain at the top of the inbound marketing field. We’re focused on each team member’s continual growth, so we can best serve our clients with the latest market insights.
Just as we’re committed to growing ourselves professionally, we can deliver that same focus into growing your business through an effective inbound marketing strategy.
Take our Business Checkup test to see if your business qualifies today.
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